Of fringes and distractions

So. Here's how it went. I met Not-Boyfriend at 5:30, we walked over to this rather cool deli-type sandwich shop. Nothing particularly remarkable about our conversation or stroll over. We ordered, sat down, chatted about classes, life. He explains he has to be somewhere at 7:30 because his friend group decided to get together every Tuesday at a bar to hang out, to avoid the difficulty of finding time convenient to everyone (which, I can attest, is extremely difficult -- these busy Crimson kids!).

I congratulate him and his friends for making that attempt to get together so regularly. And then he says, yes, well, there are those friends, and then "there are people on the fringes, like [gesture indicating me]."

Taken aback, I say (in mock honored tone): "Ooh, a fringe friend!"

"Well," he replies, probably not having meant it to come out that way, "I'm sure I'm on the fringes for you too..."

I shrug non-committedly, and the conversation carries on.

Okay. As my friend Pearl once said, "Now it is time to complain." So, I AM a fringe friend -- last night was only the fourth time we've spent any time together! And actually, it's very nice that he makes the effort to solicit my companionship for errant meals here and there, considering that he's in his last semester of school and all. But c'mon. It is kinda weird to just out and say, yo, fringe friend, you're a fringe friend.

Anyway. I was a little sad about it, but I feel like it is now crystal clear what his intentions are. In fact, such a (refreshingly!) unambiguous signal is liberating, and no, I'm not making lemonade out of sour grapes or whatever. It's more like -- well, you know when you like someone, and the someone seems to like you back, and you're all atwitter because you obsess over every last interaction and word and gesture, thus sustaining the obsession, but then your object of affection starts, like, dating someone else, and you realize it was all a big fat LIE, and then you basically wonder what you saw in the big ole creep in the first place? Well, it's totally like that, but with a lot less bitterness. The promise of returned affection is a big aphrodisiac, and in the face of uncontrovertible proof demonstrating a lack of said affection, your own obsession/infatuation starts to fade pretty quickly.

There it goes! Fade, fade, fade!

Of course, it fades a lot faster with distraction around. I was feeling kind of bummed out last night, so I went back home and whined to Joiner for a while, and then I went upstairs and called Mr. Destroyer.

"Hey, Mr. Destroyer. It's hk."

"Hey, what's up? I didn't recognize your phone number, but I picked up anyway."

"I'm glad you did."

"Me too. How are you?"

"I'm feeling low."

"Me too! I was just about to buy something for myself, for some retail therapy."

"I was just about to go buy a drink for myself."

"Really?"

"Yep. And I think you should go buy a drink for yourself with me."

"That is awesome. I love that you called me. Where do you want to go?"

And so we ended up drinking at a shi-shi (sp?) bar. I had a martini and a glass of muscat; he had port and a champagne cocktail. We talked about waking up on the wrong side of the bed ("But I woke up in the middle of the bed," he says, "what does that mean?"), the dearth of affordable massages in the U.S., becoming/marrying a foreign service officer, and a number of other silly things. I actually told him he was a Destroyer, which he denied -- whatever! I was most amused, and tolerably well distracted. Then, for whatever reason, I demanded that he ride me home on the crossbar of his bike, which he did. And that was amusing and distracting as well.

(Look, it was the last day of the bluest month of the year, and the eve of my birthday month. Surely it was all defensible, despite the destructability possibilities?)

F**k fringiness! Go distraction!

PS. I had an extremely vivid, no doubt alcohol-inspired dream last night: chased by faceless paramilitary types, I escaped into a subterranean waterway system with a group of other people, only to find that the world below was populated by awful monsters that pounced on humans and turned them into zombie-like creatures. (This is, by the way, the actual plot of Resident Evil, a kick-ass bad-good Milla Jovovich video game-inspired movie.) So I was wondering aloud to Joiner today what it meant, and she said, "Let's see... you're escaping from one danger, only to find that you are faced with another danger. And the monsters underground, they... what do they do to the humans?" "Uh, zombify them?" I answered uncertainly. "What's another word?" "Um, transmogrify?" I tried again. "How about -- destroy them?" At which point I bowed down to her snarky brilliance.