Trashley: Twenty-Three
Alpha Gay
It was our second night in New York, and Ashley was coming down from another epic meltdown. This one started after she learned a woman had reached out to me on Twitter, claiming Ashley was her abuser. Ashley lost it when I asked who this woman was and begged me to block her. But I didn’t. I didn’t even know if you could block someone on LinkedIn. The only people I blocked were Cecelia and her friends.
I did what I did when Ashley’s ex-wife messaged me — I read the messages and confronted Ashley, and Ashley did what she always did: meltdown and deny everything. I still had no idea whether these women were warning me or fucking with me, especially since both Ashley and her mom said these women were after Ashley’s money and hellbent on making her life miserable.
While Ashley was in the shower, I secretly glanced at her phone screen. It lit up with texts from Cecelia. What was she texting about? The kids? Our New York trip? Being blocked from my Instagram? Or was she a scorned ex who was mad that Ashley had moved on? My head was rattling from the percussive beat of Ashley’s screams, like the world’s worst sound bath. My brain raced with thoughts of Cecelia and this new mystery woman: I had to get to the bottom of it. I felt bad I had blocked Cecelia and her friends on Instagram. I didn’t want to, but it was either that or deal with Ashley’s mood swings.
The next morning, Ashley was in a good mood. Thank. Fucking. God.
She worked from the hotel lounge while I hit the streets. I met a friend for coffee at La Colombe and stopped by the Housing Works thrift shop in Soho before wandering to Union Square. I was sifting through The Strand bookstore’s Occult and Paranormal section when my phone buzzed.
As if summoned: the mystery woman was back.
She sent more messages through LinkedIn, and then publicly replied to a few of my recent tweets, doing whatever she could to get my attention. She worried Ashley had control of my social media, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Message after message after message dinged.
I knew mentioning this to Ashley was risky, but I had to. Texting would be safer than telling her in person. She had warned me this woman wouldn’t stop harassing me, and she was right. I started to see why she told me to block her. Plus, the messages brought me down. I didn’t want to picture Ashley as a monster, even though I knew she could be. My trip to The Strand was ruined.
I texted Ashley, expecting the worst, but I cushioned my texts with the kind of verbiage I knew Ashley would like. And I was shocked at her response because she kept her cool. She was still happy when I returned to the hotel later that afternoon.
That night, we met my friend Jess for dinner at the Meatball Shoppe in Williamsburg. Ashley had met Jess several times before in LA. I usually hated bringing Ashley around my friends because she would either shut down completely or be incredibly cocky. I relied on my charm and wit to balance out her insanity. I didn’t even like her interacting with the kids in my neighborhood because she talked to them like she had talked to my uncle, using big, nonsensical words. They would smile, nod, pretend they knew what she was saying, and laugh occasionally. It made me cringe. She had the social skills of a hippopotamus.
At dinner, I excused myself to the bathroom, and when I came back to the table, Ashley tapped Jess on the arm and said, “Tell her Jess, see Jess agrees with me.”
I had no idea what Ashley was referring to, but I looked at Jess for an explanation.
“Ashley was saying it’s normal to make friends using dating apps, and I guess I could see that.”
Jess didn’t know about the fight Ashley and I had a month and a half earlier when I found out she was on Bumble.
”What? Why are you bringing that up again?” I asked, looking at Ashley.
”You needed to hear it, see? Jess agrees with me. It’s a good place to make friends. And lots of people do it.”
I felt my face heat up. She used the two minutes I was away from the table to bring up Bumble, so my friend would be “on her side.” It was so fucking weird. I knew it was weird. Jess knew it was weird. She pulled this with my 78-year-old neighbor Randy, too. We were in Randy’s garden having cocktails when she said, “See? Randy agrees with me. Kirsten is in love with you.”
”Keep me out of this,” he responded.
And then I remembered her blow-up in Alaska when I told her I wasn’t going to take her to my parent’s house until she calmed down. And she responded, “Take me there so they can see how badly you treat me, they’ll be on my side!”
I was sensing a trend. She would get people to agree with her delusions, as if to say to me, “Even your own friends and family are with me,” when they were just being polite because she was acting a fool.
Jess and I looked at each other. We didn’t need to say anything, but knew what the other was thinking. Ashley was off. This was cocky Ashley, my least favorite version. The one who thought she was all mighty and better than everybody else, who thought she was hot shit and could convince anyone of anything.
When the check came, I handed the server my card.
“No, what are you doing?” Ashley said, as if I had just committed some unspeakable act.
”It’s my treat.” I replied.
”Can you come back here?” She called out to the server as he walked away. She grabbed my credit card from his hands and swapped it out for hers, as if she was making up for when it didn’t work a few days before.
”I make a lot of money. This is nothing.” She said, puffing up the MIT draped across her chest.
I cringed, and Jess and I locked eyes again. Who says that?
”Thank you for the meal,” Jess told Ashley.
We parted ways with Jess and took the L back to the city.
Ashley spotted an androgynous and stylish woman with full-sleeve tattoos down the subway car. I watched her gawk for an uncomfortable amount of time. She turned to me, “God, I hate tattoos. They’re so ugly, it’s like she thinks she’s an alpha or something.”
This bitch was on a roll — cocky, mean, judgemental, putting other people down for no reason.
”What are you talking about? Her tattoos are hot.” I said, defending the cool stranger.
”Whatever, you don’t know anything. You’re just a plant gay.”
She was getting on my absolute last nerve with every sentence that came out of her mouth.
“Okay, so I’m just a plant gay, and what are you?” I asked, waiting for her self-diagnoses.
“I’m an Alpha Gay, clearly.” Oh, how I wanted to knock her down one million notches. Where was this massive ego coming from? She was severely delulululululu.
I walked faster than her back to the hotel. I knew that if I kept hearing her voice, I’d have no choice but to bash my head into the side of a brick building and pray for a coma. My tolerance was coming to an end. The list of things I hated about her was now longer than the things I liked. I confused myself as to why I was putting up with this. Was it because I was lonely from the pandemic and the years leading up to it when I didn’t date anyone? That probably didn’t help. Did she catch me at a vulnerable time when I felt like I was back in action? I was finally myself again, I missed me. Did I like having a companion, even if she was prone to next-level outbursts, lies, and chaos? I guess it kept life entertaining after a boring year-long pandemic. Was she buying my attention? I did love getting gifts and money and taking vacations. She promised me all of those things in the future.
This social media job is quarterly, so you’ll get a check for $30k every three months.
Let’s camp in Big Sur when you’re back from Spain.
I’ll buy you a house. We can easily live in a two-million-dollar home. Plus I still have the one point five million from selling my San Francisco apartment.
Let’s go to Europe in December for two weeks.
She was future-baiting me. Of course, I wanted all of those things. And it kept me around.
I made a plan for myself: I would stay with her through our European Christmas vacation since I’d already started planning it, buying tickets, and making reservations, and then I would break up with her when we returned.
“Do you know what we should do at the end of our New York trip?” she asked as we walked into our room.
“What,” I asked, not really giving a fuck what we should do.
“We should see Hamilton again, but watch it from the other side of the stage. I’ll get the tickets, and we’ll rent out the box again.”
This was a *perfect* example of future-baiting. She knew she needed to give me something to look forward to: dangle a carrot in front of my face. And like a dog who knows he’ll get a treat after he sits pretty, I respond, “Fuck yeah, I want to see Hamilton on our last night.”
"Alpha Gay" excuse me while I roll my eyes so hard that I see my own spine
I hope a college professor is some where reading this and preparing a syllabus for a future course. Future Baiting Fuckery 101.