How to get men or women to stop calling: Crow like a rooster!

Give me a barn roof and a cell phone stalker.

A recent event made me recall my single days again, one of my favorite Rural Confession topics. And since I have a soft spot for singles (if you’re a Ruralee, chances are you’ve been dumped, cheated on or lied to about a date’s gender, number of children and/or Pitbulls, or something in between) I decided I’d share what I learned on one of the biggest problems of dating for women, and sometimes even men too – the ones who just won’t stop calling.

It always goes this way…the ones you want don’t want you, and vice versa. Your only hope is pretending to dislike the ones you like, and maybe with a bit of luck it will work out.

Anyway, that still doesn’t take care of the ones who keep hunting you down in the meantime. Sometimes I miss the days of a rotary phone. With cell phones, stalkers can hunt prey more effectively. Us victims are stuck digging in a purse or pocket to find the phone only to be sent into a rage. The phone rings, it buzzes, it vibrates and tracks every single missed call ever known to man. I digress…

My cousin Jill told me in some states anyone who calls over three times in one day can be arrested for staulking, but I don’t believe in bringing the government into my life, so I had to try other measures.

See what happened to me was I let a certain friend (we’ll call her Daisy) try to set me up with her friend (this situation can definitely go bad if you decide you aren’t interested in the precious one). In my desperation, I told Daisy that her friend (let’s call him Duke) could call me and I’d see how it went.

Well, the phone call was a holy living disaster. Duke’s first mistake was he talked too darn much. When you’re a reporter and listen to people on the phone all day, the last thing you want to do on your free time is be stuck on the line with someone who doesn’t stop for even a gasp of air. Plus, as you can probably tell, I prefer to be the conversation hog. And call me nuts, but suitors who brag about themselves are kind of a turnoff. Again, look over here! I’d just been single and self-absorbed for too long to be the one nursing a burning red ear on the phone.

There were definitely some other flaming red flags I won’t go into here because of confidentiality reasons, but needless to say I could tell it was definitely not a match, and I kind of thought he might think so too.

Boy was I wrong. Something about my silence as I made shoot-myself-in-the-head gestures at the phone must have enticed Duke. He just kept calling, and calling and calling some more. I caved in and answered one day and then had to lay my red swollen ear on an ice bag to recover from the listening session. I’d be having a coffee with a girlfriend, and he’d call. I’d be doing a story on a bat, he’d call. I’d be in the bar bathroom – phone goes off. I got as daring as to answer the phone and just hang up, but he’d call back asking “how’d we get disconnected.”

I tried saying I was busy, or just being rude, but nothing seemed to deter him. I could tell he was definitely the dominating and chasing sort and this only fueled his fire. Being mean would mean I was a spitfire and ignoring would mean I was a shy maiden. There was no way out of this one, other than completely setting him off balance.
Then I was reminded of my father, who sometimes does nonsensical absolutely lock-me-up behavior in public…like flailing, saying he’s an infant, making animal noises or some other oddity. Sometimes the only way out of a tense situation is to just feign insanity, which I think he’s done a lot over the years (more blogs later.)

So one day I was having coffee at Starbucks in Delavan, Wis. It was a beautiful summer day and I was catching up with my friend Laura. Duke called once, and me and Laura got a good laugh over it. But then, 10 minutes later he called again. My face was turning beat red as I reached the breaking point. I couldn’t exactly cuss him out because of my relationship to Daisy, but felt trapped, and with all boundaries trampled beyond repair. (Please fellow blog readers, send me a note and let me know I’m not the only one whose had a phone hound. You don’t have to give your real name!)

I stood up out of my chair, and told Laura I had business to take care of. I went outside madder than a wet hen (no pun intended), I flipped open the phone did it. I opened the back of my throat and crowed out louder than a rooster whose seen the sun after a lifetime of darkness. I was one strong bird standing, her claws grounded and her beak outstretched. No more, phone stalker! Never shall you get these tail feathers cell phone addict! Be gone!

And well, he never called again. I have bumped into him a few times but he usually puts his head down and walks really fast…the other direction.

Thank-you rooster.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 7:57 am and is filed under Rural Confessions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.