Christ, but when it rains it snows. I have what appears to be: (1) drinking date tonight with Bulgarian real estate agent, (2) lunch date on Saturday with a guy in my hall, and (3) a lunch date next Friday with my Not-Gay Boyfriend.

Whee!

So, I say "what appears to be" because while the drinking date is definitely a date, one can never really tell about these lunches. In this day and age of coed friendships, it's never quite clear what the intentions are. In my day, we didn't have these confusing multi-gendered re-lay-shun-ships! No sir, we didn't have friendships at all -- we had... we had rocks! And we liked 'em!

But seriously now, how do you interpret this: Not-Gay Boyfriend was a teaching assistant in one my classes last year. Great guy, passionate and dedicated to public service. We never had a conversation outside of discussing assignments. This year, he and I are in another class together. We never speak to each other, nor even acknowledge each other's existence. Then today, we discuss an article we'd read in last year's class, and he catches my eye and we both smile. And then after class, he comes over and chats and we almost go to lunch except that I have another lunch appointment. But we set another time for next week, and he emails, "It would be nice to catch up." Um, catch up on what? What secret relationship do we have here that I'm not aware of, such that we would have anything to catch up on?

I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. In fact, I ran to Joiner's room immediately afterwards and jumped up and down like a little kid, squealing, "Not-Gay Boyfriend asked me to lunch! Not-Gay Boyfriend asked me to lunch!" But these things are always open to interpretation.

In the meanwhile, though, I'm still squealing on the inside. Which I should stop now. Because it's vaguely porcine and disturbing.

And in the recruiting news for today -- got a call from California Firm today, to whose dinner I went on Tuesday. I got the hard sell that night, and got another hard sell on the answering machine today. Wow. It's amazing how much these people make it seem like you'll actually be valued at their firm. I read an article last year theorizing that the reason so many people go to law firms from Crimson is the psychological relief they feel upon learning that, after a year of being told they know nothing, SOMEone actually does like them. That someone turns out to be law firms. And with the extent and expansiveness of the wooing, it's no wonder that we all respond positively.