Talking to the Girlfriend

[FYI there's another new entry below this one. Wouldn't want you to miss a second of my thrilling and exciting life. Also, just for clarification purposes, Jenny-Mike's-girlfriend and Jenny-of-the-weekend-adventures are not the same person. I'm sure you could have figured that out on your own, but ya know, just in case...]

Okay, I know I promised to tell the story of how I befriended Mike's girlfriend. But as with most things, by the time I finally get time to tell the story I no longer feel like telling it, or I don't care much about it. Such is the case here.

The other thing is, I thought that by befriending Jenny (yes, she has a name, her name is Jenny) I would be able to talk to Mike. That's the whole point in befriending his girlfriend, after all. I want to be able to talk to Mike without him having to feel guilty and without her having to worry that I'm a threat to their relationship. Of course I also wanted to befriend her just for the sake of karma. I'd rather not have people out there in the world hating me if I can help it, you know? But mainly the main point of befriending Jenny was to maintain my friendship with Mike. The thing is, even though Jenny and I are on good terms now, Mike and I are still apparently on hiatus from talking. I have a feeling if I just asked her if he and I could go back to talking normally she'd say "Sure", but Mike doesn't want me to ask her. So now he's imposing these restrictions, and it's pissing me off. Once again I'm wondering why I'm going through all this trouble to maintain a friendship if he's not really going to reciprocate. I guess it's mainly because I feel like he may not necessarily need this friendship right now, and I may not necessarily need it right now either, but we're both going to regret it if we let it slip away entirely.

Mike gave Jenny my phone number. She didn't trust that he hadn't seen me while I was in town, so he gave her my number so she could text me personally and hear from me that he was telling the truth, that we really hadn't seen each other at all while I was in El Paso. At first she sent me a bunch of really bitchy, angry text messages. And okay, fine, I helped her boyfriend cheat on her so yes, I suppose I deserve that. But I also wasn't about to give her a reason to tell Mike that I'm a bitch. So I stayed nice and polite the whole time she was bashing me and I just kept saying, "Yes, I was fooling around with your boyfriend. There are reasons that happened and those reasons are gone now. If you'd like to talk about it I'll explain the whole thing to you. If not, that's fine, too. But just know I'll tell you the truth if you want to hear it. You have nothing to worry about anymore." Finally she got tired of insulting me (or realized I wasn't going to take the bait) and she began talking to me rationally. Three hours of text messaging later I'd told her the entire story: the situation Mike and I had been in when they started dating, everything that happened in Padre, why I was letting him have phone sex with me even when I knew he had a girlfriend, the fact that it took him forever to finally admit to me that he was committed to her and over me, etc., etc. etc. I was perfectly honest, and it paid off. I came to find out that Mike had told her a lot of lies, she found out that I'm not even remotely the sort of person she thought I was going to be, and ultimately I feel like she and I would actually have hit it off had we met under different circumstances. And it felt SO GOOD to finally come clean about all of it. A big weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and I think I helped her, too.

The bigger benefit, though, is that I got a lot of insight into her personality. And while I can see her as a full person now and like her as a result, I also think that she has a lot of issues. Anger issues, trust issues, emotional/mental issues. There's a lot going on with this girl and a lot going on with Mike right now that it would be unfair of me to discuss here.

But what I'm trying to say, basically, is that I no longer feel the need to be jealous of their relationship. Before it was so hard because I kept trying to figure out what was better about this relationship than the relationship that Mike and I had. And now I realize that the answer to that question is nothing. This is not a relationship that is going to last. I can say that with certainty. Or rather, I guess I should say that it shouldn't last. It's so cracked. God, it's more than half broken already. And maybe neither of them can see that.

But I can see it so much more clearly now. And that's the important thing for me. I just hope Mike stays smart, though. As much as I like Jenny now, and I honestly do, I just hope that eventually the love fog clears for him and he realizes exactly what he has gotten himself into and realizes that he deserves more than what he will get out of this relationship. And I hope that she realizes that she's never going to get what she needs from being with a guy like Mike, either. They're both good people. I love him flaws and all, and I now believe that she's a good person flaws and all, too. I just think that their relationship is incredibly screwed up. I mean, in real life I'll try to be a good friend to Mike and support him as long as he chooses to be in this relationship (until it gets really dangerous, which hopefully isn't too much of a possibility). But do I see this as a good, healthy relationship? Hell no.

Then again, who knows. Maybe I'm the one that's deluded and he is getting exactly what he deserves. The universe is strange.