Alicia Freeman is an English senior and Mustang Daily relationship advice columnist.
As an eccentric personality, I accept I may be the only person who enjoys my jokes. I also accept, in general, I am a bit awkwardly weird. In life, the slogan from others is to just be yourself and good things will happen. In this column, I am being myself: timid, awkward, embarrassing, long winded, lonely and a general future spinster cat-lady.
However, with all of that said and done, I do not call people names. I enjoy the occasional (a.k.a. constant) talking smack, but I do not need to tear someone else down to feel better about myself. In fact, I have always felt name calling immature.
Now, I’m not saying I’m the most mature person out there. I have no idea how to talk to boys, I shrink away from conflict, and sometimes, I deliberately say hurtful things. An example of this came not too long ago with my ex-boyfriend. I left him last November, before Thanksgiving, after two-and-a-half years together. I am that girl who takes a man’s heart and stomps on it, as well as being an uninteresting weirdo.
We moved down to sunny San Luis Obispo from the west shore of Lake Tahoe in fall 2009. After we broke up, we awkwardly and tumultuously lived together for close to a month. Once I finally moved out, every time we saw each other a fight would ensue about my communication issues and his feelings of being used. He, however, did not want to remain friends if I would not sleep with him.
A few weeks ago, I went to pick up an evading-toll ticket from our formerly shared apartment. A migrating and trademark fight ensued, leading me into my car for a quick getaway and him yelling at me in the street. He proceeded to call me a bitch and proclaim he “couldn’t believe” he’d been in a relationship with me for two years. In response, I sped off with the hope that I ran over his foot.
He called me three times to apologize; I did not answer. I erased his number, his messages and his whole family on Facebook, as well as returned all of his clothing that I somehow still had with a nasty note. I called him a spoiled brat, said he never knew me at all and swore I would never talk to or love him again. I also insinuated he ruined a brief love affair just to rub it in his face that there had been one.
This is my only advice for the week: tearing others down, even if it’s because a former love called you a bitch in the middle of the street, just shows immaturity and does not soothe your anger, constant state of sadness or insecurity. Rather, it makes their wounds deeper. Now, I set off to be weird somewhere else, you all can go out there and make mature decisions, and we can meet back here next week to hug it all out with more letters.