going out all the time is a strange way to live.

i am used to being a homebody... the girl who stays in watching old humphrey bogart movies with her parents and talking online to boys who she wishes loved her.

strangely enough, i feel like those days are over, though i have only been out three nights in a row and that's hardly an achievement for anyone else but me.

but, i have enjoyed seeing the world, drinking beer at bars without being skittish. (half of the time i went out beforehand i was convinced that undercover cops were just waiting to catch me. paranoid, i know.)

most importantly, i have enjoyed friends. i have always felt miserable in this town, but now i have some place to go and people to see. and other neighborhoods don't seem so far away at all.

i saw BEC (blue-eyed crush) on saturday night... my first real true love (since i was fourteen). he knows, of course, my feelings for him (it appears that i am as transparent as a window pane about things like this) but has had a girlfriend for all of those years but the first one.

when i walked into the bar, he picked me up and twirled me around, just like one of those bogart movies that i used to stay at home and watch. (well, not necessarily a bogart movie. but an old one.) then he kissed my hand. when he sat down next to me later with a bud light for me and a guinness for himself he said "you know, we would make a great couple."

"i know," i laughed. too bad we're here for your girlfriend's birthday!

grrr. what is it about me and married or terminally committed men?

sometimes i think it's easier this way, to imagine what my relationship with BEC might be like, than to meet anyone new who might live up to that standard. i do have to admit he, more than anyone, lives on this false pedestal in my head. after all, he was my first love, and there is something that will be innocent and incredibly nostalgic about him forever. and we get along so easily, it's easy to imagine he and my dad chatting about fishing with his arm around my waist. it's easy to imagine him listening to me like i matter. (he already does.)

and he already twirls me around when i see him.

but, it's not real.

and real is what i always say i want, yet never have the balls to have, or am too picky to have, or too afraid to have.

he gave me his number, and told me to call him.

part of me really wants to, and i probably will. but i'll let you in on a secret-- there is nothing seductive about me. i couldn't suavely say, forget about your girlfriend for a night, or forever. i would just fuck it up.

so we will stay friends, and he and his girlfriend will probably get married, and nicholas and his girlfriend will probably get married too. and i'll go to both of their weddings without a date because i'll be hoping that at the altar, when they say "speak now or forever hold your peace," one of them might stop the wedding, turn around and meet my eyes, and tell me they are in love with me.

cause i would never do it.

i love these damn movies in my mind.

so maybe, going out isn't really different from staying in.

last entry next entry