“Tanya..”

I already knew what my work brother was referring to. 

Yes, work brother. Work husbands are people your co-workers think you’re having an affair with. WB mainly just insults me. In fact, that’s how he kicked off our conversation about Tanya. 

“Why are you getting microneedled? Is it for your fucked up face?”

He’s bad at conversations but good at tea.

For the 4th time, Tanya’s boyfriend told her he just wanted to be friends… via text. 

“Oh, so you just call the shots now?” was her response.

WB tried to do crisis control by providing her with something less psychotic to text. But the damage had been done. She was one crazy outburst from being blocked for a 2nd time by a man in the last few months.

The problem with Tanya is she’s 50. I don’t mean that in a it’s-going-to-be-hard-to-meet-someone-at-that-age way (which people should really quit saying that shit). I mean it in a she-already-thinks-this-true-crime-behavior-is-normal way.

Tanya’s dating ideas and behavior are a bit dated and high school. 

EX: she thinks if she sleeps with someone, they need to start talking about getting married.

I thought that way when I lost my virginity, but my excuse was Catholic guilt. I’ve since rebelled. I’m not sure where she gets it from but I’ve been meaning to ask. I also want to know, if the sex is bad, does she still have to want to marry the guy? Call me condemned but that’s a deal breaker for me.

Then there’s her revealing of her super villain origin story right off the bat. To be fair, her story is the same as the majority of ours: a guy. But she thinks telling the new guy her trauma will prevent him from going down the same path as her arch nemesis. 

It won’t. You can’t guilt someone into being with you.

Or at least not if you don’t try, according to the book of Tanya. And try she did. She couldn’t let go because, as she put it, “he was cute.”

So that’s that.

Everything I want to say to her is everything I would say to my younger self.

Love yourself. You’re worth more. He’s Just Not That Into You. I don’t have bail money.

But Tanya has an inner circle that tells her shit like this: “He’s just scared, you know how guys are.”

So when he said he just wanted to be friends for the 3rd time, she took it as they were just having a fight.

At 50, I’m not sure my words of affirmation will do anything. And I don’t think telling her that I’m prepared for an interview with any documentary she may be featured in will help. So I’m just going to be there for her when he gets a restraining order.

Speaking of break ups, my friend who we’ll call Vianka (I just like that name) is in the middle of a break up – with her imaginary boyfriend.

I’ll explain.

Whenever Vianka and I are having problems in our relationships we play “who’s our imaginary boyfriend for the week?”

Mine are mainly celebrities and super hot guys at my gym who don’t notice me. 

Vianka made real-world guys her imaginary boyfriends, and then she caught feelings for one. They were friends in real life and had a lot in common, and he made her laugh. 

Naturally, she thought the feelings were mutual. Their pretend love was unspoken. But then something shifted. A younger woman showed up to the gym one day and that’s where his attention went. 

Vianka was crushed. How could he do this to her? And what would his wife think?

This new girl (NG for short) really laid it on thick. “Paatttrrriiiiicckkkk (we’ll call him). Can you help mmeeee?”

Vianka hates the damsel thing. This was a woman currently in litigation with a company that fired her from her remote job THREE YEARS AGO all because she doesn’t like the manager. But she needs help figuring out her jump rope?

They were both gone all week and she coincidentally returned to the gym when he did. Vianka knew she did the right thing by ending it. 

She was tired of feeling like an option, even in her imaginary relationships, so she said something in her real one.

Her days of pretending were over. 

(Masturbation guys don’t count)