Q: Should I forget about the guy with the plywood mattress? A: Yes

dear gtg,
this past spring, a good friend set me up with a friend of hers. goofy art kid without a decent full-time job and plywood board for a mattress. we slept together...a lot. i found it annoying that he would take eons to return my calls and would myspace message me instead of using email, but, quirky art kid, right?

we were having a grand old time until i left for a month-long trip. we said "see you later," and, while i joked with friends that i'd probably come back and he'd have a girlfriend, i was truly surprised when i got back and that's precisely what happened! am i wrong to think that, even if you're just having a good time with someone (whom you might like out of bed as much as in), wouldn't it be nice if they told you they were kinda on to someone else and basically using your cooter in the interim? because he didn't tell me himself, oh no. i found out through the friend who'd hooked us up, after i'd been back for a week!

whatever happened to courtesy and gentle ego-breaking rejection? the worst part: i still have it for this dude a little. it's maddening. so where did i go wrong? did i give the goods away too fast? was i, for however beautiful and awesome he kept telling me i was, not good enough? or should i just stay away from guys who sleep on plywood boards?

Sadly,
Princess In Madd Plywood

Dear PIMP,

I want you to visualize something for me. Pretend that, while you were gone on your trip, douchebag goofy art kid was laying, alone, on his plywood mattress, fantasizing about you and crying and jerking off til he couldn't feel anything anymore.

He is so distraught by your absence--indeed, he was so nervous about his feelings for you that he had to use MySpace messages instead of real email or the phone to get in touch with you--that he does the only thing a man can do: he sought comfort in the arms of another cooter.

He didn't reject you--you rejected him. You said, "See ya, biatch, I'm goin' on a trip." And he couldn't handle it. This very situation has happened to every girl--including me, this very summer--and believe me, the heartbroken men are legion, wandering the earth drunk-dialing their ex-girlfriends in our absence. But that's what life is like when you're a pimp. You can't get hung up on the last guy, or the guy whose fingers trembled too much to dial a phone, or the guy who slept on a plywood board, or the guy who "thought" he mentioned that he was going to visit his ex-girlfriend. He does all of these things because he's just that into you. And he can't handle it.

So, PIMP, you are the playa in this situation (as, as always, am I). It is up to you to pick yourself up by your lady-bootstraps and find a man with a real mattress and fingers that are functionally able to dial a telephone. And take comfort in the fact that this problem effects men the world over: He's Just Not That Into You has been translated into 37 languages, after all.

Love,
Go-To Girl