Tom's Terrible at Texting

Dear DiaLog,

I know there’s only one thing you really want to know right now – what did Tom say? – patience friends. I’ll get there.

For you to understand exactly how we got thus far, you need to know a few things:

Thing number 1: My best friend is full of wonderfully stupid ideas

Thing number 2: I wish mobile phones had never been invented

Thing number 3: I owed Liv a cup of coffee

I’m sure there’s loads more ‘things’ but basically, if you’ve skipped ahead then read on back… it’ll make more sense.

So there I was, 11 o’clock am, sitting in ‘Coffee on the Corner’ (also known as Terri’s new boyfriend’s workplace), phone on the table, staring at the screen. The conversation which followed went something like this:

“Staring at it’s not going to do anything Allie.”
“I don’t care. I can’t believe he hasn’t replied – of all the messaged I could ever send him, this is the only one that would EVER demand a reply. And he hasn’t.”
“Just give it time.”

So we waited. And we waited… and in the meantime we may have done a little bit of Benjamin Preston watching. One thing that’s really bugging me is that Ben is a nice guy… like, a genuinely nice guy. So WHAT is he doing with my sister?! *That was rude, cut that out… Not to say that Terri’s undeserving of him – I love her don’t get me wrong – but he’s not like her at all. I guess opposites attract. Allow me to provide you with exhibit A:

[8 o’clock am. Home. Way too early.]

I’m lying in bed, half awake and I hear banging across the hallway.
“Teresa! Shutup…” (I’m usually much more agreeable than this… but it was early)

“What?!”
“Be quiet.”
“You be quiet.”
“Fine.”
At this point, Miss Perfect comes walking down the hallway.
“Hey Terri? You’re waking everyone up. Are you going to work?”
“Hi Abigail… um yeah. Sorry.”
“That’s ok. Thanks.”
“All good.”

I mean…! See?! See what I put up with? And trust me… dialogue doesn’t do it half the justice. Might I just add that she never ‘got up’ for work? She was at a party until goodness knows when and then watched 3 movies… REALLY LOUDLY… in the lounge room next to me.

Now compare exhibit A with exhibit B:

[11 o’clock am. Coffee on the Corner. Still too early.]
I’m sitting at a table across from Liv, and at the next table sit a (rather adorable) older couple having a (pretty lovely) conversation about their granddaughters running achievements. (Turns out this kid is 2… but that’s besides the point).
[Call Me Maybe starts playing in the background… I know right? Classic coffee shop music… not]

“Oh, excuse me young man,” the old man beckons Ben Preston.
“Yes sir, what can I get for you?”
“No, no, not that. You see I’m trying to talk to my wife, but your music is very loud.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. I’ll be sure to turn it down straight away.”
“Thank you.”

See what I mean?! Considerate! He’s definitely nothing like Teresa…

I know, I know. Sidetracked again. I’m sorry… where was I?

Text. Waiting. Boredom. Ben Preston. Coffee… mmm. Coffee. The text. I know what you’re thinking. What an idiot, right? Seriously Tom, text her back. Allie why do you want to be with this guy anyway? Everyone knows that non-texter-backers are the worst people to be in a relationship with. Imagine being uncontactable… but honestly? Tom’s not a bad guy. He’s just got really bad taste in girls.

And how do I know that? Tom never texted me back…

But his girlfriend did.

This is (an incredibly embarrassed..) Allie Fisher saying Seeya… I’m going to need that pillow again.

LOVE! - Who needs it?

Allie

HELP! Liv Made Me Do Something Crazy!

Dear DiaLog,

No. No. No. No. No. That did NOT just happen. This is like one of those horrible nightmares where you wake up and almost die of relief because none of it was real… well I just ‘woke up’… and I don’t feel so relieved.

It all started when Terri finally opened up to me about the mysterious Mr. Benjamin (Ben) Preston. It turns out that Facebook was right about him (trusty old Facebook, you never let me down…) and he does indeed have blue eyes and brown hair, and work in a café and study psychology… and it also turns out that my sister has had a ‘thing’ for him for the past … well… a fair few years. The alleged ‘café’ (otherwise known as ‘Coffee on the Corner’) happens to be one of our favourite spots and a few months ago, Terri waited for his shift to finish before getting up to leave, walking just quickly enough to overtake him, but slowly enough that he had a chance to say ‘you first’ and hold the door open for her while she ducked through. ‘You first’ led to ‘so you work here?’ led to ‘my name is…’ led to ‘here’s my number’ led to ‘ok, call me’ led to here. Smooth one Teresa. She’s sly… but you have to hand it to her.

As I recounted this (though in a rather extended version) to Livy, I couldn’t help but notice that after a while she stopped focusing on me and started looking at the ceiling. Why the ceiling? Who knows… I guess that’s where you look when you’re deep in thought? Anyway, while Liv was ceiling staring and I was story regurgitating the cogs in my mind started to clink together with those in Liv’s and I said ‘No!’ She just smiled. The conversation that followed went something like this:

“No what?!” *still smiling*
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“What are you, telepathic? What am I thinking?”
“Just because Terri has the guts to tell a guy she likes him doesn’t mean that I have to. Terri’s a go-getter… I’m a wait-for-them-to-‘go get’-me.”
“Just write a text… you don’t have to send it, but I’ll bet you a coffee at ‘Coffee on the Corner’ that you will.”

“Fine. But I’m not sending it.”
“What’s the worst that can happen? You get free coffee.”

So I did. And THIS is why I’m not speaking to Liv.

You know when you have 2 classes in the same classroom and different seats in each but you automatically go to one of them even when it’s the class you sit in the other one? It’s like your brain’s on autopilot… except it was my finger, not my legs. And my brain definitely wasn’t switched on. It may or may not have gone soooomething like this:

Hey Tom. I know we dnt really

talk much but I guess I’d like th@

2 change. I really admire u &

I’d like 2 get 2 know u better.
I’ve liked u for a really long

time & its really hard not

knowing if there is any chance

for us in the future.

Want to go out with me some

time?

*Please note that somewhere around here, Liv grabbed my phone and started tampering with my message…

I think I might be in <3 with u.

*This is where I grab my phone back… unaware of what will happen…!!!

Anyway. Think abt it.
LOVE!
Allie xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

*DRUM ROLL*

SEND

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO………………………………………………

He hasn’t responded.

This is Allie and I have to go and put my head under my pillow and scream until I forget that Tom even exists. Seeya…

LOVE! – Except if you’re Tom. I didn’t mean it like that L

Allie

My Sister's Secret

Dear DiaLog,

So it (‘it’ being the story of Terri and the mysterious ‘boyfriend’ boy) started yesterday when Terri ‘casually’ mentioned she might have started dating someone. Naturally I had some questions (which of course my sister failed to answer) so naturally I needed to find my own answers. How? Research…

I may be bad at maths, but research is definitely one of my strong points. Yes, I may have googled him and yes, there may have been a little bit of Facebook stalking. Ok, so there may have been a lot of Facebook stalking. Annnnddd there may have been interrogation. Nothing creepy.

Here’s what I found:

Source 1: Facebook

·      Name: Benjamin Preston

·      Brown hair

·      Blue eyes (Good start…)

·      Way too many friends (Popular?)

·      Works at a café

·      Psychology student (Smart?)

·      ‘Single’ (Pfffttt…. As if)

Source 2: Google

·      There are 25 professionals on LinkedIn called Benjamin Preston (Thanks Google…)

·      Seriously… nothing.

Source 3: Interrogation – The Siblings

For source three (also known as ‘The Interrogation’) I went directly to the siblings. Which went something like this:

“Abigail, have you noticed anything weird about Terri?”
“You mean the fact that she finally cares about how she looks? I saw her putting on eye makeup this morning.”
“I know, what’s with that?”
“Someone’s got a boyfriend…”
“You know?”
“Yep.”
“Tell me what you know!”

Which was pretty much nothing. Trust my perfect younger sister to know everything there IS to know without being told a single thing. Seriously – how annoyingly ‘good’ can you get???

What we DID deduce is that Mum and Dad know – and what’s more? Mum invited him over for dinner. There’s talk of an apple pie. Kill me now.

You might be wondering by now (or maybe you’re not…?) why I really care about my sister’s love life. Why is that interesting? You may or may not have realized, but I don’t exactly have one… but I’ll keep you posted. Literally.

This is Allie Fisher, insane sister and hopeless romantic freak, saying ‘seeya’…

*STILL NEED NEW SIGN OFF

LOVE!

Allie

Terri Got a Boyfriend? WHAT?!

Dear DiaLog,

I’d like to start this post (is that what you call this?) with a bit of a quote. In the words of Alex Hitchens in ‘Hitch’ (don’t you just love that movie?) …

“Like I always tell my clients - begin each day as if it were on purpose.”

So, today, that’s exactly what I did. I guess I should probably warn you now that I’m slightly movie obsessed – but you’ll get used to that.  Back to my point… I got out of bed… pretty ordinary… I ate breakfast (coco pops if you must know – Dad did the shopping) and I got dressed. Not being a school day (thank you government for school holidays) I then went back to bed… yes, in my clothes… and watched 2 hours of YouTube.

“Ordinary,” you say, “I do that all the time.”
Hypothetically, if you said that (as Liv did when she called me at 10am) our conversation may or may not have gone something like this:

“Ordinary? Pfft. I never do this. You should know me better than that?”
“I do know you better than that… well enough to know that you’re not exactly ordinary Allie.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Compliment.”
“I said thanks!” (*Insert ‘cute’ smiley face emoticon here to avoid awkward miscommunication*)
“Right.”

Then it might go on, and on, and on, and on about nothing in particular at all until I realize that Liv (or you, hypothetically speaking) might just be right. Since when have I succumbed to stereotypes? Just because 89.999% of the teenage population does this on a very regular basis, why does that mean it’s normal for me? So, I started wondering. What’s wrong with me…? Am I just weird? Maybe that’s why… certain people… have no apparent interest in me. As a friend of course. Nothing else. Nothing ‘weird’.

Anyway – after Liv called (thanks Liv, great start to the day) I got up and had one of those thrilling sister-sister conversations with my equally thrilling older sister (love you Terri). Like I said yesterday, Terri’s kind of the… rebellious one? Nevertheless, she’s the one who comes and sits on my bed and chats to me for hours (ok, so my definition of ‘got up’ really just means ‘sat up’) which is cool, most of the time. From a birds eye view (which is kind of how I imagine you imagining it) it looks something like this:

“So, come on. Tell me – what do you know that I don’t?” Of course at this point I never know what on Earth she’s talking about.
“Sorry?”
“Don’t play dumb, tell me. You told Tom, didn’t you?” Did I mention Terri knows about Tom? Yeah. Long story.
“Nope. What’s new with you?” Now, knowing my older, cunning-er sister – and knowing that she knows me – I should have known that all of this would be a set up so that she could tell me something of personal significance in a completely casual way… of course drawing more attention to the fact that it’s definitely not a ‘casual’ topic of discussion. More the ‘lets grab coffee and chocolate and more coffee and more chocolate and cry and hug and hold hands in a circle’ type ‘D&M’. Great.

“So I kind of started dating someone.” WHAT?! *Calm down, calm down, breathe, breathe, breathe…*

“You…? When?” *Breathe again*
“Like, six months ago. Guess I’ve been meaning to tell you.” And – would you believe it – then she left. Thanks sis. Great. Really.

And THAT, my friends is why you should start each day with a purpose. And tomorrow that purpose, without a doubt, is to find out the five W’s. Who? What? When? Where? WHY?! (Liv? Is that 5?)

This is Allie Fisher, saying seeya… and I feel like I just said goodnight on the national evening News.

*Note to Self: Get a new sign off!

LOVE!

Allie