A while back, Red Beard and I made plans to explore a new neighborhood for dinner tonight. This week, he came to me and asked if it would be okay if, instead of our dinner date, we go play poker with Julie, Lanky and Toughie.
I was slightly disappointed, but I told him we could go play poker. Since we’re spending the rest of the weekend with my family, I felt it was reasonable that I let him out of his cage for Friday night. He’s asked me a few times since if I find it obnoxious that he bagged our dinner plans in favor of poker. Each time I’ve answered, “Slightly.”
Today he cc’ed me on an email string that, unbeknownst to me, has been going since Wednesday. His email stated that Toughie would pick us up tonight to go to poker. I scrolled to the bottom of the email to read from the bottom up.
The email began with Julie’s writing to Toughie (who has a new girlfriend) and Red Beard, “Are you guys playing poker or what? Or are your women ruling your life already?”
Red Beard wrote, “Yes, the woman is ruling my life already. That is old news.”
Okay. I’m sorry, but this is just f*cking WRONG. I replied to all, “If by ‘the woman’ you mean ‘Julie’ then you're right.” Julie never responded.
Julie is supposed to be my friend. I have a huge problem with her emailing Red Beard to push her social agenda, excluding me on the email all the while stating that I am a roadblock to the scheme. I get that she was joking. However, she was very transparently being manipulative by acting like Red Beard is less of a man if he honored the plans he already had with me. And I cannot believe he saw the marionette strings, as even he calls them, and let her tug away!
Now granted, the boy loves his poker. And I have the feeling that he would rather play poker with his friends than have dinner with me. Not because I’m not fun company to him, but because he probably feels like he can have dinner with me any old time.
Poker? Now that doesn’t come up every day of the week. To me it feels like it does, but to him it probably feels like an opportunity he should take advantage of, and so we’ll play poker. As I said, we’re spending Saturday and Sunday with my family. So Friday night can be his. So I can’t blame his acceptance of the invitation purely on Julie’s obvious manipulation.
What I have a problem with is that Julie, behind my back, presented me like the domineering little woman who would try to put the kibosh on the good times – and that just plain pisses me off.
I am trying very hard to be calm and rational about this. I get that she was being flippant and joking. And the message itself wasn’t even the problem. It’s the point that she did not include me on the email. I would have gotten the joke. It’s the fact that she said it behind my back. That combined with the fact she was, albeit mildly, divisive in her treatment of our relationship by alienating me and drawing in Red Beard. And it’s working! Because now here I am, being angry and no fun, and overly sensitive and now I am the problem.
But I can’t fight it. It sucks. I’m hurt. I don’t want to go to play poker tonight. And the worst part of it is that I think I’m being completely ridiculous about the whole thing and I am making a huge deal out of nothing. IT WAS A JOKE. A harmless joke. She wasn’t thinking. She wasn’t plotting my takedown. She was only trying to drum up enthusiasm for poker night. I think I need to sit in my car and cry.
Aaannnnd. I just realized what my big fat problem is. Sleep deprivation. That nasty snag I get when I’ve gone weeks, or I guess months now, without getting regular, adequate sleep. I blow things out of proportion and get very upset over nothing. I think I might need to stay home and sleep tonight. Red Beard can play poker. I haven’t decided yet, but I might have to bow out.