can i ever get him back?

Okay, I am Shawn the dude.

BETSEY: <Calls Shawn by phone>

SHAWN: [Oh god ... I guess I'll take this now and pretend I don't get the next three. I should probably act like I don't know who it is.] Good afternoon, Shawn speaking.

BETSEY: Hey, Shawn, I -

SHAWN: No ...

BETSEY: - Um, I got my hands on two tickets to that [incredibly stupid, boring, improper and expensive]* comedy show you like so much, shall we go there this Sunday?

SHAWN: Yeah no. See, I've got lacrosse practice for the next 168 hours. It's crazy. And after that I might be going to Burma. But how are you doing? Fine? [I hope so - I don't want to have to feel guilty for hurting you ... although it is kind of cool to think I'm so great that you can't live without me.]

* - brackets [] indicate what Betsey and Shawn think, but do not say.

 

{Shawn had seen Betsey stalking him at the party earlier, but he was already partly drunk and noted that she was carrying his favorite vodka.}

SHAWN: [This is so totally not unexpected. She's stalking me now. Oh no, here she comes.]

BETSEY: Hey, Shawn, you here too! How totally unexpected! But nice nevertheless, do not you think?

SHAWN: Um, lacrosse ...? [Stupid! - that won't work.] Um, hey Betsey! [She does look kind of hot ... that's her number two outfit she's got on.] Lacrosse practice just got called off, in case you're wondering. I see you're carrying my favorite vodka. Is that for me? I guess maybe we can hang out for a while if it is. Otherwise my plane to Burma is leaving shortly and I have to go ... unless you want to go round the bushes for a quick {oral sex}? [Betsey always was pretty good in that department, and it's not like I have to answer her calls later or anything.]

 

Ah, but this is precisely where it would fail. Betsey's version of "getting him back" (see original post) is not getting him back into bed for a single encounter, it's getting him back in her life permanently as her partner (because he is her 'soul mate,' et al). After getting his during this little drunken encounter, Shawn would likely go right back to blowing her off, possibly because she cheapened herself even more in his eyes and appears even more desperate and less deserving of respect, possibly because he could get it elsewhere and feels no particular connection to Betsey that makes the act rise above regular sex, and possibly because her persistence is getting 'scary.' (That's often what it feels like for the withdrawn partner who isn't dealing with the effects of oxytocin/dopamine withdrawal. The stricken person is perceived as acting 'weird' or 'scary.')

So I submit that at this point Betsey has failed, unless you've got any other tricks up your sleeve.

 

Okay, @those who have voiced complaints at what is happening here, what exactly do you object to about it?

Since we're all being honest, I suspect that your disdain is actually cover for feelings of discomfort that are arising from the subject material hitting too close to home. If that's the case, I wish that you would just say so instead of trying to put Sergio and myself in the 'social outcast' box. That's fairly shameful. I have great respect for honesty and little regard for duplicity.

On role play: I'm not in the psychiatry field, but I'm pretty sure the concept of role-play is often used as a tool for treatment and/or therapy. The gameToEE - the reason for which this website exists - is based on a role-playing game system that probably the majority of members here have participated in to some degree or another. Therefore I reject that anyone should have any truly legitimate reason to think that a role-play exercise (particularly a largely tongue-in-cheek one on a forum's 'general discussion' board) is somehow out of bounds.

On Betsey: Betsey may or may not be real (personally I think she's probably not, although there are a lot of lonely souls out there who have nowhere to go except internet message boards), but 'her' problem is nonetheless real and is experienced by people everywhere every day. The purpose of an internet message board is for people to have discussions, so I also reject that we are out of bounds here by having a discussion, given that it does not violate board rules. We're not discussing porno sites or links to replica watches; rather a subject for which this board actually has a sticky thread (though this topic happens to not be in it).

So I ask again, can you explain what the problem really is here? No one is forcing you to read the thread. Tune out if it makes you uncomfortable.

 

Maybe her #1 outfit would get her some post-relationship relations a second time, but what about after that? I foresee a lonely road for poor Betsey ...

The Player's Handbook rules would say that she should act as though the end of the relationship was no big deal to her while still remaining nice, open, and semi-available (though in a self-respecting way - not a doormat way). This would, in theory, trick Shawn into re-evaluating, thinking maybe he was wrong about her clingy, possessive, devalued nature. :shrug: