did I force this date?

The TA has become Gchat Boy. Kinda like Email Boy, with all of the associated frustrations, but just with gchat instead of email. A mutual friend had a birthday dinner tonight; both of us were invited, but I couldn't go because of a conference happening tonight and tomorrow, but I said I would join up with them after dinner.

I busted my butt to meet up with the group after their dinner, but Gchat Boy wasn't even there; he had gone home. I didn't stay long, either (why bother? I said happy birthday already). I went home, and found Gchat Boy pop up as a little green dot in my google contacts .

Taking initiative, I message him. He told me that his roommate bought a new video game. I asked him why he wasn't playing, and he said that he wasn't feeling the nerdiness right then (I've been teasing him about his nerdiness). Going out on a limb, I told him that I was disappointed that he didn't join the crew after dinner, to which he answered:

yeah sorry about that.. didn't know u were coming12:56 AM here lemme help out with that in future...

my phone number is...

6xx xx xxxxx

If he could have seen my face through the computer screen, he would have seen a confused/dejected/frustrated/what-just-happened look.

Why didn't he ask ME for MY phone number? I don't think I'm asking too much when I say that I think he should ask me for my number. Am I dealing once again with a lukewarm Email Boy who's actually not interested enough to take initiative, but will reciprocate if prodded? Or is GchatBoy really just THAT clueless about dating?

I begrudgingly offered up my phone number; he still didn't ask.

We later had another awkward exchange where I may or may not have been too feisty. Gchat Boy mentioned that his roommate wanted him to go play the video game. So I asked him if he wanted to go, and he gave me a wishy washy answer about there being an internal nerd battle in his head. He made a sarcastic comment that the nerd factor is a big hit with the ladies, so I said:

1:58 AM mini: and you're def a nerd for wanting to play video games over talking to a girl ... that's a real hit with the ladies too, i hear :)

He didn't reply for a while, and when he finally did, it was a "sigh", and then a rather awkward exchange before I very quickly changed the subject. Eventually, I think we both had had enough of this awkward conversation, so he said he was going to bed, but asked me if I would be in the office tomorrow. I told him I had that conference all day, so unless I got really motivated right about 5pm when it ends, it's unlikely I will go in. For himself, he mentioned wanting to run a few errands midday, after which he will hole himself up in his office.

And thus, our conversation ended with this:

GchatBoy:

well have a good conference...

maybe i'll catch ya tomorrow night?

2:26 AM mini: where? in the office? :)

2:27 AM GchatBoy: haha, hopefully somewhere cooler

mini: hahaha

2:28 AM will you be around lab past 5? if so, i'll drop by and find ya

2:29 AM GchatBoy: yeah i'll be there no doubt

or we could grab dinner later on somewhere really far from campus?

mini: haha, sounds good

2:32 AM i'll see you tomorrow!

GchatBoy:

night night

mini: night!

So I think that's a date for tomorrow night... but did I coerce that date out of him with this whole conversation? Or perhaps specifically by making him say where I would see him tomorrow night? And why was his question so vague in the first place? "Maybe I'll catch ya tomorrow night?" Was I too presumptuous in asking for a clarification on the location? And why, OH WHY did he ask me over gchat? I feel cheated out of a proper courtship.

I just really have no idea what is going on. I would like to think that he is just ... not assertive, but I can't help feeling that he's in the camp of not wanting to take initiative because it's not worth that much to him, but if he gets to sit back and be the recipient of initiative, he wouldn't refuse. A even bigger part of me feels like this would never work out anyway because he is way too passive for me, in general.

I am glad that at least it's not turning out like Email Boy where our equally passive selves eventually stubborned each other out, and nobody ever asked anybody out on a date.

I should have learned by now

Yesterday was just sad. This whole thing with the TA is getting kinda silly, and I don't want a repeat of Email Boy. Most of my interactions with the TA is over google chat, so in cyber instant message form. That's silly. He doesn't even have my phone number. That's also silly. Emailing once a day everyday with Email Boy was silly, and I should have gotten the hint after the first week of his not making a move beyond sending me daily emails that he wasn't all that interested. I feel like I should be getting the hint now that the TA is not all that interested.

Except he keeps IMing me on google. All day yesterday, I just felt crappy because I felt like I had gotten myself to the point where I was willing to actually date again, and more specifically to give things with the TA a chance thinking that he was doing things to indicate he wanted to keep pursuing this. But I think I was wrong, especially because 99% of our interactions remain in instant messaging form.

My guy friend Wisconsin said that the TA ought to be asking me about my plans for the weekend, or asking for my phone number, or something. He's made no moves of that kind. In fact, it doesn't really seem like he wants anything besides a chat buddy. But then he does things like joke with me that I'm hot (over IM). I feel like he's just toying with me and leading me on.

I'm done with Email Boy look-a-likes. I feel like men in their mid-20s ought to have realized by now that they need to step it up when pursuing a girl. They ought to know how to ask a girl out if they're interested. So if the TA's not doing it, he's just not that interested. As such, I'm gonna stop thinking about this and move on. Why dangle myself in front of him desperately?

There are other fish in the pond, and I have my own life to live. (Unless he actually does step up the effort :)

the problem with drunken hookups

My department went on that retreat I mentioned a while back, and that girl was my roommate. She wasn't a bad roommate; she's very courteous and such. I did find out why I landed up on her hierarchy of roommates: her boyfriend was to be out of town and thus would not attend, and she had a major falling out with her actual roommate whom she no longer talks to.

So that was gossip-worthy, but I didn't want to pry too much, so I refrained from asking too many questions. What was more gossip-worthy was what I did during the retreat, and let's see, it involved a guy and some alcohol.

The couple of weeks leading up to the retreat, I was in lab very late at night almost every night. There's a guy down the hall who tends to, in general, keep some mighty shifted hours in lab. As in he gets in around 11pm/noon and goes home around 1/2am. So staying late, I ran into him a lot, and we started talking a lot. He is a year above me, in my department, and was actually my TA for a class first year.

At some point after all this talking, I wondered to myself if he was perhaps interested. What really set me off was our conversation online after both of us got home from a St. Patrick's Day party where we ran into each other. He was talking about how his roommates were continuing the party by all hanging out, and they were making fun of him for not joining in and instead, typing at his computer. I thought, "interesting ... he's on his computer to talk to me instead of hanging more with his roommates. I wonder if ..."

I didn't think much of it, and kinda decided that the late night conversations in lab were probably just innocent flirting on both of our parts. I wasn't seriously interested, and some point last week, I actually decided that I don't really want anything with him, so I started to keep my distance so as to not send him leading signals and end up in an awkward situation if he were actually interested.

During the retreat, there are talks and presentations during the day, but at night all of the grad students congregate in each others' rooms to hang out, drink, and have a jolly good time. The first night, I sent no signals to him what-so-ever. In fact, I felt like I was sending him un-signals, if there were such a thing. The second night, I think I had a bit more to drink, as did he, which lowered both of our inhibitions, and upped his assertiveness.

To make a long story short, his roommate left for someone else's room, and I ended up spending the night in the TA's bed. This is problematic on many fronts. 1) Our department is small, and gossip travels fast, and my roommate knew I did not come back to my room that night. 2) I sent him signals of interest that I probably should not have because I had already decided I did not want anything with him. 3) I just had a drunken hookup. Me of all people. I never ever would have imagined myself doing anything of that nature.

I pretended like I was okay with everything, that it was no big deal, but I essentially bolted out of his room the next morning, being careful to plan the exit to coincide with a presentation so I can slip back to my room unnoticed by everyone else on the retreat.

The rest of the day, I started thinking hard. I remembered bits and pieces of our drunken conversation, and remembered him asking me if I were interested in him and telling me that he was in me and that he thought I was cute back when he was my TA. I didn't know what he wanted out of this and was a bit alarmed that he may try to pursue this. I wanted both of us to sorta forget about it, but knew that probably wasn't entirely possible, not to mention the awkwardness of his being in the lab two doors down from mine. Then I felt stupid for having done this in the first place, so the headache just blew up in my head.

In the end, by the time I went to bed last night, I decided that I do like him, and I was obviously interested enough to flirt back and to respond to his advances, even though the latter was when we were both pretty drunk. So, if he were to pursue something, I decided that I would give things a shot.

And pursue, he did. Or at least I thought (think). He IMed me after we got back from the retreat; he IMed me during the day today. He showed affection in front of other people, tried to spend time with me. So I thought he was trying to pursue something, or at least not in the camp to just ignore it and pretend it never happened. Or maybe he was just trying to be "not that asshole guy".

Tonight, we went to grab some food (late at night), and he asked me if I wanted to come over to his place to watch a movie. We watched something with his roommates, who one-by-one went to bed during the course of the movie. They're early-to-bed types, and the movie wasn't particularly interesting. After the movie, he hinted for me to stay and I purposefully didn't take the hint. Then I told him I should actually probably go home. He said "oh, okay." I then qualified the statement with "I'm pretty uneasy about everything that's happened, and I just want to take things slow." He said "yeah, that's totally fine." And then added, "Do you want me to give you a ride home? Actually, I should give you a ride home." And he drove me home.

On the drive back, he said "so I take it you're probably not one to usually have a drunken hookup?" I laughed and said no. He then said that he's not usually, but recently has had uh ... and ended with "well, I don't normally, but I'm not new to it." He still kissed me when I got out of the car, perhaps out of courtesy.

Ha, funny. So now I feel like the idiot, having over-analyzed his intentions to death. And upon deciding that okay, I can give this a shot if he pursues it, I find out that I think I was just another drunken hookup. I asked him if the drunken hookups are always with girls he knows previously, and he said "yeah, it's always one of those things where you go back and forth on maybe thinking the other person's interested, and then once alcohol is involving, it just helps to take care of that whole woo-ing process."

During the car ride, he also asked me when my last serious relationship was, and I told him that we broke up in Jan/Feb, to which he seemed very surprised and commented that "wow, that's really recent." His last serious relationship was 3.5 years ago, when he was still in college. However, his last relationship was early February, which is also recent. He followed up that conversation with the comment that there's generally been a mis-match of seriousness in his relationships since college, as in surprisingly, he's the serious one.

Anyway, now I have no idea what to make of this. This is the problem with drunken hookups. It's too fast with too many awkward moments afterwards and unclear boundaries. But most of all, I just feel so, so stupid for having let this happen.

lameness

WestSideIM: u ever do taht stuff for ur ex's?
Me_IM: bake for them?
WestSideIM: yeah, or anything "LAME"
Me_IM: i made cookies for Key
Me_IM: a lot
WestSideIM: ew, ur so lame
Me_IM: and i even made cookies for him to bring to school for his study buddies to eat too
WestSideIM: WAAT
WestSideIM: LAME
WestSideIM: wifey lame
WestSideIM (5:23:06 PM): hahahaha, i'm jk... good job
Me_IM: i made so much stuff for Key, that i've never done since
Me_IM: i made him cheesecake
Me_IM: i make him carrot cake
Me_IM: carrot cake from SCRATCH
WestSideIM: whoa
Me_IM: as in i grated my own carrots & mixed it with flour
WestSideIM: how come u never made that stuff for me???
WestSideIM: i love carrot cake!!!
WestSideIM: u betty crocker you
WestSideIM: damn
Me_IM: same for pumpkin pie
Me_IM: as in i bought a pumpkin, cut it up, and made mush from it
WestSideIM: omg, talk about craziness
Me_IM: yeah
Me_IM: and where did that get me?
Me_IM: NOWHERE
WestSideIM: :-(
Me_IM: i hate Key
WestSideIM: i hate Key too
WestSideIM: dont be that lame again
Me_IM: hahaha
WestSideIM: HAHAH

subconscious

I'm going to tell Econ Guy that I'm not ready for a relationship, and I'm really not. He called me Monday night, but before he did, I really wished that he wouldn't call me again just so I don't wouldn't to go through the motions of finding a time in my schedule to get together with him for date #2. Honestly, I don't have time for dates right now. If someone spectacular came along, I would make time, but I don't think Econ Guy really cuts it. I like being able to do things whenever I want and be able to make last minute decisions to go out with friends without feeling obligated to include another person in the plans.

Econ Guy called to ask me about going to a party this weekend, one that's being jointly put on by our two schools for St. Patrick's day. He asked me if I plan to go, and I inadvertently headed off the conversation again. I think it was his lead-in to finding something for us to do together; he might have even suggested dinner beforehand or what not. Instead of saying that I think I would be going, which is what I should have done if I were really interested, I said something about my Irish friends having a big party, and I feel like I really should go to that so I don't know if I will be able to make it out to the school-sponsored party.

That was the honest answer, but like I said, I'm sure it wasn't the answer I should have given him if I were trying to appear interested. So in the end, without even thinking about it, my subconscious was already starting to reject him.

I told him that I would give him a call later this week to let him know what I was able to work out. In the meantime, I drummed up some interest with friends to go to both. Now I don't really want to call him to tell him that I'm coming to the party Saturday night. Why? I don't know; I don't really want to see him. We have good conversations, but I'm just not attracted to him. And there's no point in forcing anything.

So I'll call him, because I told him I would, to say that in the end, I worked things out and will make it to the party after all, and that I will see him there. If he pursues anything else, I'll lay down the talk of my not being ready to date right now because I'm coming out of a recent breakup.

Which is the truth.

lukewarm sparks

Econ Guy and I ventured to somewhere in between our two places to have a drink. It was freezing cold out (-9F with wind chill, and no that "-" was not a typo). The beer was nice; we chatted away for a couple of hours without even noticing. I had told him ahead of time that I'd need to head out around 9:30 or so, but neither one of us had a watch. Just as I was getting alarmed on how I should go about digging for my cell phone in my jacket pocket in order to check the time, he said "so, what time is it?"

He picked up the tab for our beers. I definitely offered; he said no, making the excuse that if I can trek out to meet up with him in this cold, he can buy me my beer. Kinda lame excuse if you really think about it because he had to trek out, too, so we were even on that account ... but kinda sweet from a dating perspective :)

I needed to go by Blockbuster to return a video, so I walked with him in his direction for a little bit. He asked me if I have any big plans for the weekend, and I immediately told him that some friends and I are going to go snowboarding on Sunday. He mentioned being a skier and being brought up to hate snowboarders, so I joked that perhaps he can make an exception in this case.

In front of Blockbuster, I stopped and thanked him again and told him that I had a good time. He said, "Yeah me too. So do you want to do this again sometime?" I paused very briefly, and very enthusiastically said "yeah, that'd be great!"

I'm not sure I meant that. I mean, I know I meant it because I did have a good time, and I do want to give this another try. At the same time though, there was a bit missing, and I don't know if that's because of my general attitude toward dating now (couldn't care less) or if it's just because there's no chemistry between us.

Honestly, when I first walked in to the bar where we agreed to meet (he was there first), I scanned around looking for him, and when I found him, I thought "oooo, not as attractive as I thought." Not that I ever thought he was that attractive. Talking to him though, he looked fine close-up, so maybe it's just a distance thing.

The other thing is that I don't know if he was hinting about doing something this weekend when he asked if I had any big plans. I kinda headed off that conversation by talking about snowboarding, but now I wonder why he asked.

Oh well, I think I'll wait for him to call, do date #2 and see from there. We do have great conversations.

confused about the friendship hierarchy

This won't be about RC, Key, Econ Guy, or even Mr. C. Instead it's going to be about this girl I work with. We came into our grad program together. We worked together quite a bit on our overlapping classes first year; we randomly got girl brunches every now and then, and I was always on her party list, even when it got dwindled down to just the VIPs.

Except deep down I think we both have major issues with each other. I think I'm one of those girls who can get competitive with other girls on just about anything (school, boys, # of shoes we own, the ideal color/size of post-it notes), you know, trivial catty stuff. BUT, I don't do this unless it's initiated on me first. When I feel like another girl is being unnecessarily competitive with me, I get an extra dose of I-can't-let-go-of-my-pride, and I refuse to back down until I show the other girl just who knows best.

This girl brings out this competitiveness in me because she's ultra-competitive. Beyond competitive, she's sneaky. She would find all kinds of loopholes and borderline-shady resources to make completing her homework easier, and when asked about it, she claims them as her own work and is reluctant to share the knowledge. At some point after I picked this up, I tried to avoid her in general 1) because I had issues with her moral standards, and 2) I didn't want to feel the stress to compete.

It doesn't help that she's blonde, cute, and carries herself quite well, so she attracts a lot of men. And she is one of those girls who will lead a guy on for the attention, even when she otherwise has a boyfriend. So that was another reason I stayed away from her; I didn't feel like rolling my eyes whenever I saw her talking to a boy knowing full well that she has a 1-year boyfriend at home.

Okay, so back to the point. Every year toward the end of March, our department has a retreat with all the faculty and students. Some 150 people go off to a hotel outside the city for 3 days and talk about our work and do some socializing. They put students two to a hotel room, and we can request roommates. The past two years, I stressed about finding a roommate, trying to figure out who I can ask who would not want to ask someone else and who may not already have a roommate. This year, I decided all that was too complicated. I really couldn't care less who I end up rooming with, so I just didn't bother finding a roommate.

So today, this girl came up to me to ask if I had a roommate yet. I said no, and she asked me to be her roommate. I said sure, no problem, and she seemed really happy and ran down the hall to tell the admin organizing the retreat about her new roommate situation.

This got me thinking, how did she ever come to the conclusion to ask me to be her roommate? Going down her hierarchy of people she could room with, I'm about as far down the list as someone can get. How did she exhaust all her previous options to ask me? She's dating someone in the department; I would think he would be her first choice (90% of student couples room together). Then, she has a slew of girlfriends she can ask, one girl in particular who she actually lives with.

So I'm confused about her friendship hierarchy, not to mention how the retreat will actually go with her as my roommate.

confused about the friendship hiearchy

This won't be about men. Instead it's going to be about this girl I work with. We came into our grad program together. We worked together quite a bit on our overlapping classes first year; we randomly got girl brunches every now and then, and I was always on her party list, even when it got dwindled down to just the VIPs.

Except deep down I think we both have major issues with each other. I think I'm one of those girls who can get competitive with other girls on just about anything (school, boys, # of shoes we own, the ideal color/size of post-it notes), you know, trivial catty stuff. BUT, I don't do this unless it's initiated on me first. When I feel like another girl is being unnecessarily competitive with me, I get an extra dose of I-can't-let-go-of-my-pride, and I refuse to back down until I show the other girl just who knows best.

This girl brings out this competitiveness in me because she's ultra-competitive. Beyond competitive, she's sneaky. She would find all kinds of loopholes and borderline-shady resources to make completing her homework easier, and when asked about it, she claims them as her own work and is reluctant to share the knowledge. At some point after I picked this up, I tried to avoid her in general 1) because I had issues with her moral standards, and 2) I didn't want to feel the stress to compete.

It doesn't help that she's blonde, cute, and carries herself quite well, so she attracts a lot of men. And she is one of those girls who will lead a guy on for the attention, even when she otherwise has a boyfriend. So that was another reason I stayed away from her; I didn't feel like rolling my eyes whenever I saw her talking to a boy knowing full well that she has a 1-year boyfriend at home.

Okay, so back to the point. Every year toward the end of March, our department has a retreat with all the faculty and students. Some 150 people go off to a hotel outside the city for 3 days and talk about our work and do some socializing. They put students two to a hotel room, and we can request roommates. The past two years, I stressed about finding a roommate, trying to figure out who I can ask who would not want to ask someone else and who may not already have a roommate. This year, I decided all that was too complicated. I really couldn't care less who I end up rooming with, so I just didn't bother finding a roommate.

So today, this girl came up to me to ask if I had a roommate yet. I said no, and she asked me to be her roommate. I said sure, no problem, and she seemed really happy and ran down the hall to tell the admin organizing the retreat about her new roommate situation.

This got me thinking, how did she ever come to the conclusion to ask me to be her roommate? Going down her hierarchy of people she could room with, I'm about as far down the list as someone can get. How did she exhaust all her previous options to ask me? She's dating someone in the department; I would think he would be her first choice (90% of student couples room together). Then, she has a slew of girlfriends she can ask, one girl in particular who she actually lives with.

So I'm confused about her friendship hierarchy, not to mention how the retreat will actually go with her as my roommate.

NOW, they respond

Key wrote me back this weekend. He said my reaction was justified, and that he should have just told me the truth instead of giving me the email runaround. The truth is that while he really likes emailing and updating each other, and in the end, he just wants me to be really happy. While he likes all of that, he's just not as comfortable as I am about getting together for dinner or whatnot. He acknowledged the effort that I've made in the last year and a half to keep in touch and to stay friends, but he admitted that it just hasn't been as easy for him to do those things.

So I'm not sure how to respond to that. I want to ask him why he's uncomfortable. Is it because at one point last summer I told him I still loved him? (I don't anymore). Or maybe because his new girlfriend doesn't want him to have anything to do with me? (I hope not; she doesn't seem like the uber-jealous type) I'm not sure if I should ask him, or if I should just let things go.

The other responder is Econ Guy from last night. He called tonight and left a message:

"Hi mini, this is Econ Guy. I'm probably breaking some kind of rule for calling you so early, but uh ... It was great to meet you last night, and if you get a chance and want to, give me a call back at xxx-xxx-xxxx"

I guess he did break some kind of rule, but I probably wouldn't have noticed had he not mentioned it. Now I'm over-analyzing it. Why did he point that out? And why DID he call so early? I didn't expect something until Tuesday or Wednesday. Can I interpret this as him being uber-interested?

So anyways, I called him back when I got his message (I was in a meeting when he called originally). We talked for some 40 minutes, about all kinds of things: why he decided to work before going back to school, our undergrad experiences, why econ consulting is different from management consulting. I did note that as soon as I told him I once interned for one of the three Big Name Consulting Firms, he instantly became very interested and started asking me all kinds of questions about it.

My general experience regarding mentioning that internship has been that upon hearing about it, people I've not known for long (say just met at a cocktail party) instantaneously develop a better impression of me, or become more interested, or cock their necks and nod their heads and generally look impressed. I have to admit that I do take advantage of that and drop the internship at key, opportune times ... but I feel shady doing it. And I feel even shadier that the name drop actually works, especially in certain circles ...

In the case of Econ Guy, I wasn't name-dropping. It came up naturally in conversation because he asked me if I had done internships during undergrad because I mentioned going straight from undergrad to grad, and he wondered why I decided against working first. Nevertheless, even the natural mention in the conversation sent our conversation down an unnatural bend with his piqued interest.

Or maybe I'm just overly sensitive to the issue.

here we go again ...

Friday night RC and I decided that we ought to break up, for real this time. I should also mention that this is about the third time we have had this conversation, or something similar. After that initial breakup, we never officially ever got back together, but we've decided to break up twice more. Okay, it sounds stupid, I know, but it is what it is.

So Friday night was the matter-of-fact breakup, after having exhausted the angry breakup and the cordial breakup and the I-can't-go-on-like-this breakup. We sat down (I brought up the subject) and just basically decided that we can't really make it as a couple in the long run, so let's just be friends. Neither one of us really saw long-term potential, so we decided that it would be best to end it. It was like a peace agreement, or a friendly agreement to be friends.

I did ask him what breaking up meant, since it obviously hasn't ever really worked for us in the past, and he said breaking up meant no more intimate stuff, but we'll still hang out and enjoy our common interests. Okay, seems clear enough. Except we were getting up early the next morning to go snowboarding, so he still stayed over.

When we woke up the next morning, he kissed me good morning and we lounged in bed for half an hour. I joked that friends don't kiss each other, and he laughed. On the drive back from the slopes, we stopped at a little sub joint. As I munched down my steak-and-cheese, I said to him, "We're not so good at breaking up, are we?" He laughed some more and said "no, we're not." I invited him over for tonight, but only because we drove my car, and he had all his equipment and extra clothes in it, and he was feeling unwell so he wanted to be able to get to a bed and sleep asap, and it would have been too much trouble to take him home and help him unload everything. (Okay, who am I kidding, that was more of an excuse).

So he chuckled, agreed, came over, and we both say it'll be the last night. We're on good terms; we're laughing about our breaking up; it's all good. He was tired, so he went straight to bed after we got home. I watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy and debated whether or not to go to a party. Ultimately, I decided to go because I reminded myself that I've been trying to make a point to not be afraid to do things or go places by myself, that I don't have to go to a party with a friend. I can go by myself because I know the hosts, and I can meet new friends there.

Okay, so I decided to go, the second party in the past month that I've just gone to by my self, without stressing about which friend to drag along with me. I ended up having a great time, partly because I met someone ... Earlier today, I had already thought to post about RC and my funny breakup, but now that I'm actually posting, there turns out to be a third character in the story.

We'll call him Econ Guy because he studies economics. I met him at the party as the friend of a friend's boyfriend. After a friendly doubles game of foosball, Econ Guy and I got to be chatting by ourselves. After some 30-40 minutes of exclusively talking to Econ Guy, we found out that we actually have a common friend. I went to high school with her, and he went to college with her. This makes it a little complicated because she was with me New Year's Eve earlier this year when RC was down in Ctown visiting me back home.

This didn't stop me from lingering slightly after I said that I was planning to head out, and he took the bait immediately and asked for my number. I gave it to him, but not without making a mental note that I hope he doesn't talk to our mutual friend....