Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Sat, 18 Oct 2008

"Let's Just Be Friends"

I'll have to give you some history for this story to make sense, so bear with me.

My last girlfriend, K., and I broke up earlier this year. We both saw it coming a long way off, and no one was surprised when it happened. We're still friends, so that's a fine thing. But that was in maybe March of this year, about 8 months ago.

In fact, the relationship had started to disintegrate around September of last year. Nothing terrible, but the key item for the purposes of this tale is that I started feeling kind of single around that point, September last year.

A month or so before K. and I broke up, I met J. I wrote about that encounter here at the time. It put me in a very weird state of mind, since I had thought occasionally of J, wondering what ever happened to her, coincidentally also recalling the unreachable-girl crush I'd had at the time (long story short if you don't want to read the whole thing: J. and I worked a crappy pizza-joint job together, I developed a huge crush and never acted on it, then I moved away, and I figured I'd never see her again; imagine my surprise when I sat down next to her and had a delightful conversation at lunch 16 years later and realized at the end who I was talking to).

J. was a shock to the system, not in any romantic way, but in the fresh-perspective way. Seen from her perspective, I saw that K. and I really did need to go our separate ways, and that happened not much later.

Of course, I couldn't forget the crush I'd had on J., half a lifetime ago. We discussed it (J. is amazingly honest and forthright, which I value tremendously) and decided that we should remain friends despite the attraction we both felt. There are fine reasons for this which aren't germaine to the issue at hand, and I'm very happy to have J. for a friend now. In fact, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Still, coming to that decision, and sticking to it, haven't been as easy as I might hope. I'm not telling that story now, but wondering if J. and I should get more deeply involved, or rather the feeling of it, is part of the story currently under discussion.

In any case, that all stabilized months and months ago. In the intervening time, I had decided that despite my assertion that I wanted to stay out of relationships for a year (which served me well after the previous big relationship to K.), I was ready to try again. I set up a profile on Lovelab (clicky-clicky to see how I pitch myself as a hot hot hunk o' man), a local dating site. All the kids are doing it, I figured, and what the heck, it was free to sign up.

There were a few interesting hits, but nothing that really fired me up. A friend of mine is also single and looking, and we would frequently complain how the people on Lovelab seemed to be... well, there's no single word for it, but they never seemed to live up to their potential. Lots of verbiage about how "I'm just looking for a man who is X, Y and Z. Where are you hiding?" X, Y and Z would describe both my friend and I pretty well, and despite attempts at contact, we'd hear nothing back (through an unspoken gentleman's agreement we've kept our contacts segregated -- it would be terrible to be involved in any kind of situation where we were both "competing" for the same woman). We were and are both weary of the posing and hypocrisy which seems to exist at the site.

While randomly trolling through listings one day, several weeks ago, I found one which looked interesting. Her picture called to me in a way that most didn't: she was very attractive, without looking like she was working at it. Her profile text contained some very interesting things, and I sent her a "flirt." This is essentially a free, messageless contact you can make via Lovelab -- you have to have a paid membership to send a message with any content, but flirts are free.

My single friend and I were talking about it a few days later, and I started describing this woman I'd seen. As I was talking, I realized that, in fact, I really wanted to meet her. It took me talking aloud to realize it, but realize it I did, and I blew my $4 wad on sending her an actual message with real content.

Very gratifyingly, she responded with enthusiasm (unusual on Lovelab, where most people seem wary and reserved in their actual communications), and it wasn't long before we had set a date to have lunch. My usual MO in these situations is to set up a non-committal meeting from which either of us can escape with minimal interaction if it turns out the other is a cretin in real life, but which can last longer if there's call for it.

We set the lunch for a Friday a few weeks ago. She cancelled at the last minute, due to a terrible start to the day, involving "my refrigerator, a lot of water, and a parking ticket." Understanding bad days perfectly, we re-set the date for the following Monday, and life proceeded.

Of course, for me, life proceeded to go from merely full and lacking free time, to full, lacking free time, and incredibly stressful. The Lovecraft show tech weekend was that weekend, the day after this woman (who I shall call I., just to maintain the confusing pseudo-anonymity of initials) and I had originally been scheduled to meet. Only, that tech weekend, which should normally be a weekend full of tech folks such as myself running around stressed, was about three days behind schedule. Instead of running around stressed because those lights weren't focused right, I was running around stressed because those lights weren't even up in the air, and they had no power cables to run them. I was literally building and stringing power cables, hanging lights and connecting speakers, in a space with no seats, no curtains, and public areas that looked like disaster areas, days and days after that should have all been done. A three-day slip in the schedule is pretty toweringly ominous when the deadline is five days away.

The problem is that Open Circle Theater, the company which is producing the Lovecraft show, only secured their new space a short time ago. Instead of building a show, we were building a theater and show at the same time. This is far from the normal course of events, and long story short, it put the schedule way back from where it should have been. We were originally scheduled to open on the 10th of October, but had to push opening back a week, and even so just squeaked under the wire, ignoring all the flapping appendages that weren't quite ready.

So, when I. emailed to say that maybe Monday wouldn't work (this was the Monday after tech weekend, and also the day it became apparent that I'd have to take the entire week off work in order to work at the theater if we wanted to open at all), it was pretty easy to be cool about it. "That's ok," I wrote back, "this week is crazy for me, so maybe we could meet next week -- you seem interesting, and I don't want to lose track of you." It sounded like her life was crazy too, so it would work out all around.

One of the "benefits" of being as incredibly stressed-out as I was last week is that it stopped any "Aw jeez, I'm so very single," thoughts (which I've been having a lot lately) in their tracks. I didn't have time for that crap. I had a show/theater to build. I was spending 12-14 hours in the theater each day, arriving around 1, and staying until 1, 2, or 3 in the morning. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but this week has left me feeling like I haven't particularly slept, and questioning whether I ever want to do theater again (I do, this was a singular and extraordinary situation -- I'm unlikely to experience its like again). When I'd roll back to my house at 3-4 in the morning (and another 15 miles on the bike's odometer), I'd grimace to myself with a 50/50 mixture of pleasure and angst that at least I wasn't leaving someone waiting up for me. That would last for a second or so, then I'd fall in bed and wake up around 9:30 to do it all over again.

The show finally opened last night, after a nightmare-like stretch of time this last week. I spent most of yesterday assembling and installing seats in the theater, while around me swirled a slowly gathering flock of people, doing the thousand and one things which needed to be done before the show could open: cleaning, preparing the bar (which looked like a construction zone around 3 in the afternoon). If you'd asked me when I arrived yesterday, around 12:30, I would have told you there was only a 50% chance we'd actually have the theater ready enough to open that night. As it worked out, we didn't accomplish some important but ignorable tasks, and the show opened. We had exactly one full rehearsal under our belts (normally, the last week would have been dress rehearsals each night -- instead, we were doing all the tech we should have done this weekend). Last night, we had full costumes for the first time. Last night (opening night, keep in mind) was the first time all the cues actually ran when they were supposed to (or within a few seconds of when they were supposed to, anyway).

After the incredible stress of building a theater, actually running the show was pathetically easy -- normally, running a show would have me full of butterflies and jumpy about every moment from the actors' call time onward. Instead, I passed through panic, through stress, and came out to the calm place on the other side. Once the seats were all installed (my sworn task for the day, and one I would have said at 4 pm wasn't going to be finished in time), I had reached the state of imperturbability normally reserved for Zen masters. I was soaked through with sweat and chaos raged around me, but I could have tripped face-first into the padh thai I was eating with no more reaction than reaching for a napkin.

I've had two beacons of hope and/or pleasure buoying me up this week. One was that the day before I. and I were supposed to meet initially, J. and I had lunch. It was curious timing, but that's how it worked out. I hadn't seen J. in months due to conflicting schedules, and was pretty solidly missing her. She is, in a way, my touchstone that yes, there are still attractive women out there, and yes, they might even want to spend time with me. So meeting her again for lunch (at Blue C Sushi, where we initially met back in February) was a very good thing, and put me in a very good mood. As usual, J. was like a shot in the arm, and all the lingering self-doubt which had been slowly gathering in me was dispelled.

The other beacon of hope was that I was looking forward to an email from I., with a new date when we could have lunch and meet. Based on what I'd been able to learn about her so far, I. seemed like a person I'd really connect with, and I had no problem imagining that here was a potential relationship. It was exciting, and against my better judgement, I found myself more and more hopeful that we'd sit down for lunch and instantly the sparks would fly. I know better than that, but my treacherous brain was ignoring the unpopular, doom-saying-nerd part of itself.

All I was waiting for was a promised email with the date we could meet. I said to myself that I shouldn't pin any hopes on it, but I did. It's so easy to say the correct words, but forcing your heart onto the right path is nigh unto impossible.

That email arrived today. I'll paraphrase (with the hope that I., who certainly knows about this journal and will probably read this entry sooner or later, won't be offended):

Hey, so the reason I blew you off this last week is that I met someone else. Sparks flew, and I'm not single any more. Sorry. You still seem interesting, though. Still want to meet for lunch?

I hit the reply button, and sat there with one very polite "Yeah, but I'm disappointed" sentence written, for about 5 minutes, with a sinking feeling washing over me. Finally I cancelled that email, walked back to my bed, and lay down, the frail wisps of hope that I'd built up settling to the ground as I lay there, David Sedaris tinnily describing some likely-amusing anecdote from his childhood over the radio I hadn't had the energy to turn off.

Which leads me to here and now. I sit in front of my computer, having recounted the past. Now, the only thing I can offer is analysis of the potential future, which I'm not sure I'm up for. The Cure plays on a shuffled loop through my headphones, matching my mood to a T.

Do I want to have lunch with I. and meet her in person? Absolutely. Am I disappointed? Absolutely. Will that color our interaction? I don't know. I don't want it to, but it probably will, although knowing me, it'll be subtle and something that only I will notice. Regardless of whether it can develop into a deeper relationship, I. seems like a very interesting, attractive person, and one who I'd like to know and count as a friend.

I think perhaps the best bet is to reply, say, "Yes, let's have lunch," and include a link to this journal entry. I can't be this descriptive in an email, it's too much, but I need her to understand that when I say, "Yes, but I'm disappointed," I'm not disappointed in her, but rather in the situation, the timing, and myself.

I think that in the end, on top of every thing else that's been happening, it's difficult to hear, "Hey, you seem like a cool guy and all, but let's just be friends, ok?" before I even get the chance to meet someone. At least I'm not too worried that, in this case, "Let's just be friends" might be code for "I never want to see you again."

So, I., when's good for you? Drop me a line.

Posted at 13:41 permanent link category: /misc

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.