The Time Your Summer Fling Ended in Disaster

It was 87 degrees and humid here in New York City on Monday, and I was not prepared. That is much too hot for spring. Then I looked at a calendar—June is next week. June.

With June comes the dreaded summer, the three or so months a year where it gets to be so damn sticky in the Northeast, I’m forced to come to terms with the fact that yes, my hair is just always going to look like shit. Time to start only hanging out with friends who have central air conditioning, because things are about to get steamy and moist in the most disgusting way imaginable. Also, everyone is wearing less clothing, and you’re going to be horny. This is why there are summer flings and not, like, fall flings, though the alliteration is cute and someone should get on that.

Who among us hasn’t boned someone for, like, two weeks because it’s outside-drinks-naked-time? And who among us hasn’t been burned by doing so? I’d argue that 90% of my summer flings have ended because the dude had to go back to Denmark or whatever post-punk ass country he was from, which is kind of like saying goodbye before leaving your hometown and going back to college sophomore year. It’s dramatic, and stupid, and often messy. You probably have better stories. And I’d like to hear them. Tell me about the time your summer fling ended in disaster. Leave no juicy detail unremarked upon. I need this.

You know the drill—before you comment below, let’s look at last week’s winners. These are the best, most petty ways you betrayed a friend.

Deep State Class of ‘97, this is low-key genius:

When I was 18, I shared an apartment with one of my best friends from highschool. It was such a disaster. He was a total slob and was totally cheap. He was late with his share of the rent each month. He brought home really odd people from the supermarket he worked at, including his manager who was 45 years old and loved to smoke crack. I lived in fear of losing the security deposit.

We had a one-year lease. Around the 10th month I told him to find a new roommate because I was moving out. During the 11th month, I was leaving to head to work when I was stopped by a Jehovah’s Witness. I said, “I would love to talk. I actually am quite interested in what you have to say. But I am getting ready to head to work. My name is [roommate’s name]. I work Wednesday through Sunday. So I am usually here Tuesdays and Mondays. (Which was his work schedule.) And here is the house phone number. Feel free to call anytime!” Whenever I ran into any sort of religious person, I gave them the same information.

I ran into him about 6 months later, he asked me if ever had a bunch of religious people knocking on the door. I told him, “Yea. All of the time. I asked them to stop coming. But they just kept coming back.”

Vulcanbookworm, Valerie sucks:

This is a story about how a friend pettily betrayed me.

I had this friend down the block while I was growing up, Valerie. We referred to ourselves as sisters and were obsessed with washing windows together (why? still dunno). In about 5th grade, she went to different school and we started drifting apart, but I still invited her to my birthday parties and occasionally visited her house.

Seventh grade rolls around. She comes to my birthday party in August and everything’s fine and fun. Her birthday is a few weeks later. By now, my mom has a reputation for making gorgeous birthday cakes, so Valerie’s mom asks mine if she could make Valerie a birthday cake. Mom agrees, and goes all-out with these cool colorful 3D leaves and a rich chocolate cake (this is pre-Pinterest).

Valerie and her mom come over, pick it up, say thanks… and leave without inviting me to her birthday party.

Bitch was using me for my mom’s cake-baking skills. I’m still incredibly salty about this.

I can’t even be mad at you for this one, Kim Jong’s Angst:

When I was in my mid 20s, my best friend from highschool who had some codependency issues got married to this military guy I didn’t really know that well. She is kind of a loud mouth, and he is very, very quiet, so the few times I hung out with him he said literally nothing to me. When she got engaged, she asked me to be a bridesmaid, along with her cousin, and we talked about me helping her plan and I was really excited for her. Anyways, I had been living with my boyfriend for 2 years and we had been together for longer than her and her fiance, so she and my BF had spent a considerable amount of time together and I thought she liked him. Apparently she was harboring some deep resentment towards him for taking up my time (see massive codependency issue noted above), and when the wedding invites went out, she made a point to call me and tell me that the invitation was for me only, not my boyfriend. She said she was inviting married couples only, that her wedding was really expensive, and she only had room for so many people, and she didn’t have space for +1s. I was kind of hurt, and confused (and my boyfriend was REALLY hurt because he thought they were friends), but was still going to go until I found out that she invited my little brother to the wedding. And my mom. That’s right, she had space for my little brother and my mom, but not my boyfriend who again, she spent considerable time with.

Then, a few weeks later I got an invite to her wedding shower from some woman I’d never heard of before (a friend of the groom) who is apparently now her bridesmaid, and it was for the following weekend. I worked weekends at the time and there was no way I was going to get the day off with such short notice. I actually got a phone call from the woman planning the shower to tell me how hurt the bride was I wasn’t coming, and I had to remind her that 1 week notice was not nearly enough time to get the day off, and as the bride knew I worked weekends, if she really wanted me there she could have given more notice. Furthermore, I kind of thought my friend should have called me herself, instead of asking this other person to relay messages through her.

At this point I realized I didn’t really want to be friends with her anymore. I RSVP’d “Yes” to the wedding so she would include me in the head count, then didn’t show up. We never called each other again. I saw her a few years ago at a movie theater with her husband. I didn’t say hi.

IAMRU2, I respect you so much:

Honestly, the only times I’m petty is at work, when a colleague does something petty and I can’t resist one upping them. Like last week – I was away for a couple of days, and came back to an email (sent 5:30pm, of course) two days earlier reqiesting something due that morning to go to a committee meeting. I called, asked for an extension until the end of the day, explaining I’d been ill. Woman requesting the work said fine (noting we have history and she hates me). At 3pm, she sends me an email saying she had just HAD to send it off to the committee, and “maybe you should be more prepared next time”.

So instead of dealing with that bullshit, I got the work done by 4, called the committee directly and sent it straight through to them. Hope the bitch enjoys seeing my report in her committee papers.

Drop those romantic flops below. I can almost guarantee your past fling won’t see it!