Regina: So then he’s all, “Okay, well, bye,” and I’m all, “Okay, well, bye, except WHAT THE FUCK DUDE,” and he’s like, “Errr, I have people over, so,” and I’m like, “Oh, well, that’s just fine then, but I still have to wonder WHAT THE FUCK DUDE,” and now he hasn’t called, hasn’t written, hasn’t sent over a passenger pigeon, so the long and short of it is…

Sarah:Oh, no.

Regina: OHHHH YES.

Sarah: The Great And Terrible Wig?

Regina: You got it.

Sarah: Ohhhh Jaysus. JAYSUS.

Regina: Really.

Sarah: What is that? I mean, what IS that? WHAT IS THAT — why — why do they DO that?

Regina: I don’t know, dude. I. Don’t. Know.

Sarah: I just — GAHHH, why? What kind of person — can someone explain that to me? Please? Because I just don’t know who acts like that.

Regina: Well.

Sarah: Except that I DO know who acts like that.

Regina: I was going to say. Yeah.

Sarah: I still don’t get it, though.

Regina: Oh, neither do I, I ASSURE YOU.

Sarah: And I’d have thought better of —

Regina: Me too, ME TOO! I’ve done the thinking better of, already, myself! That’s what’s so infuriating about the whole thing!

Sarah: Oh, I know, right? That it’s always the ones you least expect?

Regina: Totally. TOTALLY. And that’s why you wind up caring in the first place!

Sarah: Uh huh, exactly! Like, “Oh, you won’t hurt me. Not you.”

Regina: Right, right. Like, “Oh, well, now it’s safe, finally. I’ll just…” I don’t know. I hate this.

Sarah: I know. “I’ll just be…me. Because you seem to not…hate that?”

Regina: Yeah.

Sarah: But then you drop your hands a little bit.

Regina: Leave yourself open, yep.

Sarah: And then it’s “well, it’s getting weird, but surely you’re not going to pull the same old shit on me…sniff sniff…hey, what’s that smell?…oh, wait, here’s the same old shit again FUCK YOU!”

Regina: Heh. [snurfle] I hate him.

Sarah: Oh, Reg.

Regina: I. Deserve. BETTER than this.

Sarah: God. Obviously.

Regina: So how come I’m the only one that thinks that?

Sarah: You aren’t the only one that thinks that.

Regina: I mean…what is that? Seriously.

Sarah: I don’t know.

Regina: No. Seriously.

Sarah: No, seriously! I don’t know! What, I know now? Do I have a husband? Do I have a clue? I don’t know!

Regina: I just — don’t understand.

Sarah: Dude. I don’t know. If I knew, I’d go on Oprah every week like Dr. Phil and spread the gospel of my knowing, but I’ve seen it a million times, I’ve had it done to me a million times, and I don’t know. I don’t know why they wig. I mean, I know why they wig, technically, but the issue is really that they don’t wig until —

Regina: Whoa.

Sarah: Well, you know what I mean. They always have the obvious reasons for wigging. It’s not the wigging itself. Because — I mean, you sleep with a guy, and you don’t care if he wigs, and then he wigs, but you’re all busy doing something else and it doesn’t matter, right?

Regina: Well, yeah, because who cares?

Sarah: Right. And then if you do care, but it’s a guy who, you think to yourself, “Well, there’s a significant chance here that he’s going to wig,” you’re at least prepared for it.

Regina: Well, sure. But then you’re — yeah, you’re prepared.

Sarah: Right, but that’s my point, dude. It’s not the wig. It’s the — wigging.

Regina: You know, that’s so true.

Sarah: Oh, shut up.

Regina: No, for real.

Sarah: If I could just clarify that before you make fun of it —

Regina: Dude, I got it, though. Because it’s not the wig. It’s that I had no idea that the wig was coming, and in fact actively thought that NO wig was coming at all, ever. I look out into left field one day, and there’s the wig.

Sarah: Yeah, see, exactly, dude. EXACTLY.

Regina: TOTALLY. I mean, there I am.

Sarah: Minding your own business.

Regina: Having some sex, doing some hanging out, no pressure.

Sarah: Because you yourself are not a girl who wigs.

Regina: And when I do wig.

Sarah: You don’t wig about wigging.

Regina: And as to THAT, if we may digress for just a moment here —

Sarah: Of course.

Regina: That. Bugs. THE LIVING SHIT out of me. Geeeeet OVER IT.

Sarah: God, seriously. It’s so passive-aggressive, too. “Oh, look at me as I wig.”

Regina: It’s not even passive-aggressive — it’s passive-passive! “Here I sit, stony-faced, on the moor. The wind of my self-loathing blows soooo coooold, and little bits of snow cling to the furrowed brows OF MY SOUL, shiver, shiver.”

Sarah: “I alone know the searing pain, the immovable weight of the wig. Oh, woe is me and my wigging. Woe…woe.”

Regina: “One day, great books shall be written about my wig, and how I doth FUCKING FLIPPED IT FOR NO GODDAMN REASON.”

Sarah: Bah, seriously. Cut the dramatics, Grandpa. Just ’cause you hate yourself doesn’t mean you get to act the part.

Regina: Really. Like, I’m so sure a Brontë sister is just dying to write up the timeless tale of your low self-esteem.

Sarah: I hate that crap.

Regina: But it’s not like they have even that amount of a sense of humor about it.

Sarah: Oh, of course not. It’s a deadly serious business, the whole I Care For You, But I Am No Good For You, So I Will Ignore You Unto Eternity In Order To Spare You The Unending Ache That Is My Altogether Unexceptional Existence thing.

Regina: Like it’s so noble.

Sarah: Such a favor.

Regina: We’re hardly worthy.

Sarah: We dare not look upon it, lest its heavenly light blind us.

Regina: Okay, I can’t even joke about it anymore because it is so very very ANNOYING GAH!

Sarah: Oh, no need to remind me.

Regina: I just don’t — I mean, do they seriously think they’re doing us a solid with that? “This won’t work out, because I suck” — are they SERIOUS?

Sarah: Well, sometimes they’re serious. Sometimes they’re just giving you a line so they can fuck other chicks, but you can tell when they’re doing that, and it’s so Smurfy that, in that case, you’re just like, “Uh huh, you suck all right, see ya,” and then you go out for beers and it’s not that disappointing.

Regina: “Disappointing.” I think that’s really it in a nutshell.

Sarah: Well, sure. Because you expect better from the good ones, but then sometimes the good ones…aren’t? Well, not “aren’t,” but —

Regina: But they need therapy.

Sarah: Basically.

Regina: But it’s not just disappointing when the good ones — I mean, he’s your friend, and everything’s cool, and then he’s a guy you sleep with, and everything’s cool.

Sarah: Right. And you go with it, because he’s your friend.

Regina: And because everything’s cool! Because that’s why you slept with him in the first place, because he made you feel like — because — well, I don’t want to say “safe,” because that’s kind of —

Sarah: No, I hear you. It’s not “safe,” exactly, it’s…dammit. I know what I mean but I can’t come up with the words.

Regina: It’s that he’s your friend, and he’s cute, and he makes you feel like you’re really cool and beautiful and that that’s enough for him, that you exist. Or something.

Sarah: That he wouldn’t hurt you, because he doesn’t expect anything from you, except to keep being you, even if your “you” is just you and not with him.

Regina: Yeah.

Sarah: Sort of. Anyway — I know what you mean, go on.

Regina: Right, so then everything’s cool, but then suddenly everything’s not cool, and then it’s not cool squared because he’s not talking to you, he’s just ducking you, and then it’s like, um, WHAT THE FUCK DUDE?

Sarah: And you don’t get any say in it, either. Like, “This is how it is now, sorry, I’ll send you a Christmas card.” Like, no. Doesn’t work that way.

Regina: Exactly! Like, don’t I get a say here? Can’t I participate in the uncool, wherever it’s coming from?

Sarah: But then he pretends like it’s just the tragedy inherent in his blighted being, like, maybe I could be the judge of whether or not you Suck At This, or whatever damn excuse you’ve got going.

Regina: God, that’s exactly it.

Sarah: They just…decide.

Regina: And then they pretend that it’s fine! “What…what?” Don’t play that with me.

Sarah: Oh, I know.

Regina: But what burns me up about the whole thing is that it’s NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN THIS WAY WITH HIM!

Sarah: It never is.

Regina: Well, sometimes it is, like you said.

Sarah: No, I mean, with these guys. Because — well, you know what I’m talking about.

Regina: Ohhh man. Yeah.

Sarah: Thanks for that, by the way.

Regina: Oh God, no problem. I just felt so bad for you.

Sarah: I felt bad for myself, believe me. The whole thing was so humiliating.

Regina: God, SERIOUSLY.

Sarah: Like, on top of everything else that’s bad about the situation, someone I counted on not to suck…sucks now, apparently, which means that in addition to being unlovable, I’m also a chump. Great.

Regina: But he didn’t really give you the whole I’m No Good, So Save Yourself From Me, And Just In Case You Don’t Want To Save Yourself, I’m Going To Act Like An Asshole And Do It For You song and dance, though. Did he?

Sarah: Oh, no. I just mean that, you know, with certain people, you trust that they have a certain respect for you — that they’ll treat you a certain way. And you come to count on that. And then when you can’t anymore…I mean, it isn’t an entirely analogous situation because there wasn’t really wigging involved, except on my part. I’m just saying that…you think something about someone, and when you find out that you thought wrong, it’s hard.

Regina: It’s lonely, is what it is.

Sarah: Yeah, it is. It’s really lonely.

Regina: It’s the loneliest thing on earth. Because you thought you were in something together, and — goddammit.

Sarah: And it’s just you. I know.

Regina: And you wonder, wow, if this guy that I trusted so much as a friend…

Sarah: Yeah.

Regina: If he can’t…you just wonder.

Sarah: What’s wrong with you, yeah.

Regina: And I don’t understand why he can’t just talk to me, and I resent it! I resent his getting all, “Oh, she’s going to wig so I’d better wig first,” and I resent having to wig out myself as a result — I just resent the hell out of it!

Sarah: And that’s the other thing, that they put you in the position of becoming this, this thing, that you aren’t, which is a thing they apparently fear, but the fear caused the thing and not the other way around.

Regina: And it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it’s BULLSHIT!

Sarah: It’s complete bullshit.

Regina: And you know, I found that kind of thing sort of romantic and sad and Heathcliff-y ten years ago, but now? ENOUGH already!

Sarah: More than enough, dude.

Regina: I don’t get it! I just! Don’t! Get it! I’m funny, I’m smart, I’m cute, I look good in a pencil skirt — when’s it all going to come together?

Sarah: Hey, don’t look at me. I’m eating olives from the jar and cruising the internet for cute pictures of Vincent D’Onofrio, for Chrissakes.

Regina: But you’re happy doing that.

Sarah: Well…yeah, actually, I’d say I’m reasonably happy.

Regina: See? You’re happy.

Sarah: I’d be happier if D’Onofrio came over and took me out to the drive-in, but you can’t have everything.

Regina: I’m going to die alone.

Sarah: Me too.

Regina: No, you won’t. You have the cats.

Sarah: So get a cat. You want Little Joe?

Regina: I’m serious.

Sarah: So am I, he’s driving me crazy.

Regina: I’m SERIOUS.

Sarah: Okay, so we die alone. So what? Eleanor Rigby did pretty well with that gig.

Regina: But you’ll die happy, with your olives and your cats.

Sarah: Reg, come on. You’ll die happy. Just — try not to die today, that’s all.

Regina: Oh, I’ll tell you who’s gonna DIE TODAY.

Sarah: NOW you’re talking.

Regina: He doesn’t have a cat, either! He’s gonna DIE ALONE!

Sarah: YEAH! Wait, but — you’ll be there, so. He’s not alone. So.

Regina: Oh, shit, you’re right. Okay, how do I work this?

Sarah: Please. I’m from New Jersey. Two phone calls, he dies alone.

Regina: Aw. Thanks.

Sarah: Any time.

October 9, 2001

Tags:   curmudgeoning   friends