Busy Bee, But Drama Free

This week's been socially kind of blah. With all the SUCO kids gone for the summer, and The People's Champ on vacation, I didn't go out Monday or Tuesday, and Wednesday's poetry dinner was uneventful; smoking yourself into a stupor, and going straight from dinner to bed tends to guarantee that.

LMS had called me Thursday to see if I was going out, so after finishing up my poem/post for The Watering Hole, I trekked over to the Oak, figuring I'd maybe grab a beer and go home. It's never that simple. Never.

I get to the bar, and LMS is nowhere to be found, but The Bus Buddy is there with her roommate, The MILF. After a slow start while I got my head to join my body at the bar, I hit a flow, managing the conversation and really hitting it off with The MILF, who I'd met a few times prior. Riffing on pop culture (and getting my ass handed to me in a "Name That Song" contest - she nailed one song during the overlapped DJ transition. THE TRANSITION. With two songs playing. Yeah.) and relationship history and our concurrent no-drama policies, everything was just ... easy. We even joked about getting on each other - me calling her bluff, and she responding that I couldn't handle her. I laughed it off, admitting that she was probably right.

Truth be told, if Oneonta didn't have a time limit, and her having two kids didn't scare the hell out of me, I'd probably have pushed. But it seemed like we made a mutual realization that this wasn't the right time or place. Hence, arm's length. Maybe we'll explore the friend thing. Time will tell.

She had one real dope insight though, saying I'm "too young to be so old, and too old to be so young." It sounds like psychobabble at first, but hit on me stopping myself from making the mistakes I should be making at 23. Maybe one day it'll all make sense, but until then, it can be frustrating to feel like I'm always taking the high road in spite of myself. It's not hard to make bad decisions, but it's hard to not think about consequences. I'm that dude. Even my "spontaneous" decisions have been thought through.

After I got back to NYC on Friday, I went straight from the bus to a high school friend's birthday party at Slate. Toward the beginning, I reaffirmed my ace wingman status, laying the early groundwork that resulted in a mutual friend and another girl at the party hooking up by night's end. Dude did his, for sure, but I gave him that booster shot at the beginning that put him in "Don't screw it up and you're in" territory. It's a gift.

Weird thing was, when they announced the coupling by making out at the table two/three hours after that initial meeting, I felt a jealous twinge, but it totally passed. I was the only single dude left, surrounded by four couples, one fresh, and that was fine. I envied the closeness and ability to make out with someone and all, but really, I had enjoyed myself, and was glad that I hadn't had to put any "work" in on the night. And I think that sums up where I'm at right now. Getting involved, on any level, just feels like it takes too much effort and isn't worth the drama. I've gone a month without even putting myself in anything close to a non-platonic situation, and it's been ... great.

And those, my friends, are what's known as famous last words.