I met the Maintenance Man in October. It is now July.
Nothing has happened, but I know his movements better than his personal assistant. We have probably had one point five dates a month for the past 8 months. This is not only annoying but ridiculous. It throws my theories on timing and effort ‘out the window’.
I have been a ‘maintainer’ myself on several occasions, commonly referred to as ‘having one on the back burner’ (I think I would need one of those industrial size multi-burner ranges), but this is a whole new level. The tough thing to comprehend is that normally you maintain someone for a reason…you have another significant person, they don’t live in the same city, they used to date your friend, etc.
Most maintenance is done to either be cautious about entering into something you don’t want or doing so quickly. Either that or there are certain things, ah hem, about the person that you just like to have available should you want them at some point. You’re just making sure that the bridge isn’t burned. It’s like going to get a check-up or doing anything preventative like home repairs. It’s the sending an invite or other mass e-mail, a quick text on a holiday, etc.--the “I know you’re alive” messages.
With the Maintenance Man however this is not the case. We met, it took us three weeks to go out the first time, but at that point I wasn’t stressed. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen. It takes three days to a busy week for them to call you from the first meeting, and then the next week is already booked, so you settle for the following and that drink gets bumped from an easy first date Tuesday to the much more dangerous-normally-a-second-date Thursday. I get it.
What I don’t get with the Maintenance Man is that after that first date it was another two weeks, but we talked via emails and texts almost every other day, then after the cutest second date it was another three weeks. I slowly got more and more annoyed, but realized where I fit in the repertoire, so I gave him a cut off-quotient of two weeks-a date with plans-in advance-on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Clearly, as that was on a Monday, it was two weeks and one day and I got an e-mail to make plans. Go figure.
That date potentially hit the top ten list of greatest dates of all time. Then I went away for the weekend, then he went away for the weekend, then there were a few e-mails, a call, a few text messages and still no future plans. Pretty much I felt like he was one of my college buddies that I catch up with on the weekends…on the phone.
Then, I started to realize that when The Maintenance Man asked me on a date he gave me a particular window, a Friday night, a Tuesday drink, etc. It was never with options. Normally boys call you on a Sunday or Monday night to see “how your week looks”. It is hilarious if you are on a date on Sunday (um and have a nice roster) come home and realize the rest of your week can be fitted to an excel spreadsheet with push pins on a map of Manhattan and outfits to match.
I would throw out alternative suggestions when I couldn’t meet him at those times and he would respond that he couldn’t, almost always. Basically he would never give me a reason, just that he couldn’t then a week later another suggestion, etc. the cycle continued. I even made jokes and references that we could go out before his “other date that night” or that “I couldn’t introduce him to my friends because I had forgotten how we met.”
We were in the cute reminiscent stage of dating, due to the amount of time, but we had never progressed. We’re talking that if he stepped it up even a half a notch he might get something that I would think would be where most male’s objectives would be if they maintained you for 8 months. (If you don’t get that reference, I’m calling it out now: Nothing had happened in THAT department either.)
He had to have a girlfriend, boyfriend, something else going on and I am not one to be number two, five or twelve on the roster, especially after all of this time. So I made myself available and unavoidable at the same time for one day only. I was sick of it and this had to happen. We went for cocktails after work, I looked cute, but not as cute as I would have wanted to when I was going to throw down or get out.
He was supposed to meet me at 7. At 7:15. I got a text he was running late. He had never been late. He knew I had a dinner at 8:30. He knew I wouldn’t wait. But I did. For 10 more minutes and he hurried. He walked in the door and I told him that I had to leave. I gave him a completely sufficient long time to apologize and to make plans for the weekend. I even set it up for him.
Nothing.
I walked out.
I didn’t write back to the email on Thursday that did not have any questions, or the text message on Friday which asked how my day was.
Sometimes you just have to fire the Maintenance Man and get yourself some full-time help.
