I confess it's going to be really awkward when I next see the gf of this client who blew me off after fishing for a design.
So the story is, someone got my business card from his gf, who met me at a meetup. (It is a small enough community that I can be assured I will meet her again.) He makes like he's really interested in working with me, then blows me off after I hand in a sketched design, because I didn't magically read his mind about what he wanted.
I email him back, merely suggesting that he pursue a graphic designer, and not the kind of designer I am, because I actually do want to have a conversation and not just be a telepathic Photoshop monkey. I really should have told him to go to a contest site like 99designs so he can fish among hundreds of designers at once and trick them for free work, but I refrained.
Today he leaves me a voicemail, offering some feedback about how to "help me" as a beginning designer. He then goes into this mini-rant about how I'm so difficult to contact (ie, call - I'm always on email) because I must be "so busy and important" to take calls um, during my actual day job doing cancer research where they PAY ME, or in class trying to get the design experience that he says I need.
I do kind of want to clear the air, because I know this guy works out at the same gym I do (so I actually might bump into him again), and I KNOW I'm going to meet his gf again, who should have known better than to enable him to victimize other designers. She was nice when I met her and I don't know how their relationship is, but seriously. She should have known better. He fished for a design and tricked me into giving him free work, then bailed without so much of an explanation. However, I am somewhat pleased that he can't reuse my work because it was a sketch. He must have done this before, because he showed me other designs that other people had made for him and he rejected. Yeah, I should have seen this coming from a mile away, huh?
Basically, I don't want to call him just to get chewed out. Even a beginner has got to recognize when it's best to just walk away. I know I should be better on the phone, but seriously, I have two other happy freelance clients, and they don't care that I don't call.
But I know I'll see his gf again.

Sigh. If I see her, I'll just be civil. But give her an internal extreme side-eye.
