Two-pronged post, so for those of you who told me to post something (*ahem* ERIN) you’re getting a two-for-one deal today. ;)
New Living Situation
I already signed the lease to move in with Stuart, and it seems that the situation will ultimately be beneficial to me – namely, my work, because I freelance from the floor. I can’t freelance from my bed, I don’t have the patience to freelance from a desk, and if you’ve ever hung out with me at Fred and Warren’s place, you’ll notice that I sit on the ground not because of a lack of seating but because that’s where I can actually get stuff done.
Well, now I can work on the floor of Evan and Stuart‘s place because 1. I have installed wifi in that apartment and 2. I will soon be living in that apartment.
This is good because I am way behind in my freelance work. Just gotta crank out some invoices, finish up work on Miriam’s Jewelry Website, start on the Casa Sierra website (I’m the webmaster of my own apartment complex! I don’t even live there yet!), and evaluate whether or not I have enough time to work on freelancing for an elementary school, among other things. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, but it helps me remember an itinerary so I’m not going to delete that.
The Girl At The Wedding
After hanging out with Fred, Mahea, and Evan at Lucky Baldwyn’s some nights ago, Fred reminded me that I’d completely neglected to tell the story of the girl at the wedding.
It’s not really that much of a story, but I like to think about what happened since I do remember it in some detail.
It is the story of the anti-hookup.
I’ll explain:
At my cousin’s wedding in San Diego, I, like many other relatives, was dying to kill myself with another cigarette. Substances like alcohol are associative, I’ve often been told, so I’m assuming that the more I drank, the more I wanted to smoke.
I drank a lot at this wedding.
During one of the smoke breaks a girl stumbled out and joined the smoking section. She was, for lack of a better word, hot. Oh, I guess “stunning” is a better word. Regardless, she was extremely attractive, and I think that’s why the conversation of the smoking circle, once she had joined it, lasted longer than it really should have for a smoke break. All the other guys in the circle were being hoakey and friendly with her, but upon learning that her boyfriend was being possessively jealous that she came out to smoke without him, all the other guys backed off being pals with her and treated her like an acquaintance. I didn’t change my behaviors because I really didn’t care to impress anyone, I was just glad to have a little estrogen in the conversation to balance out what I believe was a military man in the circle.
She ran out of cigarettes and to my dismay, so had I, and we decided to run and get more smokes while most of the other guys returned to the wedding party. It was at this moment that we knew she was drunker than we originally thought, as she wobbled on her heels and had a tendency to repeat anecdotes. That’s all good and fine, we did get our cigarettes and returned to the party.
Men, a word of advice; when a girl rambles on and on about nothing, just listen. When you return the volley of conversation with questions that actually are pertinent to the subject, they know you are listening (and hopefully you are), and lo and behold, you have acquired the level of acquaintance, and not ‘some guy’.
Honestly, guys, it’s not that hard. Just listen. I know that some of you already do this, and more power to you; but for you others who can’t deal with yapping, come on, it’s not like it’s a stretch for the average attention span.
Anyway, she thought we were fun to hang out with, good smoking buddies, and asked which table we were sitting in case she wanted to have company on the next cigarette break.
Cool, well, that was fun.
I brushed it off until she actually did come over to my table and sit next to me. She tells me that as soon as she sits back down at the table, she and her boyfriend get into an intense fight over her something as petty as taking a smoke break even though she let him know what she was doing and told him to come with her to keep her company. He has already left the wedding by this time out of spite, even though he was her ride over to the wedding reception. I believe her exact words were “I feel like I’m on lockdown.” Then she tells me about how her relationship is not going well, hasn’t been going well for a long time, and that the dude has some serious jealousy issues. She says the only person she really knows in California is her boyfriend (who brought her to the wedding – friend of the best man) and her boyfriend’s kid, and literally hangs out with nobody else. She’s not even allowed to go to study groups for classes because he’s that possessive.
So I Dr. Phil her as much as I can, telling her that it sounds like they both have resentment issues and that the fights over nothing are probably rooted in some other more important problem at the foundation of the relationship, and that if they want it to work out, that they both need to work to find out what is the issue, and to uproot it before it gets any worse than it is already. I’m putting my money down on the idea that he has abandonment issues since he’s a single dad, but this has yet to be proven in any concrete manner.
She says she tries and she tries and she – and on the third ‘tries’ she starts to cry, so I offer my dinner napkin (cloth – used only once), and as she’s drying her tears she keeps saying how she has no idea what to do about the situation, she has no friends outside of this guy because all of her friends are back in Canada, and she is swearing like a sailor and starting to grab drinks off of other people’s tables.
It is at this point that I make her promise to not do anything stupid. I tell her to pinky swear with me that she will not cheat on her boyfriend, regardless of how much of a bastard he is turning out to be the more I learn about him; I tell her to consult me before she wants another drink so that she doesn’t annihilate herself out of escapist revenge; I tell her I’m going to be feeding her as many cigarettes as she needs so that she doesn’t drink too much or get involved with some guy who just wants to hook up at a wedding; I let her rant and rave and cry on my jacket and snot on my sleeve; I put my arm around her when she sulked; I let her hang on my arm when she was stumbling.
I was a good guy in this situation.
Her: “I hate guys. They just want to have sex.”
Me: “Sometimes, that seems to be the motivation.”
Her: “Are you trying to get me in bed?”
Me: “Nah, dude, I’m looking out for a smoking buddy. Also, I came to San Diego with my parents. That would just be awk-”
Her: “You just called me ‘dude’.”
Me: “Am I not allowed to call a friend ‘dude’?”
Her: “I haven’t made a friend out of a guy in the US yet. You’re the first.”
Me: “You don’t hang around nice guys.”
Her: “I am tonight.”
Me: “Why, thank you.”
Her: “How can I make sure you’re not just trying to sleep with me?”
Me: “Honey, you’re hot, but you’re too freaking crazy for me to even enjoy the sex.” (This is true. I can’t detach sex from feelings no matter how much I try. In this way, I am probably pretty effeminate.)
Her: “You’re funn
y.”
Me: “Still think guys are just out for sex?”
Her: “Yeah.”
Me: “Oh? So why are you still hanging out with me?”
Her: “You’re not a ‘guy.’ You’re something else.”
Hm. She may be right.
So, basically, instead of sex with no strings attached, it was strings with no sex attached. Also, I made a new friend whom I’ve promised to call every time I’m in San Diego, especially since I was her first friend since she had moved to California four years ago.
Well, I erased her number from my call history after we found her lost phone, so I guess calling her is out of the question. I guess it’s for the better, since she seems to have an insanely jealous boyfriend with ass-kicking capabilities.
Jessica, if you’re out there somewhere, I hope you’re doing alright.
Because you owe me an entire pack of cigarettes, you little mooch.