0.7: One can't escape memory

Last night was... well, hardly legendary.

It was a long Friday, it seemed to drag on interminably, but at the very least I got my summative in Jodie's class ironed out. Secretly, however, I'll mostly just be reformatting my Writer's Craft summative, minus Alyssa (so it'll therefore be a pale imitation.) It's not my first choice, but it's my most interesting one. When in doubt, you know, go back to the well.

It was Friday night, however, that was particularly unglamorous. It began by treading through the knee-deep snow to get to White Oaks to see the show. It was really funny; maybe not as funny as last year's Sears, but I really did wear my throat out laughing. The script could've been a bit tighter, but it was quite funny regardless.

After that, meeting with people, some hello-goodbyes, and a dance-off, Chrisbrown and I hit the road. First stop was Shopper's Drug Mart. As I may have mentioned earlier, I made it my New Year's Resolution to reduce my vomitting, as it was getting to be an embarrassing habit. So after acquiring some medicine for that, we went and picked up Doug for the night's ultimate destination, Scott C's birthday. It was at a bar named after a famous James Joyce novel. Among the first people I see after getting in (after the birthday guy himself,) is a fine young lady by the name of Gabrielle. I mention her every now and again when I randomly run into her someplace. It's been a year and a half almost since the last time I saw her, toward the beginning of the last school year. We caught up a bit, she introduced me to her boyfriend, who then soundly kicked my ass in a game of pool. I just wanted a chance to play, and it really wasn't that bad of a beating, so I was okay with it.

A few more familiar faces trickled in, some I'd never expected to see again. Nolan, for instance, was a bartender there, but there were also people there solely for the festivities. Earlier in the night, CB and I had had a conversation about people he'd had problems with in high school, and surely enough they pretty much all made cameos. Josh was there, too, and we got on like old times.

So the night goes on, people start trickling onto the dance floor, so I figure "oh what the hell." I suppose I wasn't technically drunk, but this isn't a decision that gets made by sober Mr. Williams. Basically though, it's your usual drunken mingling. Except for me, it's a bit more awkward, because everything has to be more awkward for me, for whatever reason.

After I had already failed to properly interact with partgoers, I had the encounter that has stuck worse in my mind than any other part of the night, worse than the bitter Gin & Tonics I imbibed just to try to get drunker in a hurry and for cheaper, and worse than the negative hand-signals I had to receive time and again. The boyfriend shows up and escorts me nearer the bar away from loud music.

Says he, "You've got a thing for my girlfriend."

Guh... huh?

Yeah, he insists. Apparently, he'd been keeping an eye on me, observing how I behaved around Gabby, and drew the conclusion that I was into her. This took me by surprise since, apart from the usual "So how are things?" conversations, the only other interaction we'd had that night was a brief dance that caused her to ask if I'd ever actually danced before. I think. It was loud, and I was drunk, so she may have said something entirely different. But the boyfriend was pretty sure I had it for his gal.

I tried to defend myself, but was not at my most convincing. "Ah, no, it's not like that, man," I say. "She's great, she's a pretty girl, but it's not, I don't... uh..." how do you do that? How do you say, "No, this great, gorgeous gal is not my type, you keep her?" I don't know, and nobody was going to buy it. But it's the truth.

Note at this point that the guy had about a half a foot, probably a few dozen lbs, and a few years on me, so a fight was out of the question.

But he wasn't mad. This is what stuck out in my mind, and I applaud him for it, because he is very secure with his relationship with Gabby that there's nothing to worry about (and there isn't, especially not where I'm concerned.) But in any case he insisted on investigating what I thought of her. My answer may have been incriminating, and if it comes up the next time I see her, it'll surely be an awkward conversation. But we agreed that she was, in his words, "More than some random bar chick, she has a brain." Well put.

He left me with one final thought. He wasn't mad, and he wasn't going to do anything, but he "Believes in karma." Now, I'm the last person you need to lecture on karma, and I'm even less likely to take karma as a threat. Not to get cocky, but I'm thinking at this point, karma owes me something, and I'm certainly not about to screw that up by going after some other guy's girlfriend........ again. After all, he was a good dude, he'll treat her right anyway.

The most delicious irony of the whole matter is that I'm in the middle of writing this story, I shit you not. This always seems to happen, which probably makes me either a really good writer or a really bad one, where something I am writing/have written happens to occur for real. The latest installment of Collection of Curiosities details a young man who goes to a party to find his ex-girlfriend, only to get beaten up by the current boyfriend for making an advance. Thank God it didn't play out like that (since Gabby is only a passing acquaintance, but you surely see the parallels.)

The night washed away in a sea of gin, I needed to get rejected a few more times by a few more random bar chicks before it was time to go. I can't remember what I was doing, but it can't have been all that appealing. It's one of those cases where you can have an out-of-body experience, and be mortified, yet do absolutely nothing to stop yourself.

Which drew me to this inexorable conclusion, which was agreed upon by Mr. Brown and Mr. Doug on the ride home: the bar scene is lame. I don't mind hanging out with a few friends in a nice pub setting, but there was barely anyone there for me to hang out with, which is what led to the disastrous mingling experience. Like I said, I'm a fairly awkward person to begin with, and it doesn't get better with the addition of loud music, low lights, and expensive booze.

So yeah, I had a bit of fun, but it was a perfect "What's wrong with this picture?" with me standing there trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do.

So that's what's been on my mind all day. I don't know. It bothers me when I'm confronted with all the shit in my head.

What a downer, right?

Looks like this is as good as it gets, man, because the future ain't lookin' so great either.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott