The Call

I looked at my phone and saw The Gentleman's name. He'd emailed me the day before, saying he wanted to ask my advice on something and he couldn't wait to talk to me.

"Hey!"

"Hey, babe! How are you? Am I calling at a bad time?"

"Nope, what's on your mind?"

He went on to talk about how much he missed me, it had been too long since our last appointment. I agreed, and told him I was glad we'd be seeing each other The next day.

"Yeah, me, too. I guess it's not as hard for you to wait...I guess it's simpler for you, you know what i mean?"

Oh, great.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

In the next ten minutes he spoke and said nothing; how he has these feelings for me and inserting, 'oh, you know' at the end of every sentence fragment. He was not telling me everything and I was getting more and more impatient.

"Do you want to see me tomorrow?"

"God, yes! Of course I do!"

Another several minutes of saying nothing and I couldn't see the point of this conversation.

"Baby, I really need to go. Am I seeing you tomorrow?"

Then, like someone was holding a knife to his throat, he blurted,

"....I can't afford it!"

So there it was. Fucking twenty minutes on the phone and I now had a very big problem.

"You should have told me this at the beginning."

"I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

"This is not about feelings. This is a business arrangement. I am not your wife or girlfriend. You don't get to worry about hurting my feelings. You do need to worry about being disrespectful of my time. I understand that these things happen, income fluctuates, schedules get messed up, whatever. But I take our appointments seriously, and I don't think you do."

He was weak in his responses, self-pitying and truthfully, I wanted to punch him.

I ended the phone call, totally pissed and really worried about how I'd pay my bills.

Anybody know any nice, respectful, dependable guys?