Hi Dude Whisperer,
I love your blog so I thought you might be able to help me out with this one.
I recently meet a guy on my morning bus and after a few lookie loo's we finally talked and totally hit it off. We spent quite a bit of time together over a relatively short span of time.
That is until I found out that he was married. One completely awkward conversation later I ended things with him. Except I don't think he got the message. He kept calling and texting me and I kept telling him that we could never be anything. I even started avoiding taking the same bus as him.
Well at a time that I thought was safe to take the bus he rides, I ran into him. It was completely awkward and I didn't know what to say or how to act. And the next day he called me like five or six times. I now completely avoid the bus (even though it is my fastest ride to and from work). It's strange because I kept asking him what he expects of me and he could never answer but still wouldn't leave me alone.
So my question is how long is he going to hold on to something that never really was and when I can ride my bus?
Thanks,
Girl who needs to get to work on time
PS- I would like to add a question: what should I do if I run into him again?
Hi Gwntgtwot,
There was a dude the DW went to college with who was stopped by the police one night because he was out taking a run at three in the morning. Right down the dotted line of a major avenue. Also, he was wearing nothing but tighty whities. You probably won’t be shocked to learn that the dude had a history of emotional problems and a dorm room mini-fridge with enough acid to trip out every fish in Lake Huron.
At that same college, the DW had a professor who was a scholar of ancient Greek literature so sought after that the school basically made him Honorary Professor of Awesomeness and let him teach Whateverthef*ck I Want 101 whenever he damned well pleased. The DW has never been in a room with someone quite so learned since.
What did these two have in common? No matter what the DW did or said, it was impossible for him to be more than 83% on their wavelength. There was always a little space carved out in their interactions for their alternate reality or preoccupation with abstract ideas or short attention span or whatever it was that made them seem 1/16th descended from the Graxlykon race of the planet Zyxxbajak. You know how you can almost finish the sentences of your best friend sometimes? It was the opposite of that.
The DW senses some of this weirdness in your dude, too. His is not normal behavior. Yes, the DW knows that, as readers have also pointed out, with dudes there can be protracted negotiations about a “No,” especially when it has to do with playing a game of Hide My Face In Your Sweater. Not one of our more flattering behaviors, but not exactly bizarre.
But your “No,” didn’t happen sans bra, half drunk, mute button pressed on the movie you’d both pretended to watch for twenty excruciating minutes before liplocking on the couch, thus kidnapping his brain and stashing it in a tent in the remote regions of Bonerland. Nor was your “No,” for a reason the dude could talk himself into thinking was unreasonable. Dude knows he’s married. He knows he shouldn’t dick around on his wife.
What sends this dude into the realm of the legitimately creepy for the DW, though, is his recklessness. Even habitual cheaters have some sense of decorum, not because they care about your feelings, but because they don’t want to get caught. This dude is chasing you for way too long and in way too desperate a manner for someone who truly understands consequences.
This is all to say, again, this is not normal dude behavior. This dude is 1/16th Graxlykon. Maybe this dude is sort of harmlessly socially weird like the DW’s ancient Greek professor. Maybe he’s gonna end up running down the Embarcadero in nothing but his Spongebob boxers, howling at the moon. Maybe he thinks he’s the Keymaster of Gozer. Who knows.
But since we don’t know, the DW doesn’t trust his own usual advice. See, the DW’s dudelike inclination would be to tell you that you, Gwntgtwot, should ride the f*$king public bus any time you f*^king well please. Next time you see the dude you should kick him in the nuts. And then call his wife and kick him in the nuts again. And then just for good measure, give him a solid nutkicking. Or get a restraining order. Or make a scene by shouting, in the middle of the crowded bus, “No means no, asshole! I’m not interested at all in any way and you’re fucking married! Get away from me!” and thus publicly shame him and have a bus full of other dudes get all testosteroned up and ready to kick this dude’s ass if he doesn’t behave.
But please Do Not do anything like these aggressive dumb dude things unless you consult someone more expert in self-defense or sexual predators or something like that. It’s entirely possible, that the DW’s dude logic would totally backfire on a Graxlykon and make him even more creepy and aggressive. We still have much to learn about the customs on planet Zyxxbajak.
Look, the DW really hates to admit he doesn’t know everything and he really hates to appear hysterical for no reason. This dude may well just be a Grade A one in million Westminster Kennel Club certified special breed of a*shole and just kinda really stupid, but there’s enough creepy insistence and oddity and hassling going on here that the DW feels that even the remote chance of you coming to harm merits getting advice from an expert on more than dudes.
Sorry to say, but the DW recommends you stay off the bus for just a bit longer. Talk to someone in the know. Be smart.
May your commute become normal again soon and may your next dude not turn out to be space alien with a wife,
the DW
[PS- For what it’s worth, this cautionary tale does not change the DW’s opinion from Dudefile #4 – The Bus Crush. You should still walk right up to that dude on the bus who has caught your eye and give it a go. You’ll go bananas if you assume every stranger dude is like this married space alien knucklehead.]
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