Saved

I have a male friend who was considering buying a one-way ticket to the Island of Lost Men. He had been fooling around with this one girl for a couple months, on and off. All the while, he thought it was innocent fun. There was no sex of any kind involved, which helps his case, and they never had the DTR talk (Define The Relationship). So in his eyes, this was all a casual thing between two friends who liked to fool around.

The girl, however, seemed to view things differently. Upon the coming and going of Valentine's Day and not having received anything--no chocolates, no card, not even a phone call--the girl called my hapless friend and left a voicemail message indicating that "we need to talk."

Now he was scared shitless. "What should I do?" he asked me. I immediately told him how sorry I felt for the girl. She probably imagined this entire relationship with him, wedding bells, minivans and all. Then all of a sudden she gets this reality check when he didn't even contact her on the big V Day. Instead of considering this, my friend pled to me, "What about me?"

"What about you?" I asked disdainfully. He didn't answer. "So when are you going to call her back?" I asked.

"Call her back?"

"Yeah, to talk to her."

"Uh, I'm not. I don't owe her anything. Look, what she thinks is her own doing. Whatever."

"So you're just never going to call her ever again?"

"Yeah. That's how I end these things."

"You end 'these things' by never calling these women ever again?? And you get away with that?!"

"Well I'm still alive today, aren't I? I haven't been shot yet."

Yet, I thought to myself. "Look, if you don't care what this girl thinks of you, then fine, it's a free country. I just think it might be respectful if you were upfront with her and told her like it was, rather than leaving her hanging."

He mused over this. "Yeah," he said. There might be hope for this guy after all. "And since we have mutual friends, I don't want to get a sketchy reputation," he added. How classic -- instead of thinking of her, he thought of how his behavior would affect him.

"Great," I said. One man saved from the Island. Although now I wonder if that was such a good idea in the first place.