The Prowl: I Don't Like Your Girlfriend

Several months ago I made the mistake of telling a heartbroken friend that I had never really liked the girlfriend who had just brutally dumped him.

Several months ago I made the mistake of telling a heartbroken friend that I had never really liked the girlfriend who had just brutally dumped him.  Given the circumstances of their break-up it seemed improbable they would get back together and therefore equally improbable this very true claim would ever haunt me.  Plus, even though he seemed to see something in her hidden from the rest of us, he conceded that she was not objectively charming--or even especially pleasant for other people to be around.

I first met the person I will henceforth refer to as Caroline over the summer at a dinner party at her house. My first impression meeting her in her natural habitat was positive.  She was pretty, smart, funny, everything anyone could really want.  Sure, she smoked like a freight train, barely ate anything, and had a weird love of small yappy dogs--numerous specimens of which ran about her place--but my friend seemed happy.  So these quirks appeared to be just that--quirks.

The next week we all decided to go out to dinner in a neighborhood restaurant.  I met Caroline and my friend at her house around 8PM, fairly hungry. I assumed we'd be heading out to dinner in pretty short order.  Instead, she poured some drinks and proceeded to explain that she'd googled my firm and concluded that it was not very good in her opinion.  This in turn led to a long monologue in broken Tagalog (I do not speak Tagalog and neither does my friend) about growing up in the Philippines, followed by more discussion, still in broken Tagalog, about why she did not like my friend's parents.

Through all of this, which at the time, was strange but not overwhelmingly uncomfortable, all I could think about was the lunch that I should have eaten/snack I should have had earlier.  I am not one who deals with hunger in a very mature way.  I once screamed at a boyfriend in Portugal while on vacation for not understanding enough Portuguese to read the menu.  I could feel a similar episode coming on as I sat in her living room with the life gradually slipping out of me.  Thankfully, my friend must have noticed me turning a somewhat sickly color and finally convinced Caroline that after several bottles of wine, maybe it was time we move along.

When we got to the restaurant, Caroline, instead of sitting down at the empty outdoor table my friend and I were approaching, decided to make new friends. There was a group of people already eating and they had a dog tied to the table.  She sat down on the ground and began playing with the dog and basically flirting with its owner.  Given that I was ready to eat my own arm, my friend, rather un-phased by this whole showing, and I ordered some appetizers.  By the time they came, Caroline had returned but she did not want any of them.  When we ordered real food shortly thereafter she also did not want anything and again disappeared into the bathroom for about thirty minutes.

She finally came back just as we were about to get the bill, having essentially missed the entire meal.  She announced that she should NOT pay for this as (for reasons that I did not understand) the waitress had been "condescending" to her.  As my friend and I attempted to convince her this was absurd, she somehow managed to order another bottle of wine right as I choked on the remnants of my dinner.  The wine, more than the choking, prompted the man with the dog to come by and try to chat her up again.  More broken Tagalog followed, again for reasons that continued to confound me.

I do not really remember how the whole night ended, but by the morning she had broken up with my friend and that seemed to be that.  It was at this point that I let him know that Caroline seemed like a lunatic and he was probably better off without her.  While by all reasonable measurements, this was probably true, it has been my experience that regardless of the amount of wine consumed, confessions of this nature are never a good idea.  Even if reconvening is unlikely, as it was in this case, it is still an awkward thing to admit.  For whatever reason, my friend really liked this girl and I somehow doubt listening to me rant about how absolutely insane she was made him feel much better about the whole affair.  Instead, in the future, I hope I can exercise a modicum of self-restraint and simply keep it to myself.  In the meantime, I am desperately hoping the next girl he introduces me to is at least marginally more "likeable" than the last.