Why is it me that's always the shit?

It had been two weeks since I'd had any contact with C. As far as I was concerned, it was over. But it wasn't.

At first, I was quite into C. She was pretty, slim(ish) and cheeky. We'd met at a friend's back-garden party where the highlight of the evening had been his sending an aflame home-made balloon into the night-sky to land goodness-knows where.

But after the midnight walk back to C's hotel in Israel. After the beach-front smooching. And after two lacklustre dates, I decided that she wasn't for me. "Do the
menchedick thing," my friend Alex said. "Call her and tell her."

So I did. I got her voicemail. I couldn't say what I wanted to say. Which meant the message still wasn't loud and clear. Just how muffled I found out last week.

"How r u stranger? x," she texted. Why, I'm not sure why. It had been a fortnight since we'd last spoken and three weeks since we'd been out.

I waited a day, and sent a reply of the sort I'd received on at least two occasions in the past year.

"I'm fine, thanks. Work's really crazy. Hope you are well. Take care." That should do the trick, I thought. Wrong!

The next morning, I switched on my N95. The submarine-ping of a text plopping in my inbox sounded. I opened it.

"Wow! Such a childish - not to say wankerish - way to end things," she wrote. "One tip: ask your rabbi what kavod means. Take care."

I was wounded. Shocked. Hurt. Confused. How on earth - who on earth - thinks that a) they're in a relationship after three dates and some tongue and tit action? and b) doesn't understand that there's nothing going on when they don't call for three weeks. And why is it ME that gets labelled a shit, when what I sent was nothing worse than any of the rejections I've been on the receiving end of? I don't like hurting people. And - perhaps even more so - I don't like being made to feel like I'm a bad person, which I'm not!

I wanted to tell her the only child in this text-off was her. But I didn't. I apologised. Told her I hadn't meant to upset her; that I thought she knew my heart wasn't in it; and that I wished her the best.

So far she's not replied. Which either means she's ignoring me (which is fine). Or that she understands that I meant her no harm. Either way, I don't want to be near her when she has anything sharp, or staining, in her grasp.