mandalay

The Book of Love

As you may have read in an earlier post, a few weeks ago, a seemingly very nice Navy boy wielding a somewhat large knife gave me his phone number and led me to believe he was interested in me. This boy and I have been playing phone tag through voicemails and text messages for two weeks and finally today we made contact. I had texted him late morning to see if he wanted to get a beer tonight. He called back about an hour later and sounded in favor of the idea. We discussed where to go, what time to go. And then he let this bomb drop: My girlfriend is in from out of town. Then continued to ask if I liked to play pool, what about darts? He had some he could bring along to this great place on 41st. What side of town do I live on?

I was completely dumbfounded. Literally mouth agape. I think I stopped saying anything but "umm, uhhuh, sure." WHAT THE HELL?!!! I've discussed this with a couple of girlfriends and they agree that probably he was hoping to get some action on the side without ever having to bring her up. Living in a new city, new opportunities, new women, etc., etc. So either she came into town and he had to respond to me in front of her, or he felt guilty but wanted to play it off like I was the one being presumptuous in thinking that by giving me his phone number that meant anything more than general amiability.

Incidentally, he is one of THREE guys with the same name that I have met since I've been here who I could potentially be interested in; all of them have girlfriends. It's the girlfriend curse. I get definite vibes from at least two of them, but what to do? One of my friends here just declared celibacy. I'm starting to think that may be the best route. Because this is getting ridiculous. And at least if it were my choice, I wouldn't feel like I was getting shafted.

posted by amanda @ 9:21 PM