Dinosaur DAVE 2: The Smoldering Ruins

This is the thrilling conclusion to Monday’s post, titled “Dinosaur DAVE.”

Here is a mediocre summary of that post (if you want quality, you should go back and read the damn thing.  It isn’t that long, you bum.):  I had a crush on a girl named Mallory who was going through a prolonged break up with her high school boyfriend back home.  After they finalized everything, I gave her time to recover from that relationship before pursuing her myself.  During this time, an inconsiderate scumbag named Dave moved in on her and treated her like dirt for a while.  She complained to me about it.  I listened.  Friend zone.  Forever.  I joked that Dave was mentally handicapped to make myself (and Mallory too I guess) feel better about the situation, hence “DAVE” in all caps as if it is being yelled by someone who isn’t too smart.  Eventually I told her that I couldn’t stand by and listen to her complain about this human piece of garbage any longer because I had feelings for her.  She turned me down.

And here we are today.

I wanted to be the bigger person and not hold her lack of feelings for me against her, but she bought into that ruse too heavily and started saying things that felt like her throwing the rejection in my face.

Example:  When discussing a theory from a nearby, practically all-male engineering school stating that UCF girls were easy, Mallory thought it would be a swell idea to consult me on the matter.  Me. The guy that she just turned down.  Like less than a week ago.  UCF girls certainly weren’t easy for me!

I knew that she didn’t mean it that way and that she was just following my lead, pretending as if it had never happened.  Still, it wasn’t an isolated incident.  The most frustrating part of it all was that I knew it wouldn’t be right to yell at her over something stupid just because I wasn’t in a great place at the time.  So I pushed it all down, smiled, and acted like everything was okay.

My solution was to just get some time away from her for a while.  The problem was that Mallory and I were at the center of a group of friends who were growing more and more close-knit every drunken weekend.  Getting time away from her meant excluding myself from a group that people kept giving me credit for forming.

I mentioned this whole “getting space from Mallory” plan to my extremely close friend at the time, Elle.  Prescient of our friendship’s impending collapse over the next year, Elle ignored my feelings and showed up at my dorm room with Mallory in tow, literally within 24 hours of the conversation.

Eventually, I did get a little bit of space from Mallory when she went out of town with Elle and some other friends.  The time and space helped me to articulate where my head was without losing my temper or getting upset.  When she got back, we had a good chat and I told her how I felt and asked for some time to process the fact that we were never going to be together.  She respected that and kept her distance until I started getting closer to her again, then she followed my lead and we went on to be good friends for a couple years before slowly drifting in separate directions.

Mallory went on to date several guys that weren’t very nice to her.  I guess that was her type at the time.  I’m so glad I didn’t fit that mold.

I went on to fall deeply in love with one of her close friends from back home (we’ve been together for five years now).