Romantic Revelations Found in a Pack of Ramen Noodles

I recently met a girl from out of town (opens in new tab) and we engaged in a Facebook flirtation.

As it turned out, she was in town for New Year's; we ended up celebrating together and ended up at my apartment.

We fell asleep and kissed a bit. (opens in new tab) The next day I got a text from her:

"Boy you sure know how to resist temptation."

It turned out that I made the right decision.

She made a week-long visit to NYC a month later for Fashion Week, and I told her we could hang out that Saturday. Friday she was going to a party for a friend, and Saturday she had to be mellow because she was traveling Sunday, so I planned to take her to a wine bar.

That Friday, I came down with a cold but checked in anyway. The text conversation was as follows:

ME: "What time are you heading to the party?"

HER: "Around 11."

ME: "Not feeling well, but will try to make it out."

Keep in mind, I didn't get any "hope you feel better," or "don't worry, let's just hang out Saturday" texts. After I waited (what must have been too long) a while to assess my ability to go out and drink, I got the following text from her:

"Where are you? Hurry up."

OK (record scratch). A handful of people in my life are allowed to make demands like that: basically my close friends and family. I had not committed to meeting her on Friday night either. I finally shut it down by texting:



"Too sick, I can't make it out."

She eventually texted, around 2AM: "Well I'm sick too, so I can still makeout with you."

At this point, I decided to just have her over. I still intended to see her on Saturday as well because I had made that promise.

I texted her my address and she said she'd be over after one last drink.

Then a strange thing happened: a pack of chicken flavor Ramen noodles revealed the truth to me.

I began making Ramen and frantically stood over the water, trying to will it to boil. I felt the pressure of her invading army, hunting me down to ruin my Ramen experience. If she showed up before I finished eating my Ramen, I would be crushed. All I wanted was to be alone with my Ramen (opens in new tab) and a really bad '80's movie that I'd find by trolling TNT-type channels. I guess I wasn't that into her after all.

Unbeknownst to me, meanwhile, her phone battery died, so she didn't have a way to refer to my address. She eventually called and we agreed to get in touch Saturday to hang out. Everything seemed fine, but perhaps the following statement I made rubbed her the wrong way:

"OK, so I'll give you a call, but you call me if I forget."

Any way I look at that statement it doesn't seem very nice. I guess I was just showing her I wasn't too interested anymore. But I still intended to make an effort to see her Saturday, because I had promised...

...until I innocently logged in to Facebook the next day. To my surprise, she had taken the liberty to skewer me on her Facebook status:

"All guys are jerks, screw them all."

I really didn't think I had been that much a jerk, considering I had promised Saturday, and still checked in on Friday-and I was legitimately sick that night.

So, that was the boiling (Ramen) point. I didn't call her on Saturday.

There was no communication between us for the next few weeks. Just when I figured everyone had moved on I got a message from her on Facebook.

Early in our flirtation, she had given me a contact so I could help a friend of mine secure an internship. Her message read:

"You know that contact I gave you? Don't use it."

I thought that was kind of petty, and a little low class, but I took the high road:

"No worries, my friend got an internship, I didn't use it. Hope all is well!"

If a girl acts with class after things don't work out, (opens in new tab)a guy will question his decision much more than if she behaves strangely. Every one of her actions since the "fallout" has made me think: "thank goodness I didn't do more than kiss her that night, and she keeps confirming that I made the right decision."

Do you think I behaved badly in this situation? Do you agree that it's best to just walk away when something doesn't work out, instead of getting vindictive? Am I leading women on when I see them and contact them just to be nice, without being sure of how I feel?