On Post: Living Well is the Best Revenge

Date: January 29

Find It Here

Lee Newsome is a bit of a jerk then, isn’t he?

I kind of like it though.

I should clarify.

I don’t condone the behavior, obviously. You should never gloat to an ex (or anyone, I suppose, but especially an ex) about your current successes and you definitely not do it to someone who wasn’t even really an ex in the first place.

However, I am sure we have all had the impulse to. Perhaps not via the postal service like Lee here does, but still. Maybe the high school reunion, or a mutual friend’s birthday, or when you randomly run into them on the street. Heck, Facebook is one big platform designated to assuring everyone how grand your life is. But rarely do we do it with the kind of flair Lee does here. We might though, if we had zero shame or conscience. So, no I don’t like him or his actions, but there is something interesting to the point of fascination about a guy who does what he wants regardless of social norms. Characters like Michael Scott on The Office and Abed on Community on TV or any of Nic Cage’s roles in films kind of prove this.

As far as the inspiration that got this ball rolling, I knew someone back in the day who claimed this, the rejection part happened to him. He asked a girl out to some dance, she said she was out of town, he was disappointed but largely fine with it because sometimes people already have plans. If anything he was a bit pissed at himself for taking so long. Then, in conversation with a friend of the girl, this friend said something like, “So you are going to the dance with __________” and he explained, “No, she’s out of town.” His intended date’s friend was clearly caught flat footed by this and this guy could tell that the girl he had asked was not going to be out of town at all. He did not press the friend before him further and never called the girl he asked on it, but when he told me about it, he was 5 years removed from it. And it still, clearly, bothered him. From there, Lee was easy to jump to. This fella with more guts and no sense of propriety.

Why the song sent me there? Are we ever talking about anything else when we use that expression?

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