The Head and Shoulders Flake Awards

I'm saving this one for my bestest friend. She's been steadfast and true all these years. Considering how close we've been, we're bound to shed tears (often over each other) but nothing we can't handle. She's not my gf, and I don't expect she ever will be, but I love her dearly, and pray she never gets an entry here.

So, why am I even talking about her? Well, like I said, women in my life are always outdoing each other; finding new an innovative ways to disappoint, hurt and betray me. So far she's been around for over half the flakes who've passed through my life, which means she's probably just biding her time, until she can rise above them all, and be the #1 HnS champion! So, I'm saving this place for her.

1. I had made myself available for months
2. in the end, she clearly wanted me very badly, so it's not like I wasn't worth the effort to her
3. a stronger woman would have found it the easiest thing in the world to dump this chump who was treating her like crap, to go out w/someone she wanted very badly.

Here's someone with a lot in common with Lynn, in that she deals with problems instinctively (as do most flakes), is unable directly fix problems, but instead sabotages connections with things she's uncomfortable with, and prefers the devil she knows for the angel she doesn't. Tanya is one of the few women to whom I seriously considered marriage. She had me so snowed, not to mention fucked hardcore gamer style.

When I first met her, I saw her as someone w/whom I had a fair bit in common, in very important ways. I felt she was being stifled by her family, and I wanted to encourage her to be what she was supposed to be, and wanted to be. She was getting her education, and wanted to be successful. I could get behind that. Soon, my belief in her and love for her were very powerful. I made some incredibly obvious demonstrations of love and devotion (like driving 500mi to see her!) but she still dealt with some bizarre kind of complex about feeling worthless and unwanted. She was completely unable to absorb any reasons for feeling secure about what she meant to me, but was very quick to read neglect into my behavior, even if it meant milking misunderstandings for all they were worth, or blowing human failings way out of proportion.

For whatever reason, she decided that I wasn't right for her. Fair enough, if that's what she wants, but her way of dealing w/it was to sleeping around. I could see she was extremely reckless, but I saw this as a matter of impulsiveness, and not any inherent dishonesty.

Eventually, it became clear that we weren't going to have any future together, and I accepted this, but nevertheless I still believed in her, and encouraged her. Finally, she went into hiding without a word, and left me to guess what happened to her. For all I knew she was dead. To me, it was inconceivable that she would neglect to keep me informed, which implied that something bad had happened to her.

After several months of this, I managed to confirm that she is in fact alive, and not apparently suffering any kind of trauma that would cut any lines of communication with me. I can only assume that she decided I was no longer of any use to her, and had no problems shutting me out, and leaving to me whatever anxiety would follow.

You once told me that your attitude about people who have hurt you is "I don't hate you, I hate what you did". I am not nearly so magnanimous. I will never forgive you for what you have done to me, Tanya. I have no idea how much you care about what hurt you caused me, or how much I ever meant to you, because you betrayed me in this way, so I have had to call every good thought I had about you into question. For all I know, everything you have ever told me was a lie.

I loved what I was with you. You somehow managed to trick the best out of me, but now I feel like such an asshole for having so much faith in you. Now, you have returned me to my natural state of bitterness and pessimism. Having said that I do hope you fail in life. Last I heard, you were engaged. I hope he treats you very poorly, and you end up divorced, and deeply regretting how you treated me. For this bitterness and spite is what is natural for me, not the beautiful hope and sanguine faith I had in you.

I have done everything in my power to make restitution for any mistakes I've made, and everything in my power to reverse the effects of what other people have done. Now, I expect that the weight of your iniquity will keep you miserable and regretful.

Now here's someone with the weakness of Lynn but the disloyalty of Tanya. She was never my girlfriend. For one thing, she was underaged. For another... well, what else can there be? She was just a friend, but I fancied her as someone who needed the security that my confidence in her would afford. And she fancied me as something as a big brother, I guess. For years I bled for her, and tollerated a great deal of flakiness, and I'm not even sure what. Whatever happened, I always did right by her. One day I get a call that starts "who is this?" I immediate respond by telling him that that should be my line, but instead he argues with me, and describes a scenario wherein he finds my number on his girlfriend's cell phone. I hang up on him. She got some control-freak boyfriend who, after a month of being in her life, decides that her friendship with me is his business. Not only that, I also heard that he read personal e-mails and snail-mails sent by me to Karyssa--and she let him!

At the end of a few exchanges, which included some vague threat of violence, Karyssa sends me an e-mail telling me she hates me, calls me a "pervert" and that Jacob^? is all she needs. Where did the hatred come from? What did I ever do to her? Only a few days before she was sending me smilies on-line. No, clearly this could only come to pass if Karyssa was very weak, and Jacob determined to decide who should and shouldn't be in her life--pa-thetic.

Karyssa was only a friend, and the media that supported our friendship (and later enmity) were e-mail, snail-mail, and IM, so we weren't all that close, which limits the amount of damage that could be done. However, she was more unnecessarily disloyal than Tanya, in that I was always there for Karyssa. W/Tanya, I was also in it for myself, in that I was in it for us, but for Karyssa, all I wanted to do was make her happy, and give her the security from an adult that I needed as a teen. So it was particularly galling when she allowed this Johnny-come-lately stupid sack of shit to vomit all over everything we had.

Because she was young, I did give her a discount. But her youth doesn't come close to giving her an acquital, since when I was her age, I would have never stabbed anyone in the back so--that is a fundamental difference between her and me as a teen.

Because you were young, I am hoping that you were just a late bloomer, and that by the time you are in your twenties you'll have caught up, and will be capable of making your own decisions, and valuing loyalty over the dominance of a man. I further do hope you regret what you have done, but not because I am angry and bitter (which I am not especially) but because you will not be able to fully gain your self-respect and self-confidence, except by dealing with this issue--and perhaps because I am a bit bitter and angry. Oh well.

I, on the other hand, will probably never recover from your gross ingratitude. It will always be with me, and will probably be all I will ever remember you for.

Now here's someone who's very existence defies all rationale. When I first met her I was blown away by her appearance. She was gorgeous! Objectively, I don't think most guys would go that far, but to me, she appeared to be everything I find exciting in a woman: intelligent, decent, confident, and objectively, pretty easy on the eyes also. Allison was, in fact, very intelligent, and friendly, and expressed great pathos over the suffering I've endured by flakes. She was also moving very fast. She never talked about a relationship, but only after about a week or so she had asked me to be her date at a wedding she would be going to. Fortunately, I had was fairly confident that I could not have a woman like her. I thought it very likely that she would find someone as pessimistic and negative as me nothing like the sort of person who would bring out the best in her.

So you can imagine my surprise when she appeared to also have falled off the earth. I got an e-mail from a friend saying she was in the hospital but was not in any serious danger. Then I heard nothing from the friend. I pleaded with her for news, and sent Allison e-mails but got nothing back. Finally, I called the number I got off of 411.ca, what I'm pretty sure is her father answered, and I left a message for her to call me back. And big surprise I never heard back from her. At least I know she's alive, and therefore one of the worst flakes I've ever suffered.

Here's someone who usually behaves like an adult, but when triffling with my affections, did not.

Imane was born and raised in Lebanon as a Moslem. Not a very strict Moslem, (she didn't wear the hijab, for instance) but a liberal Lebanese Moslem, is still plenty more conservative about boy-girl things than... well, nearly everyone else I've ever met. So she had never had a boyfriend before, and had never even been kissed. (Boy, did that ever change in a few short months!) I was at a difficult time in my life, and while I didn't mistreat her, probably brought her down indirectly. I don't exactly know what happened w/her, but she decided to break it off completely and utterly. This was very painful for me, but not yet worthy of flakehood.

What was indefensible for her, was that she called me about 15 months later looking for a sympathetic ear. Basically it was to tell me that a guy had done exactly the same thing to her as she did to me! The first thing the said to me involved creating a cushion to deal with any anger I might have. I demonstrated no such negativity, and was warm and compassionate. I don't remember the exact course of the conversation, but it ended with an open end, prompting a follow-up. The next day I e-mailed her, and got no response. I e-mailed her again expressing a certain amount of sarcasm over her silence. She came back expressing a wish to discontinue (again!) earning her a more sarcastic and indignant response from me. The last thing I remember was her telling me that she hopes I will forgive her.

Can you imagine, Imane? I still have feelings for you, and sometimes think about you and the good times we had. If you called me up tonight, I don't think I could spit any of the venom I have generating in my glands. How sad is that?

All of my other emotions are based on disgust. We Scotsmen don't believe in something for nothing, and my forgiveness would be something granted for your sacrifice for me which was nothing. You're one of the bigger pain-in-the-ass flakes.

Nothing that special about this one, and her flakiness was not unpredictable. When she described her home life and stuff, I could see that this would not be conducive to... well, the sort of person I'd want to be w/. Her parents were divorced, but her mother is also seeing someone who is only a few months older than Pamela, and a former friend to Pamela's sister. Of course this isn't likely be that destructive, even if pretty weird, but my instincts tell me that this is the tip of the iceburg, and someone from a family like that has got to have a lot of baggage.

Well, Pamela didn't have any detectable baggage, so I went forth. She expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for me, which, of course, felt very good. So, after knowing her for only a few days, I drove the 1.5 hours (or so) to see her. It was difficult to tell how well things went, but at the end of the date, the only overwhelming thought she could express was that our age difference was "disconcerting". True, there is quite a spread between 21 and 32, but how big was the spread yesterday? The next day she sent me a polite e-mail telling me she didn't think we should see each other, for various reasons.

Due to the irony of her shifting gears so swiftly, after having told me she refuses to drive a standard, I'd decided to give her a femininized version of a Forumla-1 champion's name as a nickname.