Like clockwork, my dad texts me every 2 days: “Call me”
I’ve tried just quietly dropping down the number of days I call him.
He’s like that algorithm Google uses when you set it up to check POP3 emails. The more emails you have when they check the server, the more often they check. Google supposedly gets down to only checking those twice per day if you hardly have emails.
I built a way around that using automatic “tickler” emails my server send to the POP3 account I use. That’s for a different post though.
The more often I call him just because he says “Call me”…the more he wants me to call.
It got so crazy at one point he called me THREE TIMES in one day just to “check in and see how you’re doing.”
One of those times, we said our goodnights and hung up…and he called 20 MINUTES LATER to say hi.
Yeah, I’m complaining, and could just say “Dude, you want to talk too much for me. Especially given the fact I really detest phone calls as a form of communication anymore”
But he’s the master of emotional manipulation. I had him in mind when I bought PCC, but have been kinda iffy about running PCC for a long time. Kinda worried it’ll start digging up the many times I’ve given in to his insecurities.
I actually had it down to calling him once weekly for a while…but then he went and discovered he had ANOTHER SON…by some chick he hooked up with years ago.
And he’s all “This doesn’t mean I love you any less” and all this other stuff. I said “I’m an adult. I can handle myself” lol
So I am in my early 40s at the time, and go from being an only child to him asking “Have you called your brother today and see how he’s doing?”
And I finally said “It’s hard to think of anyone as a brother when I’ve never even met the guy. I don’t call him and check on him because we don’t know each other AT ALL.”
He did the “Oh, I see” thing.
The reason I bring up this OTHER SON is this guy hardly calls dad (Gee wonder why) and Dad is calling me MORE to make up for his sadness over that. This OTHER SON ruined it.
What’s funny is dad will text me “Call me”…20 mins later, he’ll text me “Did you get my text?”
I kinda just wanna send back “No” and then turn the phone off.
Dad tries that whole thing of “Ya know, son, one of these days I will die. I won’t be around anymore. THEN what will you do?”
And, sadly, my first thought is “Not talk on the damn phone all the time.”
