lundi 28 mars 2005

A whole new light.

Let's do a little exercise. Think of your best friend of the opposite sex (or same sex, if that's how you swing). For purposes of this post, we'll just assume he's a male (why? Because I'm the one writing, that's why). This person you're thinking of, is he someone you would implicitly trust? Do you tell him everything that's going on in your life? Does he tell you everything that's going on in his? Is he the Harry to your Sally? Yes? Good. That's the person we want.

Now think of your senior year in college. Was it as filled with alcohol as mine was? Did your weekend start on Wednesday afternoons after your French seminar where a group of you would sit on your front porch drinking wine? Yes? Good. That's the setting we want.

Okay. Moving onward. Now, imagine that one of those drunken nights, you slept with this best friend of yours. You two were utterly drunk, it was perhaps two years in the coming, ever since you met in Paris, but you'd just never gotten around to it yet even though everyone else already thought you had, but you were FRIENDS AND JUST FRIENDS DAMMIT, but it happens anyway, and when you wake up, you say to him, "Okay, Nick can't know about this because it would kill him" (not that you're interested in Nick, but you don't want to unnecessarily hurt feelings and it's a very complicated situation). And that's the LAST you talk about it. For THREE YEARS. You talk about everything else that's going on in your lives, romantically and otherwise, but NEVER ABOUT THIS. It's like it NEVER happened.

Are you with me still? Awesome. Now, fast forward to the present day (ie, three years later). You're out drinking with friends. You go outside to keep a mutual friend company while he smokes. The two of you talk about your best friend's utterly failed love life in large part because the two of you want him to be happy and are concerned about what will happen when you both leave Boston and in small part (and on a more personal level) you've harbored a more off-than-on crush for him but value his friendship so much more that you've never done anything about it). But let's get back to his love life. After all, he is an educated French-speaking ex-pro soccer player. A total catch. He could get any girl he wanted, even though he remarkably has little game. And facetiously, you throw out, "Gosh, when was the last time he got laid?" Now imagine that the answer is:

"You were the last one. Oh, and the first one."

That first tidbit is surprising, but not shocking - after all, you talk about EVERYTHING, and you'd gotten the sense that he hadn't been so lucky recently although you didn't realise exactly how unlucky. But the latter tidbit. The latter of which you did NOT have even the faintest idea. IMAGINE YOUR SHOCK THEN, especially as you've always said that you didn't ever want to be anyone's first, and have in fact, conscientiously stayed away from such guys because you don't want to be burdened with such responsibility. And you both were really drunk that night - oh shit, it couldn't have been that good for him, could it now? I mean, just the morning after - the first thing you did was tell him the two of you could never let Nick know, And you just assumed that he did this stuff all the time - hell, he was the one with a condom. (And what's this guilt about feeling bad that his first time wasn't that great? What's up with that? He made his own bed, so to say.)

And now, what do you do with this new information? You're not supposed to know, sworn to secrecy by the other guy who accidentally blabbed. Perhaps you should ignore it, because dammit, ignorance is bliss. But you know, there are all these complicating factors (and while it would be lovely to think that perhaps it means that you're the only girl for him, at the same time that's so not the case and if it were you'd have very little respect for his doing nothing about it for the last three years nevermind the fact that you were in a relationship for two of those) and it's like ohMYgod firstAND last and you know, maybe he is gay after all and hasn't come to terms with it (does this seem to be a theme recently?) but you can't help him talk through it because you're not supposed to know this very pertinent bit of information and - oh, just take a breath - but really. Everything he's said has been cast in a whole new light and yeah. It's good you're out of town for a couple of days.


PS. There are 4 eggs remaining. The others fell not of their own accord, but because they are on the floor of my friend's living room and we keep knocking them over.