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An Amusing Anecdote
Feb. 25th, 2005 10:37 amSo last night, I had Amber, Carina, and Teresa over, first just for some dinner, and then it fell into movies. Which is funny, because I have a paper due this morning, a philosophy exam at 13:00, and I promised to be up early to get Trevor and Rose to the airport. But that's not the point.
We went to Quiznos, as I promised Curtis we would. Trouble was, as we were leaving, Mike wanted to come, and he made a sixth; it was going to be a tight squeeze with just the five of us, so I told him to give Curtis his order and some money, cause we were just bringing it back anyways. So we did, blah blah, moving along.
On our way back, the girls needed to stop by their room to get movies, so Curtis and I ended up getting to our place without them. We get in, and Mike swoops down upon me with "So, who's your friend." After a rousing game of "Which One", wherein he tried to avoid saying *which* friend, and I was too oblivious to figure out, he said "Look, I just want know if she has a name and if she's single." In retrospect, I think an answer of "No, and no." would have been the most final, but most difficult to support.
I never found who he meant, at least not until well after the fact, but I knew this: None of the three girls were interested in him, and were actually kinda creeped out by him. So, I played the 'ambiguous issues' card, saying that it wasn't a good idea for Mike to pursue this line, and how there were just some personal things that she didn't want getting out but precluded him having any success. He pressed me to find what these 'things' were, and I staunchly held that she asked me not to say, and I wouldn't. After all, they were made up, in the end to protect both him and her.
I had to leave, then, because the girls had taken my sandwich and were taking too long. And I had to intercept them first to let them know about the 'issues' I'd intimated to Mike, and advise that, if he Went There, she should just act very offended. Apparently, as soon as I left, Mike fell upon Curtis to see what it was I'd been talking about. Curtis, reasonable as he is, said he didn't know. Mike replied with some line about how between friends "all else should fall" or something. Curtis countered with "Well, how do you know Andrew doesn't consider her a friend?" to which Mike tellingly replied "I mean real friend, not girl-friend."
And that I think says a lot. As Curtis put it, Mike seems to view girls as pieces of meat in a lot of ways. He'll talk grandly about classic romance -- he wishes to be an actor, after all, and nibbles on bits of Shakespeare and such (though he couldn't understand how Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" could be construed as a ChickFlick), and anything else popularly romantic (he sent a girl a disgustingly gaudy valentine with a Tolkien poem in it -- and a good one, I must admit, though he chose it for reasonably superficial reasons). But in the end, he views a girlfriend as a sort of Prize, to be sought and won. The Dating Game seems most like a game, from my perspective looking in on him, and one for which he hasn't quite figured the rules out, but he's willing to take any advice that seems to mesh with his own experiences. The thing that gets me, though, is that it seems it did not and would not occur to Mike that a man might actually be *friends* with a girl, honestly and with no intention of pursuit. And for me, that basic level of true friendship is key in a relationship; even in a romantic engagement, there won't always be pursuit, and if there's not friendship then the whole thing is build on shallow, unsteady foundations. -laughs- Trevor had the presence of mind to note that his comment was a Bad Thing, "especially knowing who [I am]", he said.
Afterward, when the ladies had gone and Mike had stepped out, is when Curtis told me about this. Then he said "I wasn't sure, but I got the impression that you were implying she was a lesbian." Which, actually, was my intent. I mean, it's safe, right? No man has a chance with a lesbian. How do you compete with breasts? You can't, it's an established fact.
We went to Quiznos, as I promised Curtis we would. Trouble was, as we were leaving, Mike wanted to come, and he made a sixth; it was going to be a tight squeeze with just the five of us, so I told him to give Curtis his order and some money, cause we were just bringing it back anyways. So we did, blah blah, moving along.
On our way back, the girls needed to stop by their room to get movies, so Curtis and I ended up getting to our place without them. We get in, and Mike swoops down upon me with "So, who's your friend." After a rousing game of "Which One", wherein he tried to avoid saying *which* friend, and I was too oblivious to figure out, he said "Look, I just want know if she has a name and if she's single." In retrospect, I think an answer of "No, and no." would have been the most final, but most difficult to support.
I never found who he meant, at least not until well after the fact, but I knew this: None of the three girls were interested in him, and were actually kinda creeped out by him. So, I played the 'ambiguous issues' card, saying that it wasn't a good idea for Mike to pursue this line, and how there were just some personal things that she didn't want getting out but precluded him having any success. He pressed me to find what these 'things' were, and I staunchly held that she asked me not to say, and I wouldn't. After all, they were made up, in the end to protect both him and her.
I had to leave, then, because the girls had taken my sandwich and were taking too long. And I had to intercept them first to let them know about the 'issues' I'd intimated to Mike, and advise that, if he Went There, she should just act very offended. Apparently, as soon as I left, Mike fell upon Curtis to see what it was I'd been talking about. Curtis, reasonable as he is, said he didn't know. Mike replied with some line about how between friends "all else should fall" or something. Curtis countered with "Well, how do you know Andrew doesn't consider her a friend?" to which Mike tellingly replied "I mean real friend, not girl-friend."
And that I think says a lot. As Curtis put it, Mike seems to view girls as pieces of meat in a lot of ways. He'll talk grandly about classic romance -- he wishes to be an actor, after all, and nibbles on bits of Shakespeare and such (though he couldn't understand how Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" could be construed as a ChickFlick), and anything else popularly romantic (he sent a girl a disgustingly gaudy valentine with a Tolkien poem in it -- and a good one, I must admit, though he chose it for reasonably superficial reasons). But in the end, he views a girlfriend as a sort of Prize, to be sought and won. The Dating Game seems most like a game, from my perspective looking in on him, and one for which he hasn't quite figured the rules out, but he's willing to take any advice that seems to mesh with his own experiences. The thing that gets me, though, is that it seems it did not and would not occur to Mike that a man might actually be *friends* with a girl, honestly and with no intention of pursuit. And for me, that basic level of true friendship is key in a relationship; even in a romantic engagement, there won't always be pursuit, and if there's not friendship then the whole thing is build on shallow, unsteady foundations. -laughs- Trevor had the presence of mind to note that his comment was a Bad Thing, "especially knowing who [I am]", he said.
Afterward, when the ladies had gone and Mike had stepped out, is when Curtis told me about this. Then he said "I wasn't sure, but I got the impression that you were implying she was a lesbian." Which, actually, was my intent. I mean, it's safe, right? No man has a chance with a lesbian. How do you compete with breasts? You can't, it's an established fact.
