TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I don’t know how I feel about going through a boyfriend or girlfriend's phone, but I do know that it’s completely wrong for a casual hookup to do it.

Like Uhhh, what do you care??

But I guess Justin, this guy my friend Minka hooked up with for a few weeks – wanted his cake and eat her it, too. Ha.

Justin and Minka were dating in the most casual sense (the sense that makes my mom cringe) and even though Minka would have wanted to see Justin regularly, she said he made it annoyingly clear he wanted it to be strictly casual.

HE! 

HE wanted it to be casual.

As such, their interactions were limited to late-night activities.

But one night, Justin came over with Chinese takeout and while they were eating, Minka’s phone buzzed a new text message.

Minka said Justin instinctively looked at the screen and saw it was from a guy named Tyler, a friend of hers who played in her softball league. 

Minka put her phone somewhere else without reading the message and neither she nor Justin mentioned it for the rest of the night.

Minka didn’t feel the need to tell Justin that Tyler was just a friend who was bored at work as a bartender Tuesday nights and would mass text everyone he knew offering a free shot to whoever kept him company.

I suppose looking back it's sort of flattering that Justin was annoyed – maybe he wanted to be exclusive after all and just didn’t know it! – but instead of admitting this or asking her about it, he decided to look through her phone when she was in the bathroom.

Ugh.

Justin didn’t say that he looked through her phone, but Minka said when she walked out of the bathroom, Justin said he suddenly HAD TO GO (no sleepover), and took the Chinese food leftovers with him.

(Ed note: Rude! Leftovers stay in whoever's fridge they’re put into!!)

Minka brushed off his quick departure and it didn't cross her mind that Justin had looked through her phone, but the private dick accidentally revealed himself the next day.

...And this is where things get hilarious.

Justin, the guy who made it clear he didn’t want anything more than a hookup, called Minka the next day to tell her that he KNEW she was seeing someone named Tyler and that he didn’t “appreciate it.”

Hahaha appreciate it.

“What are you talking about?” Minka asked. “I’m actually not seeing anyone else.”

She figured Justin was just stewing over the text from the mysterious person name Tyler and taking a wild guess, but then Justin then spat out a completely far-fetched story about how he “discovered” this "news."

“Yea, my buddies were at a BAR last night and they overhead the bartender named TYLER talking about how he was dating a girl named MINKA,” he said.

HAHAHAHA

“What?” she said.

“And...how many people are named ‘Minka?’” he asked.

Wow. Iron-clad detective work, Justin. Uh, how many guys go to a bar and get the bartender’s name??

Minka then realized that Justin had to have looked through her phone and saw Tyler’s request that she visit him at the bar, because that's a little TOO much coincidental information. 

She told him to hold on and looked at the text from Tyler and saw that the name of the bar wasn't even mentioned.

Justin didn’t know that the bar in question was a hole-in-the-wall neighborhood bar that caters mostly to regulars and there was a slim chance that Justin’s friends even knew about it, let alone went and had a fictitious conversation. 

And even if they were there and became chummy with Tyler, he would not have said that. They weren't dating. At all.

Was there another bartender named Tyler about town dating another Minka???

"Yea? What bar?" she asked. 

"I don't know," he replied. 

Ha.

She then noted that Justin's tone was accusatory and smug. Was this a pathetic attempt to “bust” her?? 

FOR WHAT PURPOSE?!?!?

THEY WEREN’T PROPERLY DATING!!!

Why didn't he just bring it up to her when he saw the text???

(And here I thought men were uncomplicated creatures.)

Minka was pissed. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I think this is all very sketchy,” Minka said (ha), and hung up on him.

Then she texted Tyler.

“Hey were there a lot of people at the bar last night?” she asked.

“No, just the old man down the street. It’s never been more dead, we closed early,” he wrote back.

Right. 

In their very last interaction, Minka texted Justin saying she didn’t want to see him anymore, it was clear he went through her phone and she didn’t APPRECIATE it.

Ha.

Minka did, however, appreciate Tyler's free shot at the bar that night.

-Jenny