I Charged a Fuccboi an “Inconvenience Fee” for Wasting My Time
Sometimes I’m just petty af.
I can’t help it, but least I own up to it. I think it’s because since I try to show up for my life as much as possible, I expect others to as well. Sometimes that’s unfair, but either way I get frustrated.
The big lesson here is: Time Is Money, so Don't Try Me
Grab some popcorn. It's story time.
So the guy...let’s call him...John.
John and I met on OkCupid about a year ago. He is incredibly handsome it almost doesn’t make sense to me. I take a chance despite my self doubts and message him.
He said he was Christian in his profile and at that time that was a hard requirement for me (disclaimer: it is no longer). Paired with his nice scruff and cute face, consider my basement flooded.
As you get to know me, you’ll find out that when I like you, you get the full arsenal of my warmth and attention. I will ask thought provoking questions, and help you realize things about yourself you might have not considered until now. I will always text back and usually with a gif perfectly tailored to encapsulate the context of the conversation.
Not long after our starting convos, I invited him to one of my performances. It was a “get-on-the-list” type of function but I got him and his friend in despite it being at full capacity. I even gave him my extra drink “pebbles”. (They were drink “pebbles” at this party, not drink tickets lol idk gurl)
The two seemed to enjoy the event and my performance was sickening.
I was running on full cylinders to make him like me while trying not to be too obvious about it. (Classic me move, smh #thirsty).
Later in our talking we agreed to meet up for dinner. I was low key stood up. I’m not really sure what happened there but that’s my interpretation of it. Especially when you text me almost two hours after our agreed time that “tonight wasn’t gonna work”.
I’m usually quite generous with my assumptions, so I made excuses for him.
He came to more of my performances...this time at a music festival. Which I also turned out.
I noticed a disturbing pattern that he seemed to be really into me after performances. I mean, I don’t blame him, anyone on stage gets at least 50% hotter. Eh, attention from a boy is attention from a boy. I carried on.
The next few months were peak fuccboi.
This is how a typical situation played out:
Him: “Hey how’s it going?”
Me: “Hey John! I remember you *references something thoughtful about previous conversation* how that going?”
*read at 8:35pm*
He would leave me ON READ y’all. We might continue with sparse messaging but eventually it would just drop to complete silence. Only to return a few weeks later with another “Hey, how’s it going?”
If you don’t already know about this phenomenon, it’s called breadcrumbing.
“the act of sending out flirtatious, but non-committal text messages (ie "breadcrumbs") in order to lure a sexual partner without expending much effort.”
This went on for MONTHS. It felt like each instance happened close enough together for me to be annoyed, but far enough in between for me to continue to tolerate.
One Sunday morning while I was at brunch with my girls, I got the infamous “hey how’s it going?” text.
I was like NO MA’AM.
NOT ON THE LORD’S DAY.
So I took one from the playbook of the elusive chanteuse Mariah Carey herself when she split with her fiancé.
I pulled up the Square Cash app on my phone and you know what I did? I sent him a bill for $24.
You think I’m making this up? I really did. I encourage you to do the same.
Why $24 dollars? The cognitive load it took for me to be left “on read” took a toll on me. I calculated how much cash he would have to hand over to me for me for me to care. I thought I was being quite generous. It wasn’t even about the money (cause a bitch gets paid), but it was an amount that hopefully got his attention to understand that I was not the one to try.
No response that day.
Monday arrives.
Ding! Here comes Johnny Debt during my lunch break:
"Why am I paying you tho?"
Screenshots obviously happened immediately because duh I’m sending this to my squad (tf u mean). It was truly unbelievable and I needed reassurance I was outraged for a good reason.
“Why am I paying you tho?” John asked.
This is how I responded:
“It’s an inconvenience fee for wasting my time. We actually gonna talk or are you gonna leave me on read over and over? I honestly do want to talk to you but I will not be continually left hanging.”
Babyyy let me tell you. I was proud as a peach emoji. It seemed to embolden my friends too. Yasses and clapping emojis all around.
He then proceeded to ask me to go to drinks lol. Guess what, surprise that didn’t work out. He sent another “sorry, it's been a crazy day” text 9 minutes after our appointed time.
The breadcrumbing continued until I gathered his ass completely together a few months later. Join my email list and maybe I’ll tell you about it.
The guy seems to be a nice guy. I am cordial with him when I see him around the city.
I think I may have projected too much on the guy. I was respecting him for where I thought he could be, not where I he presented himself to be. Unmet expectation is bitterness waiting to happen.
He was just not a great communicator, and in any context of a relationship, friendship or not, that will not work for me.
Unfortunately it took me a whole year to honor that about myself.
Find Your True North
How much is your time worth? Are you wasting time on situations or people that stress you out? When will it hurt enough for you to make a change?
What are your boundaries? Figure out your outer limits so you can make decisions that make you feel powerful, not desperate.
Consider the opportunity cost in life. Is it worth the stress? If not, drop it and move on.
Here's an Anti Fuccboi playlist for you to enjoy.