Why You Mad, Girl?
By Neal Mackey
I thought that I was through with Cathleen, because she was moving away, and I was moving to Brooklyn. But then I received a message on Facebook from my friend Stewart.
Neal, I got a friend request from someone named Cathleen Kay. i was like “whatever” and accepted. it says you and she are friends. now she’s harassing me for some reason. here’s her last message: “you should claim repsonsibility for your actions. an acceptance bears more weight than a request. I know what I did what have you done?!” is this chick crazy or what.
I began to see Facebook exchanges between her and Stewart everyday, then she friended my roommate and began harassing him, too. I was growing very irritated.
One night, I was up at around 5am, quite drunk and high on drugs, and I saw her on FBK chat. I decided to get into it with her. We talked about love and life, and then I asked her what the deal was with her and Stewart. She said, “your friend seems like an asshole.”
“You don’t even know him and you’re harassing him,” I said. “I’ve got to take his side on this one.”
The following day I receieved a message from her saying that our chat had made her cry because I had been so blunt. I logged on to Facebook and removed her as a friend. That was very satisfying. I saw that she was still harrassing Stewart and my roommate Crispin; they have yet to defriend her. I received voicemails, e-mails, and text messages from her that professed confusion over the way I was ignoring her. I did reply to her inquiry about why I defriended her: “Because you were all over my Facebook,” I said, simply. “Oh! You are fickle as a flea-ridden coach. Disgusting!” she responded. I never did appreciate her writing, this text message included. It encouraged my growing distaste towards her.
More time passed, and I thought, surely, I wouldn’t hear from her again. Then, out of the blue, I saw this message on my phone when I woke up in the morning a few days ago:
I hate you like a hangnail. You shouldn’t ever declaw a cat. It’s terribly insenstive. Just tell her to sratch elsewhere. She’s more sensitive than you could ever, ever, imagine. See ‘if I was a boy’ by beyonnce, serious.
Seeing the apparent depth of her hatred for me, I suddenly became intrigued. What had I done to warrant such passion? I felt oddly compelled by her, and I even felt some turmoil in my loins. I imagined that having sex with someone who hates me might actually be pretty good. The same day, a bottle of wine deep, I responded to her message “Why you mad, girl? Let me know if you’ll be in the city and we’ll talk, maybe fuck, too.”
She responded rather encouragingly and, as it turns out, she needs to come to the city this coming weekend to see her cousin, and she’s staying at my place.