i fancied a curry for lunch today, and no one else in my office did. so i went to the restaurant by myself and sat in a little corner.
while i was there, this girl i sort of know, shannon, came into the restaurant holding hands with this guy i've never seen before. they sat at a table across the restaurant from me, and i stared as they continued to hold hands and kiss.
shannon is engaged to brett, another goalie in my league. at least, she was last i checked -- on tuesday night, when i last spoke to them both.
so, what do i do now?
i know she didn't see me, because she was too involved in whoever-he-is to notice me. i'm *positive* that it was her.
i figure i have three options: 1. do nothing at all and mind my own goddamned business; 2. tell brett what i saw; or 3. the next time i see shannon, which will likely be sunday, say "i saw you at cafe taj on friday" and hope she realizes what i'm really saying is "i saw you with another guy, kissing, at a restaurant and if your bitch ass doesn't have a damn good explanation then my bitch ass is going to have a long talk with your sweet, nice fiance."
i'm sort of leaning toward option 3, though maybe i should just keep my mouth shut. i really don't know. perhaps they have some sort of open engagement relationship in which it's ok to be with other people. and then they'd chuckle about that meddling little fool meredith. or maybe i should go with option 2, and break brett's heart second-hand just days before the playoffs start....maybe that would give us a little edge in all these upcoming games. hmmmmm. ok, that probably wouldn't be nice.
bradley said at 4:26 PM 08-16-2002: Mr. T would just kick her in the teeth. Tell her to quit all that jibba jabba with the other dude. She's crazier than Murdock doin all that double timin'. I pity the fool.
el Frugé said at 3:14 PM 08-16-2002: First. I would click the above link and have myself a good chuckle. Second. I would just let it be. I would stand on the sidelines during this. Its never good to get yourself involved in that kind of shit.
Shell said at 5:16 PM 08-16-2002: I think Option 1 is unfair, because fiance _might_ need to know. Option 2 is unfair, because right now you don't have all the facts and fiance might get needlessly hurt. That leaves Option 3.
However, you have to consider whether you really want to become involved. If fiance is sweet and nice, he probably doesn't deserve the pain of a cheating spouse--but you could wind up "the bad guy" just for bearing the tale to him.
*If* you choose to become involved, I vote Option 3.
xmeredithx [email] said at 5:30 PM 08-16-2002: the plot thickens: i was just talking to a mutual friend, who knows brett better than i do. brett told him this past weekend that shannon is pregnant. i think now i should just keep quiet.
shelly [email] said at 5:55 PM 08-16-2002: i think that is a compelling reason NOT to keep quiet. this guy should know if there is a reason to suspect that the child is not his. if he acts as the father once it is born he could wind up legally required to pay child support even if he finds out later that it ISN'T his kid.
NuckleheadEd [ url ] said at 6:45 PM 08-16-2002: I'd have to agree with Shelly. Armed with this new knowledge, #3 with an option to escalate to #2 is best. If it's people you don't give a rat's ass about, you wouldn't have asked for advice. What would Aunt D'Angie do?
xmeredithx [email] said at 8:44 PM 08-16-2002: dude, aunt d'angie would have totally gotten up in shannon's face in the restaurant today and made a huge scene of berating her.
xmeredithx [email] said at 8:43 PM 08-16-2002: i hadn't thought of it like that, really. my immediate thought was, well, if there's a baby, i should be quiet because i don't need shannon to be thrown out on her own. what if it *is* indeed brett's baby? and they break up, and she's stuck a single mom? then i made some unborn kid's life really rough.
Shell said at 9:53 PM 08-16-2002: *You* did not make anyone's life rough. Shannon chose to engage in a PDA, in a city where she is known. Brett and Shannon chose to become engaged. If Shannon and Brett break up there is no guaranteee she will even be on her own (PDA guy might stick by her). You aren't responsible for any of their actions, only your own.
I still think Option 3 is the way to go. Give her the chance to explain. Who knows, she might say,"God! It's so terrible. I love Brett and I'm going to have his baby, but my ex came to town and we overdid our goodbyes. I knew it was a last fling, and I was stupid, but please don't tell Brett. I love him and don't want to hurt him." 'Course, she might say, "I'm only marrying Brett so his folks won't know he's gay. He's even going to pretend the baby I'm going to have with my married boyfriend is his." Who knows? The point I'm moseying toward is that you won't know until you talk to her. So talk to her.
shelly [email] said at 11:04 AM 08-23-2002: from what i've seen i think so. if she puts his name on the birth certificate or if he is with her at the hospital when she delivers the baby or if he initially supports the child and acts like a father to it, even if it isn't his and even if he didn't know that it wasn't, in some states i'm pretty sure he could be required to continue support.
brandonA [email] said at 11:17 AM 08-23-2002: Yes, I think that's the case. I remember seeing a story about how in some states, even after a DNA test proves a guy isn't the father, he has to jump through many legal hoops to actually stop paying, and in the case I read in particular, the guy COULD NOT get rid of the legal responsibility for the kid who wasn't his.
milky [email] said at 12:00 PM 08-23-2002: I saw that case on Dateline, where that guy's wife was a whore and he has to pay child support for the kids she got sleepin around...AND he has no visitation.
jeff [email] said at 5:20 AM 08-17-2002: You could always leave an anonymous letter. It would carry less initial weight, but it might get him thinking and watching more closely.
el Frugé said at 2:18 PM 08-17-2002: I agreee, you may end up on a talkshow if you don't. Its so much better to let these people sort out their own problems, that way they learn from their mistakes.
courtney [ url ] said at 6:43 PM 08-16-2002: I would vote for option 3, but worded a little differently... "Were you at Cafe Taj on Friday?" leaves it wide open.
tina [ url ] said at 8:36 PM 08-16-2002: option 3 with the variation-- hey, i think i saw you the other day--...
the scary thing is, i know people who actually went through that just last summer. it all worked out in the end though. maybe you were actually in a time warp and it was actually these people. maybe cafe taj is actually a worm hole or something.
Jake said at 9:18 PM 08-16-2002: Option 3, but actually say "i saw you with another guy, kissing, at a restaurant and if your bitch ass doesn't have a damn good explanation then my bitch ass is going to have a long talk with your sweet, nice fiance."
And tell her if she doesn't talk about it with Brett, than you will have to. A pending baby is a pretty good reason for very upfront communication.
By the way, I'm one of Ben's co-instructors at camp. I have the best beard here, so I know best.
I would stay out of it unless you're REALLY REALLY REALLY close to Brett. Otherwise, it's not really worth your time to put yourself into the situation.
Jake said at 2:21 AM 08-17-2002: Closeness is irrelevant--If they got hitched tomorrow in a traditional christian way and the traditional christian priest said "speak now or forever hold your peace"
You'd have to speak up or your stomach would lurch in pain because you're a good caring person, natch?
So be a good person and frodo the sanctity of their couplehood.
listen to the beard.
amanda [email] said at 1:23 AM 08-17-2002: Tell him. I wish someone had been brutally honest with me the one time I was casually-engaged to a boy I was also moving in with, when he was cheating on me with his ex-girlfriend behind my back, and I KNOW that some of my friends knew and didn't tell me. If I had known, it would have saved me horrific amounts of mental screwedupedness (although I have to admit it would be pretty painful for a week or two initially). Tell him before he makes a mess of his life with The Whore.
yetanotherben [ url ] said at 2:15 AM 08-17-2002: meredith, i do believe that if one was to inspect our CD collections, they would be FRIGHTFULLY the same. eons ago, you mentioned having Pinkerton in your CD player for weeks on end -- at that same time, i was doing the same. Then, just last week you had a post with "Fell in love with a drummer" in the title, from the Wilco album in my car. And now, with the BK quote!! Awesome.
zack [email] said at 3:14 PM 08-17-2002: When I found out that Milk and I both had The new Korn CD and No Doubt and not to mention all the Dave Matthews CDs, well, I just knew RIGHT THEN that we were both cut from the same highly unusual cloth!
Great minds think alike! I couldn't believe it. Are we twins?
yetanotherben [ url ] said at 9:49 PM 08-18-2002: he doesn't seem to leave the Northeast too much, unfortunately. Maybe one day he'll make it down to the podunk of Louisville :).
gestapo [ url ] said at 3:18 PM 08-17-2002: You should tell her that you saw her in the restaurant with the other guy. You may be able to extort a blowjob out of the deal.
Colleen said at 4:17 AM 08-19-2002: First: I am wasted but I'm ready.
I didn't know anyone else listened to Ben Kweller, good to know.
Although I don't know you, I have some advice since you are a fellow Ben Kweller fan...
You definitely have a responsibility to make the truth come out in this situation...I don't think it matters what way you decide to do that...as long as it happens. I hate being lied to...unfortunately it's happened too often to me. If I was this girls fiance I would be thankful to the person who told me the truth however they went about it. Good for you for having some guts! Don't back down.
brianbibbly said at 7:58 AM 08-19-2002: You know, I'm torn here. On the one hand, I feel like you should confront her because cheating on your fiance is not too cool. But on the other hand, I kinda think you should leave it alone cause a) its not your battle, b) these things have a way of coming to the surface without third party intervention and c) maybe she is doing this to find an excuse NOT to marry this guy, so why should you be a pawn in her little game? I don't know, I'd probably let it slide unless the guy was a REALLY good friend of mine.
caitlin [ url ] said at 8:48 AM 08-19-2002: Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe you should just go out and buy an illegal handgun and kill them both, hide their bodies in the woods and hope that some dude with a sniffy dog doesn't find them too soon. I mean, now that the bitch is pregnant, they're DOOMED to Jerry Springerdom. They're better off dead. Trust me on this one. IM me if you need some killin' advice.
bradley said at 9:40 AM 08-19-2002: I agree. If you starve pigs for about a week, they will eat just about anything. They will even devour the bones for you. You will only need about 4 pigs per adult human. Problem solved, next issue.
milky [email] said at 4:27 PM 08-19-2002: C'mon, like I'm lying about the average female? Please. Which sex is always dishing the most dirt or trying to "help" people in relationships?
mary [email] said at 5:02 PM 08-19-2002: All *people* who don't like to gossip raise your hand. I work in a newsroom, which is gossip central. I get most of my good dirt on my co-workers' personal and professional lives from men.
Colleen said at 2:37 AM 08-20-2002: Maybe I should clarify for some non Ben Kweller listeners that "I am wasted but I'm ready" is a line following "sex reminds her of eating spagetti", and not an actually state I was in- I don't drink or do drugs but I do feel wasted.
However, this has nothing to do with anything about lying and affairs...or maybe it does for some people. I haven't been a participant in, but a victim of such. Or at least it had been suggessted to me that alcohol was the real betrayer of my trust in a not too distant and still painful ordeal I endured foolishly, not knowing who to blame, my "friend" or my lover.
I also would like to say that one does not neccessarliy have to speak to be a participant in gossip. I don't really know any of you Killoggers, and don't regualrly visit this site, but this particular post caught my eye (and brought me back here). I think it is imperative that someone tell this blind manipulated person the truth about his fiance. I'm not interested in how this turns out because I enjoy gossip, but because I want to feel like there are decent honest people left in the world. People that believe in upholding the truth and revealing the facts behind the coverups and "I did NOT have sexual relations with THAT WOMAN" lies... I want to feel like in the end truth will prevail. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?
I guess it doesn't matter because my own truth is I've been lying to myself- trying to convince myself that his "I love you"'s are as true as mine are. That the lies of the past remain there along with my own iniquities.
Perhaps we all just want to be loved and sometimes forget that's what all of us want.
Right now I'm no longer hoping for love, just trying not to be hurt anymore. I also want to save someone else from being hurt any more than they surely will be, whether the truth about this particular affair comes out or not.
The more time passes that this guy doesn't know the truth, the more it will hurt when it comes out. Kind of like pulling off a band-aid. Forgive the poor analogy, but I was at a loss.
Any of you who have experienced a form of betrayal know what I mean. The sooner one knows the better. The sooner one can begin to move on.
Alas, this one is not my decision. I only hope in my own life someone would have the guts, compassion, and regard for my well being to intervene, and that given the oppurtunity I would do the same for someone else.
Afterall, we have to look out for each other if we want someone to look after us, right?
I vote 3, just to see the reaction.
