Definition
1 : the part of a sword or foil blade between the middle and point
2 : a minor flaw or shortcoming in character or behavior : weakness
In the 1600s, English speakers borrowed the French word foible to refer to the weakest part of the sword or foil, that part being the portion between the middle and the pointed tip. Despite the superficial resemblance, foible does not come from foil. The French foible was an adjective meaning "weak." (That French word, which is now obsolete, is derived from the same Old French term, feble, which gave us feeble.) The English foible soon came to be applied not only to weaknesses in blades but also to minor failings in character. It appeared in print with that use in the 17th century, and now the "character flaw" sense is considerably more popular than the original sword application.
Ok, so was stalking my ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend on social media that bad of a thing to do? Ok, well, maybe, yes it was a bit pathetic and stalkery and my friends kept taking my phone off of me, but was it uncommon? Oh no, not it was not. In fact, I dare any one of you to say that you have not, on occasion, indulged in a bit of cyber stalking yourself, just to see how your high school nemesis, ex boy/girl friend or old boss is doing. Anyone? Nope, because you all know we've done it and stuff like Facebook and Instagram just makes it that much easier.
Like of us who have engaged in this sort of activity, doing this brought me no joy or pleasure. In fact, as you probably well know, it brought me nothing but misery and expensive phone screen repair bills (having thrown my phone across the living room with a howl of rage after I discovered their sickly sweet happy holiday photos).
I should give it up. My friends had begged me to, my father had given me awkward but kindly meant fatherly talks, my mother had threatened to just shoot him and put us all out of his misery. I knew that I should just let it go, write the relationship off as a bad deal and get on with my life. Meet some of those fishes everyone kept talking about. But there was just one thing that prevented me from doing so.
You see, my ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend was a demon. And I am not using some sort of bitter about the break up hyperbole here. She was an actual demon. She had the horns, the cloven hooves, the tail, everything.
The funny thing was, only I could see her like that. Everyone else saw a normal woman/cheap skanky bimbo (depending on who you asked, their loyalty to me and how much their patience was running thin). Which of course, made it difficult for me to confess I saw her as a horned beast from the pit and for them to take it seriously. If they did believe me (or rather, if they believed that I believed what I saw) then they would ask concerned questions about how stressful work was, how i was handling the break up and maybe i should consider taking a holiday or perhaps seeing someone, maybe in a professional capacity since, you know, I had clearly been through a lot lately.
Heck, it was even getting to the point where I was starting to believe I was crazy Maybe I even would have taken up my friend's gentle and considerate offer of an all expenses paid trip into a very lovely (she assured) mental well being centre (she was very careful not to use the c word in any part of that conversation). However, before I could agree to such a course of action, I ran into them both one lunchtime, my ex and his new lady friend, by passing by the restaurant they were cozily dining in.
She caught me staring. Not at their cheesily entwined fingers on the table, but rather at her tail - which was busy entwining itself up the chair leg of the diners next to them and fishing in the woman's handbag.
She caught me looking and she smirked at me. All at once I could feel a wall of rage rise up through me, feeling as though it would sear my skin from the inside out, and then just as suddenly it cooled and drained back out of me. I looked at her calmly, at her red skin, her blackened eyes and cannibal teeth and I thought to myself,
'I am not crazy.'
And then I carried on walking and went back to work.
Of course, now I had a moral issue. What should I do about the fact that my ex was actually dating a denizen of hell. I mean, did he know already? Or was he completely oblivious? I mean, he had to have at least felt her tails or horns in certain situations right? No, nope brain not going there. Bad.
I mean, how did she even go to the toilet with those talons of hers? Surely there's no way she could wipe her arse without slicing herself to ribbons. Maybe demons just didn't shit. Christ, he'd love that. He hated the fact that women could be just as smelly as men - despite the fact it was a normal biological response to whatever you put in your stomach. He'd have fed me nothing but glitter and flowers if he thought it would have made my shit smell only of roses and rainbows.
A prince charming he hadn't been. And now that the initial indignation of being unceremoniously dumped for a literal demon with a killer body (both of her bodies, with both meanings of the word) was slowly passing, I could admit to myself, honestly, that our relationship hadn't been a good one, that he had deliberately and consistently made me feel small and less than I was and had, in the end, made me utterly miserable.
It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to argue that the demon had, in fact, done me a favour by stealing him.
But had he been enough of an arse hole that I could justifiably leave him to his own damnation?
Could I, with a clear conscience, not tell him what he had gotten himself into?
After a few fortifying glasses of wine, one evening I friend requested and messaged his demon girlfriend on Facebook. It was a short message.
'Does he know you're a demon?'
It was answered with an even shorter reply.
'No.'
'Are you going to tell him?'
'Might. You?'
'Don't know. What are you going to do with him?'
'NOYB'
And then she unfriended me and blocked my account.
Which was of no help to my moral quandary at all.
Eventually, the voice of my conscience grew too loud to ignore and, telling myself I owed him a little bit at least for the good times we had shared together (true, i couldn't remember any particular good moments but I'm sure there must have been some at some point) I made a point of dropping by a bar I knew he'd often frequent after work and casually bumping into him and even more casually dropping the bombshell that his new girlfriend was a demon.
Of course, I knew how this would go. He would not believe me for a second and think it a sad, pathetic ploy for me to try and regain his affections. He would most likely post the entire event on every platform of social media and invite all of our mutual friends to laugh at me. Most of whom wouldn't, but would instead go one step worse and pity me instead.
And I dated this wanker for so long again, why?
I hovvered at the bar awkwardly and was soon rewarded (punished) with the grating, condescending sound of my ex's voice braying behind me.
"Sweetheart, you just couldn't keep away coudl you?"
I turned and there he was in all his pompous glory, the hair oh do carefully styled so that the receding hairline almost didn't show, the tailored suit with the red tie, the arrogant tilt of the chin and the smug, winner's smile that showed he so easily believed that I had come here because I truly could not get over him and he was, of course, all that.
I plastered a smile on my face.
"What a lovely surprise." I managed to gargle out.
"Surprise, right." He winked at me. Bile rose in my throat and i choked it down.
"Is your girlfriend here?" I asked gamely ploughing on.
"She will be." He said airily. "She really understands the meaning of fun, unlike some."
Subtle, I thought.
"Although," He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "We're always open to teaching new experiences, if you're willing to learn."
"Ah, no." I said, leaning away from his clammy hands that were somehow now on my waist. "I'm not interested in that."
He smirked at me. "Sure you are. Why else would you be here?"
I spotted his girlfriend walking up behind him. One big, orange snake eye winked at me.
"Why am I here?" I asked brightly. "Why, to toast to the happy couple of course." I raised my glass and tilted it towards her.
By the way he span round so fast, and the panicked look on his face, his new girlfriend was clearly not as into 'fun' and 'new experiences' as he had let on.
I felt a large grin split my face. "To you and your lovely lady darling." I said, as sweet as arsenic. "She's a hell of a girl."
I laughed myself sick the entire way home.
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