Out of the Dark and into the Light.....

[Jimbo]

So I got a voicemail from my W yesterday while I was out at a very late lunch (dinner) that she called our taxman, and he said that I needed to speak with her, so give her a call, and that she'll be there until 5:30. I didn't get the message until after that time, so I didn't call her back. I called the taxman, and he did confirm that W had talked to him and that there were certain things I needed to discuss with her about whether we were filing separately or jointly. I got an email from her this morning repeating her voicemail from yesterday and asking me if my phone number at work had changed. Since I had just come out of the dark and I had been extremely busy as of late, I decided to call her back this morning to reinforce the fact that, yes, I am taking calls and emails from her.

I called her back and apologized for not getting back to her sooner and explained why. She said that she was more concerned with getting the taxes in on time and that the taxman told her that I wanted her to call me and asked me why. When I exclaimed surprise at this, she proceeded to ask me whether I told him that. I tried to tell her that that doesn't matter right now and discussed the matter at hand. When I was done, she told me that she knew all of that from talking to the taxman and she again focused on asking whether I had said to the taxman that I wanted her to call me. I was caught off guard by her question, not knowing why she was asking and afraid that the answer was going to be twisted around by my W. If I told her no, she'd think that I was calling her a liar, or didn't want to talk to her. If I said yes, I'd be lying. I told her that no, I didn't ask him to tell her that, and then followed up with "Don't get me wrong- it's very nice to talk to you, but I didn't say that". As we discussed the tax business at hand, she proceeded to get more distant as she calmly told me that she'd mail me the necessary forms. I tried to lighten things up by asking how she was. She gave straight, concise answers and reiterated her statement about mailing the forms. She didn't want any small talk- she wanted to get it over with and get off the phone, which she did very promptly after I said goodbye.

Did she want me to pursue her? Did I miss a nuance she was sending? Or was she just pissed at the fact that she misunderstood, and had an unnecessary interaction with me? Or was she trying to ruin her good impression of me from last week by making me the "bad guy" in a situation of her own design?

I didn't know, but decided to cover my tracks. I called her back and got her voicemail. Interesting- she picked up a minute or so ago...

I left a message saying that I forgot to confirm with her that, per her email, my work phone number did not change and I asked her why she thought it had. I then took the opportunity to say to her that I was going to be in her neck of the woods on Thursday, so if she wanted to save the cost of a stamp that I could collect the forms from her then, and to let me know what she wanted to do, and I then hung up.

Why would it even matter who needed who to call who in the first place?

MLC.

That's why.