The Tortured Artist

Okay, the plan was simple, really. Not too ambitious, not too over
the top. To be honest, I didn't even think it would work. But it would
be fun, a little different, and hey, who knows? The plan was this: Five
nights, five dates. Random interviewees, pulled from the street, all
young, single ladies, ready to spill their stories of courting success
or failure, no matter how happy, sad, or inane their tales may be.
"Hello, my name's Colin Sayles, a writer here in New York," I had
scripted. "I'm compiling a collection of first-person narratives about
the ins-and-outs of dating, and I'm looking to interview a few single
women about their experience. I'd like to hear your account, if you
don't mind. Doesn't matter how silly. You'll remain anonymous, of
course."

The fallacy wasn't quite where you might think it would be. I am in
fact a writer. I live alone in a fifth-floor studio on the Upper West
Side. It's one of those overdone apartments that overlooks Central
Park, all decked out with nouveau furnishings, Couch By Calvin Klein
and all that. Despite my lavish furnishings, most of my time is spent
at my plain wooden desk, sitting on my plain wooden chair, typing on my
plain desktop computer. So really, the only amenity I get to enjoy in
my apartment is the view from the single, six-foot square bay window
that faces east towards the Met. And I have to tell you, the sights
provide endless distraction. Young lovers exchanging animal vows again
and again on the benches, homeless folk exchanging their borrowed money
for a spot of ecstasy. If I'm real lucky, I'll see a mugging. But
usually I just sip tang from my $75 art deco glasses, stare at my
computer screen, and type. My novels earn me a good living, so I can't
really say that I'm a starving artist. If I'm hungry, it's usually
because I'm too busy typing to eat.

Modern pop culture is my specialty. I live it, breathe it, and
especially write it. My CD collection is massive, and ranges from ABBA
to Zydeco. I read industrial design magazines and Popular
Science. I am totally obsessed the antics of celebrities,
especially when it comes to marriage and drugs. And Fox Mulder is my
god. Most of my writings are concerned with music, friendships, modern
dance... It's all fiction, so I feel obligated to use fancy metaphors,
but I'm usually way too direct to do that, and in the end, my success
seems to stem from the fact that my books are open ones. I promote the
arts. I deplore public drug use. I always have a nice message that
twenty-somethings and forty-somethings alike can understand. And I
don't have any enemies in the press. Friends, let me tell you, these
are the keys to success.

As for style, mine more or less runs the gamut. First-person,
third-person, action, mystery. I do it all. Except... Well, drama's a
tough one. At least, drama in the typical sense. Here's how I see it.
To the critic, drama is formulaic. Guy meets girl, guy and girl share
common interests for a time before making love and then breaking up
over some silly misunderstanding that eventually gets resolved through
some more sweaty copulation. I don't do that kind of drama. My books do
have an element of drama, mind you, but none of this
guy meets girl stuff. I'm all about life drama.
Elusive drama. To me, drama's best when it's of the
subtle sort; the kind of drama that you don't quite perceive as drama
until it happens to you two days later. Example: Guy takes part in team
sports as an ongoing hobby, guy injures right hand in freak stapler
accident and can't go near a whatever-ball for two months, during which
time he learns the value of interior decorating. No you fuck, I never
actually wrote a story like that. It's just an example.

But I think I've been withholding a spot of truth. It's not that I
don't want to incorporate an element of love into my work. It's that I
can't. And for a time, it was a source of endless frustration for me.
Imagine, there I was, 26 years old, making a killing on my first book
about two friends, a guy and a girl, who learn to live life again after
they move from Los Angeles to Ohio; and I was
totally unable to sleep at night because I was
kicking my own ass for writing them as friends. I would lie awake in
bed, thinking about all the pervs out there who weren't going to buy
the book because a friend said that Sally and Johnny don't have sex. Or
my mother. "Great story, Dear," I imagined her saying. "But why didn't
they decide to take their friendship to the next level?" God knows what
the critics were thinking.

And it's not like I was ignorant of the problem, if you want to call it
that. In fact, what drew me to writing in the first place is what is
often referred to in literary circles as the "Shiver Moment." You know
what I mean, right? That one line in a book where the author just nails
it - the moment, the mood, the scene, the dialogue. Everything. And you
read it, and you just...shiver. Just like that. And you don't know why,
and you don't particularly care. You just know that you've been moved
in a way that makes you think you're a part of the story - as if you
were the one feeling every emotion the protagonists were experiencing.
Now that's a winning story, and
that's why I started writing.

I remember reading my first good novel. I picked it up from our coffee
table one slow summer evening when I was 15. It was my mom's or dad's,
doesn't matter. I don't even really remember the title, and certainly
not the author. What I do remember, though, is sitting on our porch a
few days later after having committed nearly every waking moment to
that book. And then I got to the emotional climax, where said guy runs,
most literally, back to said girl after realizing that their break-up
had been the biggest mistake of his life. And then it happened. The
shiver. The jumpy pulse. All because this chick author I didn't know
had strung a few words together, stuck about 200 pages on either side,
wrapped it in some cardboard, and then sold it for $19.95 plus tax.
Pretty freakin' unbelievable. I wanted to be able to that.

So why not, you ask? Well, my problem is this. To conceive of the
infamous shiver moment, the author has to build a plotline that can
incorporate the moment. Plotlines, meanwhile, are always derived from
some factual first- or second-hand experience. More importantly, and
more to the point, the author needs to put himself in the story, and
ultimately, in the moment. This is, well, sort of hard for me to
do.

I was left at the altar some years ago. I was living out in California
with my college sweetheart, 23 years old, working for Rolling
Stone as a full-time columnist. Things were pretty set,
including the nuptial arrangements - my fianc?e and I were in final
preparations for our overly-exquisite summer wedding up along the coast
of British Columbia. It was T-minus two weeks, and then she left. I
just came home one Friday evening, and the apartment was empty. No
note, just some money on the kitchen counter along with a receipt from
Dirk's Pawn Shop. That's right - she had hocked her engagement ring and
left me the money, an act so despicable that my therapist invented a
new psychopathological term to describe her behavior. You laugh, but
this shit really happens.

I never heard from her again. I moved out of California soon after she
left, crashed with my parents in Ohio, worked the fast food industry
for a time, and then made my way to New York when my love for writing
started to bubble to the surface again. For a couple years after, I
would suffer a twinge of sorrow every time I even thought about my
characters falling in love, and that sorrow would turn to frustration
when I realized that my past was impinging upon my livelihood. The only
way to deal was to learn to relegate myself to the realm of more
"writer-friendly" novels. I don't think about love, so I don't write
about love. And though it took me a while, I'm okay with that
nowadays.

Oh, and for the record - I haven't really gotten close to anyone since.
I've dated a couple of women, but I always get scared when I think it
might be time to tell them about my near-marriage encounter. It's some
emotional hurdle or something, but I just can't do it. I can't be that
open with anybody. Not in that way. So I scamper off. It's just easier
that way.

That is, up until about a month ago. But we'll get to that.

So that prelude more or less brings us up to date, and makes me feel a
little better about disclosing to you the fiction I was telling these
young ladies. You see, my interviews weren't really for any book. There
are, after all, way too many dating books out there, and I wasn't about
to add another to the list, only to be picked apart by your favorite
New York Times critic. No, far from it. In
actuality, I was trying to crawl from beneath my rock, to test waters I
hadn't tested in years. I was, as the hackneyed saying goes, simply
looking to score. My script was my cover story.

Now before you call me dirty or whatever, I should add a disclaimer
here. I wasn't about to sodomize anyone, alright? I'm not like that. I
was looking for a forum to meet people, and I was sick of the bars and
gyms and adult education and single's night at the local comedy club,
environments that are designed to crush individuality and verve. Places
like that make me feel all the more pitiful. No, I just wanted to meet
real, everyday people out there in the real, everyday world. And so I
did. I took my talent cards, and simply laid them on the table.
"Aspirations are low," I remember thinking on the night before day
number one. "But I might get laid."

Lara

So the story goes like this. It hit me one morning when I was in the
bathroom, taking care of my weekly shave. I was gazing at myself in the
mirror, and for the first time in a while, I took an objective look. It
might have been the sour milk I had with my coffee that morning, or the
eight or nine Budweisers I had pounded with my friends the night
before; but there I was, lathered in shaving cream, staring at my
reflection, and reciting, quite subconsciously, though very much aloud,
a personal ad I might like to place. "Attractive, 29 year-old SWM,
6'1", green eyes, dark hair, mildly successful, somewhat cynical,
definitely bored. Seeks a bit of excitement to break out of six year
rut."

The details of what followed are a little sketchy. I do know that
sometime in those next 15 minutes, my mother left a plaintive message
on my answering machine about my failure to communicate with her for
two weeks. I also know that my cat Destiny hid under the couch for a
few days afterwards. From what I gather based on the spilt coffee and
strewn papers, I'm guessing I wasn't in the best mood. But when I came
to, ahhh... Clarity. Like sunbeams on white walls.

I'd like to pretend that I felt "ready for love" or some profound
sentiment like that, but it really wasn't that insightful. I think that
I was just a tad fed-up with some underlying misery; like I had blown
the last six years feeling terribly sorry for myself, at least beneath
some brilliantly-contrived fa?ade. And I cracked that morning. No
reason. No provocation. Just went loopy. When the smoke cleared, I
lifted my face from beneath the cushions on my couch, dropped Moby into
the CD player, went over to my desk and started typing. "Hello, my
name's Colin Sayles..." It was that easy.

That was on a Friday if I remember correctly, and I was to begin my
mission on Monday. This left me the entire weekend to swallow my
stomach, round up every scrap of balls that I could, and ready myself
for complete rejection or a new girlfriend. I wasn't sure, quite
frankly, which would be worse.

Monday morning was pretty surreal. I felt at once confident and scared
shitless. I knew it was a big step for me, if I could pull it off. And
I did want to pull it off. I wanted to cast away my
demons, find something outside of my writing to be excited about. I
didn't know how far any of these engagements would go, but I wanted to
find out. My ex-fianc?e was definitely on my mind, but only in that
"look what I have coming for you, you bitch" sort of way.

It was about 2:30PM when I left my apartment building. I was wearing my
trendiest clothes, but trying to look non-threatening at the same time,
something that I found tremendously difficult to do. I opted for a
clipboard to give myself the air of someone official. I chose loafers
over kickers. Hair combed. Cologne by Nautica. Outside of a deep-seated
sense of foreboding, I was ready for this.

I jumped on the downtown train, deciding that Times Square might be a
fun place to start. There are always plenty of people out, and if you
can avoid the tourists (who are just standing around gawking anyhow),
it can be a pretty cool scene. The late spring sun was shining when I
came up from the subway stop and the smog wasn't particularly dense
that day. Things were looking good already.

I'm a little neurotic I guess, so I had gone as far as to rehearse the
three or four lines I planned to say. But with the first few women I
stepped to, I quickly learned that it didn't matter what I said... The
women had a script of their own.

Do you notice this? Do you notice that you have a certain way of
dealing with people who approach you on the street, whether they're
looking for money, or offering you a Jesus pamphlet, or whatever? I
certainly noticed it. Some women looked suddenly preoccupied when they
saw me heading their way. Others looked me in the eye before I got a
chance to say anything, and just shook their head. Whatever they did, I
was striking out. But this wasn't entirely unexpected; New Yorkers can
be pretty uptight folks. As it turned out, I didn't really have to
follow my script at all...

The first woman to accept my invitation was none other than Lara Rylie,
a buxom, black-haired beauty who was the hostess at my favorite,
upscale Italian restaurant on West 66th. We had had a few conversations
here and there, but nothing terribly involved. It was usually just a
few pleasantries - enough to ensure that I got a seat on the streetside
patio. She was definitely a scorcher though. And though I had intended
to meet exclusively strangers, I thought Lara might be a good way to
break the ice with myself. She was standing outside the MTV studios
when I saw her.

"Lara, that you?" I called, and kind of cocked my head to the side as
though I were looking at her from around a corner. She was stunning as
ever: black tank top, stretch pants, platform shoes, a touch of
make-up... She turned my way and offered up a smile that would make you
melt, a smile I hadn't noticed in the dim lighting at the
restaurant.

"Colin, hey." She walked over and kissed me on the cheek in vintage
Lara style. And then, glancing at the clipboard, "What's my favorite
author up to?"

"Just some research, sort of." I didn't want to tell her for fear the
truth might come out. "You?"

"A bit of shopping for myself." She smiled again and lifted the bag she
was carrying so that I could see the Victoria's Secret insignia.

This was going to be difficult. She was one of those people that I knew
well enough to stop and talk to, but to whom I had never said much more
than six or seven successive words. The fact that she was gorgeous
threw an interesting element into the mix too. All in all, if I didn't
say anything remarkable, it was going to turn into a hideously awkward
encounter; she'd walk away, and I'd walk home feeling mighty dejected.
I had to push on, find a point, take a chance. And so I caved.

"So, actually," I started slowly, as if to appear modest and
restrained. "I'm doing research for this new book I'm writing. It's all
about dating in today's fast-paced culture. Just started, actually...
But I'm looking for some narratives, and, well... Have any interesting
dating stories that you might like included?"

She paused and then laughed as if she wasn't quite sure she wanted to
take me seriously. "Oh, Colin, silly - I don't date."

"Pardon?" Stupid, stupid, reply. I hadn't anticipated her
response.

"I don't date." She looked wistfully into the air. "Too much effort,
I'm afraid. I'd rather..."

"Hey wait." Breathe, man, breathe. "Can we do this over dinner? My
treat. I just want to be sure I get the full story."

She laughed again, avoiding my eyes.

"Oh come on, Ryles," I was feeling my oats now. "It'll be fun."

"Fine, fine, big boy," she purred in mock resignation as her blue eyes
locked onto mine. And then, in an accusatory tone that I had a hard
time believing was false, "But tell me this first... You sure you're
not putting the moves on me?"

"Maybe. You sound like you might want to find out?" She raised her
eyebrows in a very coy, very sexy way, and I was thinking, my
God, this is going to be fun! We both smiled as she
took my left arm in her right.

We ended up at some swank martini bar just outside of Times Square. I
was happy enough to have company for the evening, so I wasn't about to
complain to Lara about going somewhere I consider a small step up from
hell. It wasn't only a bar, of course. There was food too, or, at least
what passes for food if you're into the whole raw seafood thing. And
salads, and a full-service oxygen bar, and a seven page menu dedicated
entirely to exotic alcoholic beverages. Ahh, pop culture. You hate to
love it.

Our conversations were easy if not consequential. She talked about her
favorite cars, I talked about my favorite candy bar. She shared a few
stories from her college years, I gossiped about the most recent
episode of Survivor. Eventually, after sushi and a few drinks, the
dialogue turned to what she believed to be my upcoming novel.

"So this new book, what's the angle?"

I didn't know whether or not to prolong the lie. She had seemed on to
me from the start, and I could look pretty foolish playing a game of
which she was fully aware. But then again, her inquiry sounded genuine,
and in any event, I couldn't be held accountable for lying after having
imbibed far more hard alcohol than I was accustomed to. Game on.

"Well, it's just in the conceptual phase right now. I'm thinking that
it will be an amalgamation of stories from various women. All
first-person, all about their love lives, you know... dating and such.
I've only really just started to think about it..."

"Ooh, I'll do it! Let me be in it," she interjected excitedly, waving
her hands like a two year old who's about to be fed. I wasn't expecting
such a level of enthusiasm, especially from someone who abstained from
dating. But she had put away at least five martinis, and obviously had
a lot to share. I pulled my clipboard close, ready to play a little
note-taking charade, and prayed that I'd be able to take my eyes off
her breasts often enough so as to give her the impression that I was
listening. The game, after all, must go on.

I'll spare you the details of what she had to say. It wasn't much more
than trite, superficial dribble-drabble about gorgeous men she had
seduced into bed on the first date. "It's not dating
though," she was quick to point out, "because I never see them again."
It suited her looks perfectly, you know? She was one of those
attractive women who you see on the street and think to yourself "I'd
do her." What made Lara unique, though, is that she was thinking "I'd
do him" at the same time. And in contrast to all you poser men out
there, she was actually willing to follow through with it.

It was strange, but as the night wore on, I found myself getting a bit
jealous. It was an affable envy, mind you, but envy nonetheless. Here
was an otherwise normal woman who could, just like that, meet a member
of the opposite sex and be exchanging the most intimate of acts with
him mere hours later. I mean it's sick, really. But in some rebellious
way, I caught myself wanting the same self-disregard that she had. I
had always cared too much to be like that - cared about principles,
cared about myself. I cared about the moral high ground and all that.
Hell, I cared about what my parents might think. But we all have it in
us, I suppose. Some people just choose to let it out.

So we fucked that night. It wasn't making love, or even sex, because
there was nothing loving or sexy about it. It was just plain fucking.
It was very animal, very raw, and very much what I needed. I wasn't
entirely surprised either when I awoke the next morning to find nothing
left of Lara except a lacy black thong stuffed beneath my pillow. She
had done what would be considered a sin for any guy to do; but I was
thanking her for it. In the midst of orgasm the night before, I was
already beginning to dread the conversation we would have to have in
the morning. What would I say? Obviously, Lara was a pro, but me? I
don't think I would have been able to look her in the eyes. Maybe she
sensed that somehow, I don't know. Either way, the shower I had that
morning felt really good.

Catherine

I wasn't sure if I wanted to call Lara a success. On the one hand, it
was a break-out day for me. On quite the other, I was absolutely
ashamed of myself - uncomfortable that I could, on impulse, sleep with
a woman without some emotional attachment. It taught me a little about
myself, I guess. Maybe I wasn't entirely different from Lara after all.
That notwithstanding, I knew that casual sex wasn't the answer. It
might be exciting, and it might, in a peculiar and perverse way, fill
some emotional void. But it wasn't going to make me feel any better
about love, and it certainly wasn't going to allow me to write about
love. And this, I pretended, was the most important goal of all.

Regardless, one thing was for sure. I was much more eager to get back
on the streets the next day. I felt invigorated if not fulfilled, and
was excited to find out where this week was going to take me.

That afternoon, I realized I might meet a broader scope of women if I
headed out around the end of the workday. So when 5:00PM rolled around,
I went through the same costume and clipboard routine, and made my way
towards the financial district, hopeful that I'd find something a bit
more real than what I had happened upon the day before. The sidewalks
were as crowded as one would expect at rush hour, and despite some
initial and profound intimidation, I started to find the odds quite
favorable. And that's when I met Catherine.

I hadn't made it more than 20 paces out of the subway. My first crack
at things had won me a lovingly brisk "Fuck off," but my second turned
out to be an exceedingly cordial affair. I threw her the line, and she
took it. The exchange went something like this:

"Hello, my name's Colin Sayles, a writer here in New York..." She
didn't let me get past the first line, and I should have known then
that this woman was going to be trouble.

"Pleasure. My name's Catherine Mercer, a consultant. I work in the
Trade Center." She pointed over her shoulder as though I was visiting
from Mars and had missed the twin towers behind her on my way in.

"Oh, well, nice to meet you Catherine." We shook hands and it was on
with the script. "Anyway, I'm compiling a collection of first-person
narratives about the ins-and-outs of dating, and I'm looking to
interview a few single women about their experience. I'd like to hear
your account, if you don't mind. Doesn't matter how silly. You'll
remain anonymous, of course."

She paused briefly.

"Sure, can't hurt. I have some stories to tell, I guess."

Okay, so she wasn't the enthusiastic sort, apparently... Certainly not
like Lara had been the night before. But she was willing, and that's
all that counted. I had a toe in the proverbial door.

"Great! Could we get a bite to eat and chat? It's on me..."

She said that sounded fine, and at her suggestion, we went to a little
natural foods caf? around the corner.

"I try to eat healthy," she said as we danced through the crowd. "But
I guess you don't need to put that in your book, do you?" Don't hold me
to it, but I think she was trying to be funny. I cringed
slightly.

We grabbed some food from the ? la carte line, and took a pair of seats
by the window. She put precisely three drops of light Italian dressing
on her salad.

"So," she said in a conference-call tone of voice. "Where should I
start?"

Now wait. Was this girl for real? No small talk? No 'So what's your
favorite TV show?' or 'How is the writing business these days?' No
preamble whatsoever? She aimed to please apparently, but her aim was
just a bit off.

"Umm..." I stuttered for a second. I wasn't certain I wanted this
meeting to go any further than it already had. "Are... Well, tell me
about your job." I didn't have the heart to get up and walk out.

"Oh, my job's really good," she recited it as if she were talking to
her parents on the phone. "I give presentations to potential clients
about the services of our company. It can make for long hours
sometimes. But I'm due for a promotion in the next six months, so it's
worth it."

"Free time?"

"You mean do I have any? Or what do I do with it?"

"Um..." Now that she mentioned it, I wasn't quite sure what I was
asking. "Both."

"Well, I'm really focusing on my career right now. I work evenings a
lot, weekends sometimes. Friday nights are usually free, and I like to
go down to single's night at this comedy club on the Lower East Side
with a couple girls from work. But that's only recently." I
accidentally raised an eyebrow.

"I'm between relationships right now," she grinned. "My boyfriend of
seven months broke up with me two weeks ago."

"Huh, I'm sorry to hear that." And I would have been if she had seemed
the least bit troubled by it.

"Oh, it's okay. I wasn't really into him anyway. He was a little plain
looking. And he didn't live life quite as fast as I would have
liked."

I took a couple thoughtful bites of my fried tofu, and suddenly found
myself obscenely fascinated by everything she was saying. She would
make a great character, I thought to myself.

"Do you feel that way about a lot of your boyfriends?"

"No, not really." She paused pensively for a moment, nibbling on her
salad. "The boyfriend before him was a Democrat, and we had all sorts
of problems around election time. The boyfriend before him, he just
expected too much of my time. Like I had nothing better to do? And my
parents didn't like him anyway. They thought I should be dating someone
a bit more professional.

"I don't know. I don't worry about it too much. Being single's nice.
More time." She shrugged and pulled a cucumber from her plate.

I had been doodling on my clipboard, and when she stopped, I scribbled
a few more concentric circles for emphasis and looked up to meet her
delicately expectant gaze. I forged an expression that was somewhere
between understanding and admiration.

"Great stuff," I professed, as though she had just given a
presentation.

She smiled like daddy's little girl and suddenly her life flashed
before my eyes.

It went something like this. She was very obviously a first-born,
driven to success by overly-cautious and assertive parents. Rich,
conservative, suburban family. She read Seventeen until she 15, and
then got birthday subscriptions to Elle and
Mademoiselle when she turned 16. She graduated from
college in three years, but not because she was a scholar - she had
simply perfected the art of perfectionism. Business school, MBA. And
now, as a high-powered working girl, dating wasn't in the formula for
success. "You can always find a man," I imagined her mother saying when
Catherine was dumped at age 13. "Make sure you have a life for yourself
first."

We ate in silence for a few more minutes and then I asked a question
that might have been undeserved, but to me seemed entirely
obvious.

"Are you lonely?"

She blinked in surprise, and for a second her face revealed a sort of
latent melancholy, like a sadness that she might sense right before she
fell asleep each night. Her lower lip quivered slightly, and then
snapped back into place. She abruptly looked at her watch.

"Shoot... Always happens. Hey look, I have to get running to my
aerobics class, and then to my retirement funds adult ed class after
that. I'm sorry. Time just got away from me." She reached into her
briefcase, pulled out a business card, and seized my pen so that she
could jot down what I guessed was her home phone number on the back.
"But thank you. Here's my card, just in case there's anything else you
need." I wasn't sure if she wanted me to call her for an update or a
drink. I didn't plan on doing either.

"Take care, Mr. Sayles." She shook my hand and then she was gone, off
to fill the rest of her evening with meaninglessness so that she
wouldn't have to think about how desolate her life really was.

With that exit, Catherine became the first confirmed sighting of an
individual afflicted with the pseudo-hypothetical
Wake-Up-When-You're-Forty syndrome, a malady I had invented some years
before to describe the shallow, emotionless people who were destined to
wake up in middle age to find that they lacked any substance in their
lives. I never thought these people really existed, though I worried
constantly that I might be one of them. Now that I had met Catherine,
there was no need to worry about that anymore.

I slipped my clipboard under my arm, pocketed her business card, and
left the caf?, feeling very much like I was stepping out of the
Twilight Zone.

That night was spent reluctantly contemplating Catherine's existence.
Part of me wanted to tear up her business card and never think about
her again. But there was another part of me that wanted to give her a
call, shake her around, and try to get her to wake up
now instead of when she turned 40. I had been
sitting there in the restaurant thinking about what a pathetic specimen
she was. But later on that evening, I was feeling more sympathy towards
her than anything else.

As the oft-used saying goes, 'Ignorance is Bliss,' and you know, when I
thought about that old adage, and about Catherine, I almost believed it
to be true. Sure I felt bad for the girl, and for her inability to
recognize the important things in life. But maybe she was happier that
way. After all, wasn't it the case that my life had been made miserable
because I couldn't be ignorant? I tried to rewind
six years, to that evening I came home from work to find my fianc?e
gone. What if I had played Catherine's ignorant persona that night?
Would I have been better off? Of course not! I wouldn't have been
anything. And that's when I realized that ignorance
isn't bliss, because ignorance means a lack of
participation, a lack of sensation. Ignorance might breed contentment,
perhaps. Satisfaction, maybe. But certainly not bliss. Heck, after a
few years of ignorant lovelessness, even I knew that.
So you take the bad with the good. It can be either that way or
Catherine's way. I was pleased to conclude that the reason I risk
feeling bad sometimes is so that I can feel good the rest of the
time.

Veronica

I was tired the next morning. I had managed to ruminate myself in
circles late into the night, weighing the relative merits of ignorance
versus awareness, bliss versus satisfaction. In the end, it was futile,
because I woke up feeling no less ignorant and no more blissful, and in
any case, wasn't I going to be the only person I knew how to be?

"I'm not in right now," Catherine's voice chimed over her answering
machine. I called her around 9:30AM, confident that she would already
be at work. "But please leave a message after the tone, and I will
return your call as soon as possible." No spirit. No pizzazz. It was
fitting.

"Catherine, it's Colin Sayles. I just wanted to say thanks for talking
with me last night, and..." I paused. The next few words had to be
tactful, and the only way to do that was to lie. "Well, I really hope
you meet Mr. Right soon. If I may offer up a line that another
interviewee used a couple days ago - Remember that he comes from you
and not to you. Take care." I clicked the receiver down, feeling
absolved of any remorse left over from the 'Are you lonely?' remark. I
was thankful that she didn't have my phone number.

It was time for day number three.

I didn't have a particular destination in mind, and I wasn't in much of
a rush, so I started walking south along Broadway and then weaved my
way towards the shops and department stores near Penn Station. It was
around 3:00PM when I got there, and the mid-afternoon shoppers were out
in force, lugging their bags and gabbing on cell phones about the
fabulous sale going on at Lord &; Taylor. "Spend, spend, spend," I
muttered under my breath.

In a sea of consumerist madness, Veronica Webster was casually leaning
against a lamppost watching the world go by. I say that because she was
the only one who wasn't moving, and sometimes those are the ones that
catch your eye, you know? I had asked a few unwilling women to be
subjects, but I had a good feeling about this one. She smiled when I
walked up.

"Hi, I'm Colin ..." Fuck the script, I thought. "I'm a writer here in
the city, and I'm trying to compile some dating stories for a new book
I'm working on. If you would be willing to talk about your experiences,
I'd like the chance to interview you. It's all very informal, of
course."

"Sure," she answered nonchalantly as she removed herself from the
lamppost. "I'm Veronica. Veronica Webster. What would you like to
know?" She stuck her hands into the back pockets of her jeans in a farm
girl kind of way.

"Well, just a few things really... Care to talk over a coffee or beer
or something?"

"Actually, I only have a little bit of time... I'm on a break from
work. Do you think it'll take long?" Most New Yorkers would have
intoned that last phrase in their best Bronx accent, but Veronica's
voice was extraordinarily pleasant. If she had been the least bit
insolent, I would have told her another time. As it happened, I decided
to stick around. There was something about her that I liked.

"Well, we could probably do a quickie," I smiled in reassurance. And
then, producing my clipboard, "Do you work around here?"

"Yeah, a few blocks away. The Rape and Sexual Assault Support
Coalition. We organize support groups for victims of sexual violence.
Mostly women, of course. But a few men too."

Uh oh. This was going to be serious downer.

"I'm on break," she continued, "because I needed to get away for a
while. The meetings can get pretty emotional and I have a hard time
detaching myself sometimes."

I nodded in understanding. Not that I could ever understand, mind you.
But it felt like the right thing to do.

"So... Sorry for that." She shook her head as if to rid herself of a
troubling image. "What is it that you want to know?"

She seemed like she wanted someone to talk to, and I kind of wanted
someone to talk to too, and in any case, what was I going to do? Ask
the nearest passerby about her love life so that she could push past me
en route to the next shoe sale? Ha. I think not... So I pressed
on.

"Well I'm looking for some dating stories to go into this new book...
They don't have to be newsworthy, just honest." I paused. She seemed
ready. "So, are you with anyone right now?"

"Well, I have a partner," she said matter-of-factly.

"Oh." I think my face went off, and she smirked slightly as though she
knew what I was picturing.

"It's not what you think. I'm not a lesbian or anything." She was
matter-of-fact about this too, which I found impressive because I can't
say the word 'lesbian' without at least snickering. "'Partner' is the
term we use at the Coalition to refer to the person who serves as the
main source of support for a rape victim. It can be a man or a woman.
We try to emphasize the importance of the relationship between a victim
and her partner, but I guess it's not a relationship in the typical
sense... My partner happens to be male. John... He's a great
guy."

I realized that meant she was a victim.

Now, I had a friend back in college who told me her story of sexual
mistreatment, and I have pretty vivid memory of the night she opened up
to me. We're sitting on the floor of her dorm room, she's crying
slightly, and I'm feeling this peculiar closeness to her. It's all
so...intimate. Veronica, on the other hand, was
entirely different - no sadness, no closeness. She was almost aloof and
indifferent about it. Her performance had me feeling a little off
guard, and I wasn't sure how to react to it. Should I feign
disinterest? Should I ask her about it? I wanted to press for details,
but then again, I wanted nothing to do with it.

"So it's not really dating..." It was all I could come up with.

"No, not really. I mean, I go out with John all the time, but it's more
of a therapy for me. More of a best friend thing... I've known him for
years."

I couldn't stand it. I had to know.

"So, when..." I eyed her hopefully as if to ask her to finish the
sentence. She didn't disappoint.

"It was about four years ago," she started in a voice that was
disturbingly even. "The guy was my boyfriend at the time. There were no
warning signs, no bells that they say are supposed to go off. I mean,
he had been a great guy, really. Then one night it just happened.

"Afterwards, I went through the whole progression - denial, guilt,
anger...and then a very long bout of depression. The Coalition helped.
And now I help. It's another part of my therapy, I guess." Her eyes had
been noticeably vacant, but as she finished her narrative, they focused
on me.

"So that's my dating story," she sighed with a hint of a sad smile.
"You asked for honesty."

There was a long pause.

"I'm sorry." I wanted to apologize for the entire male gender.

"Don't be," she shook her head. "I've learned to place responsibility
where it belongs. I'm comfortable with my past."

Another long pause.

"Do you...date?"

"Oh, here and there. It's never anything serious though. I find
intimacy really tough to handle so usually I don't let it get to that
point. I know I'm cheating myself, but it's an emotional barrier that
I'm just not ready to leap over yet, you know?"

I did know. If there was one thing I could empathize with, it was the
feeling that there was an invisible wall between you and that which you
desired. And you knew the wall was there, and you knew who built it
too, but you couldn't tear it down. Not like I would tell her that I
knew all this, of course. My story was a walk in the park compared to
hers. So I just nodded in agreement.

"Look, I really have to get going... They're expecting me back at the
Coalition for a wrap-up meeting." She reached out her hand. "Thanks for
listening, Colin. I hope your story goes well."

"Hey, thanks. I hope, um... I hope yours does too." We shook hands and
then she walked away. I watched her until she turned a corner out of
view.

Standing there, leaning against Veronica's lamppost, I was unsure of
what I was supposed to think. I mean, it was easy to feel bad about
what had happened to her four years ago. Anyone could show a little
sympathy, offer her a hug, and get on with it. But just below that
candy-coated crust of pity was a whole other layer, a layer that was
much more dense and disturbing than the one above. What I really felt
bad about was what had happened to Veronica since. I envisioned her
meeting a guy at a bar or whatever, enjoying a couple 'get to know you'
kind of weeks, and then dumping him as soon as he tried to kiss her on
some Thursday night after a movie. She would probably run to John the
next day, shaken and upset by the recurring nightmare that she had had
the night before. And I imagined this happening to her over and over
again. It was something akin to what I had been suffering through, but
far, far worse. At least I could have sex... Veronica probably closed
the door at holding hands.

I found a touch of solace in knowing that Veronica, in stark contrast
to a certain someone I had met the night before, was at least
self-aware. I was proud of her for that. She had said that she was
comfortable with her past, and I decided that I liked that line. It
demonstrated a recognition of something gone wrong...something that she
was going to fix. And who cares if she was paradoxically aloof in her
story-telling? Her account was a script that she had adopted after
years at the Coalition, a script that was not unlike the one I had been
using to lure women into my lie. Hers was just a bit more honest, and
you had to respect her for that.

She'll find her way over that wall, I said to myself. She's got
everything going for her.

I commuted home with the rest of the nine-to-fivers, trying to act like
I had everything going for me too, and wishing above all else that I
did.

Katie

Day four found me feeling a little less enthralled about my mission. I
had suffered, after all, three mostly unsuccessful and discouraging
days, and was beginning to realize that there were a lot of really
loveless people out there. I felt a bit of camaraderie with these women
I suppose, but they had certainly done nothing to foster any faith in
relationships or dating or passion or whatever. My goal had been to
look for myself out there on the streets of New York, and that,
ironically enough, is exactly what I had found.

That afternoon, I again wandered down to Times Square, seeking,
subconsciously perhaps, a touch of the excitement I had found there on
Monday. But the fish weren't biting or I just wasn't into it, and after
an hour of repeated rejection, I gave up and headed into my favorite CD
shop a block away. One of my favorite things to do, especially when I'm
feeling the least bit down, is to go check out the new releases and
sale items at local music stores. Nothing lifts the spirit, I've found,
quite like music listening stations.

There's a scene in some movie, any movie, where a guy spots a girl from
across a room, and they smile at each other, and she looks embarrassed
for a moment, and then the guy walks over and introduces himself. (They
also go home and have sex some hours later, but that's not really the
point here.) I was never convinced that this happened in real life, at
least until it happened to me that afternoon. Because there I was,
grooving to an up-tempo love song on the newest Beth Orton album, when
I glanced to my left and saw this woman at another music console about
20 feet away, nodding her head slightly and tapping her fingers against
her thigh. Her eyes were closed, and I could see her only in profile,
but something about her struck me... Not her looks, because there was
nothing overtly beautiful about her. It might have been her style of
dress, perhaps - jeans that were cut the right way, and a plain white
V-neck T-shirt. Her hair too - straight and blond, pulled up in a loose
knot behind her head with a few vagrant strands spilling down the back
of her neck. And she was wearing an extraordinarily boring pair of
Pumas that I happened to find really, really sexy. She must have sensed
me staring, because she turned slowly towards me, and opened her eyes
at the same time. There was nothing uneasy about the way she looked at
me, and I knew that instant that she was just really
cool.

I was momentarily panic-stricken, unsure of what to do next. Well, I
mean - I knew I wanted to go over there, of that much I was sure. I
just felt a bit out of my element, maybe a bit out of my league. And
then she smiled and looked down, and I thought I noticed a hint of
diffidence in her posture, a chink in her cool veneer if you will. So I
thought I had a chance.

Mustering all the calm that I could, I put down my headphones and
walked casually towards where she stood. I had nothing planned, mind
you; I think I was waiting for some divine intervention. Five, four,
three steps away, and still no acts of God. And then it came. Without
looking my way, she picked up the other pair of headphones that lay
dangling from the CD player, and handed them to me with art gallery
fingers.

"Here," she murmured in a voice that was thick in texture, light in
tone. "Listen."

Music is a pretty tricky thing. Lord knows how many times I've tried to
tell a friend about a song I've heard, and they're like, "So how's it
go?" and I stand there like a bumbling idiot trying to explain what
makes it so good. I think it's because the English language is so
limiting - it always feels like I'm taking something marvelously
intricate and diluting it down with textbook Rolling
Stone phrases like "fantastic beat" or "groovy guitar riff."
So I'm not going to describe the song that was playing on those
headphones. I will say that it fell into the techno genre, and that it
featured a female vocalist who was soaring forlornly above a vivid bass
line. Something pushed my metaphor button, and it wasn't long before I
felt like the woman standing beside me was speaking to my soul through
that song. I dropped my chin, closed my eyes, and held on tight. It
felt like hours before the music began to wane.

"Hey, I'm Katie Warner." It was as if one song was fading into another.
"Do you want to grab some coffee somewhere?"

This girl had a way of making you feel very comfortable.

"Colin." I stuck out my hand and smiled. "Thanks for the song... Yeah,
coffee sounds great."

She nodded and dropped her headphones.

"I'm not usually the one to do this sort of thing you know," she said
on the way out of the store.

"Do what?" But I knew exactly what she was talking about.

"You know. Just start talking to someone like that. Asking them to
coffee." She looked to her feet and laughed a nervous laugh.

"Oh... I couldn't tell, really." Which was the truth, because she had
looked too composed for this to be out of the ordinary.

There was a small coffee shop a few blocks away, out of range of most
tourists, and too much of a dive to be popular among uptight New
Yorkers. I ordered an iced mocha, and she ordered a chai.

"So, Colin," she said as we eased onto an overstuffed and outdated
sofa. "What's your story?"

I liked the tone she used, and let her know with a bit of a chuckle. It
was all official-sounding, as though she were about to interview me for
a job.

"I'm a writer, actually. Fiction intermingled with pop culture. Or pop
culture intermingled with fiction... Whichever way you want to see it."
I think she appreciated the subtle distinction.

"Nice." She sipped her chai. "I don't think I remember any authors I've
read named Colin. But, ..." she trailed off. The poor girl seemed
embarrassed to admit this to me and I have to confess that it was
pretty flattering.

"It's okay. I'm not world famous, you know. Getting there maybe..." And
she laughed.

We spent a good couple of hours at the coffee shop. I learned that she
was a modern artist who employed various three-dimensional media to
convey an interesting idea. "I'm into reductionism," she explained. "I
like to take everyday objects and deconstruct them into their
constitutive parts. It's like the anti-Gestalt view of art - 'The whole
is less than the sum of its parts' and all that." I hadn't seen any of
her work either, and she said that was okay as long as we remedied the
problem with a trip to a local art gallery. "I got lucky with a couple
of my pieces," she stated proudly.

Katie was engaging, fun, witty, and relaxed. Best of all, she didn't
seem to have all the emotional baggage that the other women I had met
that week were carrying. We shared common interests and common values.
She professed an underfed adoration of pop culture, and our
conversations wove in and out of mutually favorite topics: the arts,
front-page science, quirky human nature... She asked all the right
questions and gave all the right answers, all at just the right
speed.

She glanced at her watch around 7:00, which I took to mean that she
thought it was time to head our separate ways. I kept my poise, but my
pulse was dashing. She eyed me, contemplating.

"Hey, I have a cool westerly view from my apartment. Great for sunsets.
It's only a few stops away on the uptown. You interested?"

Was that my heart that nearly leapt out of my chest? I hadn't felt that
in a while.

"Yeah." I must have been glowing. "I am."

When we arrived at her apartment, she produced a pint of my favorite
sorbet along with two spoons, and we ate standing up while she pointed
out a few of her pieces that lay around her workspace. Then the light
grew dim and took on the color of orchids and raspberries, and we were
treated to one of the best sunsets I had seen since leaving California.
We watched in silence, sitting happily close to each other on her
living room couch, the empty pint container on the floor in front of
us.

I really enjoyed the stillness, though not for the quiet so much as for
the opportunity to work through a few of my thoughts. I was feeling
pretty good about this. I was feeling in control and optimistic. Was
this what I was hoping to find when I conceived of my plan? Was this my
chance to feel good about life again? Was this to be my moment? And
then Katie asked the question that I been dreading all evening.

"Colin?"

"Huh?"

"Are you..." She coughed lightly. "Are you dating anyone?"

I shuddered involuntarily. I wasn't ready to come clean, not yet. Don't
push me.

"Uh... No, not dating anyone." Long pause. "You?"

"No."

I'm not quite sure what compelled me to say what I did next. Perhaps it
was all the relationship talk I had been through that week. Heck, it
may well have been genuine curiosity. But after she said 'No,' all I
could think about was why an amazing girl like Katie wouldn't be
involved with someone. And so I asked her.

"Why not?"

"Oh, Colin, are trying to sweet talk me?" she laughed. "Do you really
want to know, or are you just being a schmuck?"

"No," I insisted. "I'd really like to know." And then I knew why I had
asked. Anything to keep the emphasis on her condition and not mine. She
took a deep breath as the last trickle of sunset red faded from the
sky.

"My husband left me a long time ago..." I inhaled sharply, which she
seemed to expect because she continued on without a hitch, calm and
collected.

"We had been married a year and a half, and I came home one day to find
him gone. No word on where he went... I haven't seen or heard from him
since."

I didn't like where this was headed. I didn't like that she knew my
story without asking me first. Worse, she was able to tell it without
hesitation, like it was no big deal to her. And me, I had been
struggling for six long years trying to come to grips with what my
fianc?e had done. I instantly resented Katie for it...for all of it.
What right did she have anyway? I sat up on the couch, suddenly feeling
very uncomfortable. She sensed my change in demeanor.

"Colin...?"

"You know..." I needed out. "It's getting late. I... I really have to
go."

She seemed confused, and despite the darkness, I could see the hurt in
her eyes. But I think she understood that it wasn't her place to
protest.

"Alright."

She followed me out into the hallway where we stood face to face while
I waited for the elevator.

"I'm sorry, you know...if I did something wrong."

"It's not your fault." The elevator arrived and I got in.

"Look..." I told her, as if to offer up some reconciliation. "I'll see
you around." She looked like she was going to cry, but I was too
flustered to stay. And then the doors closed between us.

Noel

I felt awful the next morning. I was angry with Katie for having
succeeded in dealing with a history that had proved so debilitating to
me. And then again, I was more angry with myself for letting her get to
me so much. I knew I had treated her unfairly. I hadn't wanted to leave
like I did, but I couldn't, I just couldn't tell her
about my past... Especially after it had seemed so easy for her to open
up to me.

The most frustrating thing was that she was almost perfect in every
other way. Actually, strike that. She was perfect...
In every way. Katie was me, just much less the
tortured artist that I had been for the last six years. After all, she
knew how to recover from a broken relationship. And while her
competence in this regard was no more a personality flaw than her love
of pop culture, it was reason enough for me to despise her. I knew I'd
never see her again.

Thankfully, that day was to be the last chapter of my plan; and it was
only to satisfy my silly sense of pride that I actually went out to
finish it off. At that point, I just wanted to be done with the thing.
It had brought me tantalizingly close to, well,
something; but close didn't count in my book. In any
case, I was itching to restore some pathetic normalcy to my life.

I decided to go out around noon, thinking that I wanted to get it over
with sooner rather than later. If I was done by four, I thought, I
could take the rest of the evening off to sulk and brood and maybe
start writing a new novel about an author who can't write anything
meaningful because his life seems to him to be anything but. I took a
quick shower around 11:30, threw on some uninspired clothes, and
crossed Central Park West to loiter as close to my apartment building
as possible. It was a cool, overcast day.

I had been out there soliciting women for about twenty minutes when I
heard someone call my name from off to my right. It was a familiar
voice (as any voice that is saying your name would be), but in a very
surreal and faraway manner. I couldn't place it until I looked to its
source... And then stood frozen when I realized just how familiar that
voice really was.

"Colin?" she repeated again. "It's me... Noel."

And so it was. The last woman I had ever loved. My ex-fianc?e.

She came towards me and extended her arms for a hug. I accepted, not
knowing what else to do, and we shared an unnervingly easy embrace. She
kissed my cheek as we pulled apart.

My mind was racing blank thoughts. I had visualized this moment at
least a million times in the last six years, and then it happened, and
I didn't know whether to cry or laugh or slap her or what. I resolved
to do nothing. Play it calm, I thought. But I knew, at least in the
back of my mind, that if she provided a spark, I was ready to go up in
a second. Just one...little...spark.

"How are you? It's good to see you."

"Heh," I laughed, unable to look at her. "Six years and that's all I
get?"

"Oh come on, Colin. At least I came over here." She seemed much more
delighted and at ease with this reunion than I.

"True, fine... I'm doing alright."

There was a moment of awkward silence that she felt compelled to
fill.

"Hey, look. I have a bit of time. Care to walk?"

I did and I didn't, but it wasn't feeling like a stand-still kind of
moment, and in any case, there wasn't much else that could go wrong
with this week. So we started walking towards downtown. It was a long
time before either of us said anything.

"Do I owe you an explanation?"

"Better late than never."

She sighed and said coolly, "I met someone else. He was much better for
me, I think. Much more my type... It was a rash decision, perhaps. But
I think it was the best for both of us."

"How do you know that?" I exploded. "You didn't
stick around long enough to find out! Do you know what I went
through?"

"I know, I know..." she cooed as if she had never left me in the first
place.

"No you don't! It's haunted me ever since! I've felt
terrible about myself and about the thought of another relationship. I
wasn't even able to really date until..." I laughed a wretched laugh
because the timing of this encounter was so hideously poignant. "Until
this week in fact. A week I've spent lying to all these women just so I
could feel like I had a chance. So no, I don't think
you have any idea what I went through."

She didn't respond to my tirade, which was just as well, because I was
ready to blast her some more if she even tried to reason with me. It
was another five uneasy blocks before I settled down again, and I think
she sensed this because she asked a question I wasn't expecting.

"So how has this week been?"

"Oh, you know," I sighed, too overwhelmed by the ease of her candor to
be anything but honest. "All sorts of people. A nymphomaniac, a rape
victim..."

I was trying to sound vile and sarcastic, but I don't think I succeeded
because she went on.

"You seem less than thrilled. No one's piqued your interest?"

I didn't really want to tell her about Katie. It felt borderline
sacrilegious in some weird way. But then again, what was the harm? I
mean, I wasn't going to see either of these women again. Plus, I didn't
want to afford Noel the satisfaction of thinking my exploits had been
for naught, even if that was more or less the case.

"Yeah, one. Her name's Katie. I just met her yesterday. It's a long
story, really."

"Huh. Well, I'm glad to hear that." She paused expressionless for a
moment, and then a flicker of recognition crossed her face. "It's
stupid to ask, but Katie who?"

"Might want to ask her runaway husband," I said, avoiding her gaze and
scratching the back of my head. I was hoping she caught the semblance
of a sneer in there. "But her maiden name is Warner. Katie
Warner."

It was nine blocks from where Noel and I were standing to Katie's
apartment, and I probably ran it in 30 seconds flat. I couldn't believe
the insanity that had just taken place. Sure I had felt a connection
with her, but this? This was lunacy. I mean, how does that
work? My fianc?e leaves me for Katie's husband, who
had left her for my fianc?e? I
was angry and hurt all over again. But more than that, I felt a sudden
and incomprehensibly vast sadness for what had happened to me and to
Katie and to all the people out there who couldn't love for one reason
or another. I knew I had to do what I could to make it all better. I
knew I had to go see Katie.

Mercifully, she was perched on her stoop when I turned the corner onto
her street. Her hair was down, and she looked misplaced and vulnerable,
idly twirling a dandelion between her fingers. And then there I was,
standing in front of her, anxious, defeated, terribly unsure of what to
do or to say. She didn't look startled to see me, but her eyes betrayed
an anticipation that I found enormously moving. I began to sob.

"Katie, I... I..."

She nodded a sad smile, knowing that words weren't going to come
easily. And she didn't really seem to care as she pressed her index
finger against my lips, and then pulled me close into the hollow
between her shoulder and neck. And I just cried and cried for having
been so dishonest with her and with all the women I had met that week.
And I cried even for Noel, because she was such a thoughtless, awful
person. But mostly I just let six years of insecurity and self-loathing
carve glistening rivulets down my face. And Katie just held me tight
and stroked the nape of my neck, crooning and whispering and rocking so
gently that I felt a desperate impulse to stay there for the rest of my
life.

"I know, Colin. I know..."

Epilogue

I haven't seen any of the other women since that week, including, for
the record, my ex-fianc?e. Well, that's exactly not true. I see Lara
occasionally at the restaurant, but things haven't changed much with
her. She'll throw me a knowing glance perhaps, but mostly it's the same
chit-chat we had before our little encounter. And as for Katie... Well,
the story's not over, I guess. We became instant best friends after
that fateful Friday evening. That sounds kind of cheesy and all, but
it's really what happened. We talked a bit that night about our bizarre
past, shared a few tears and even a few laughs, and then dropped it.
Now we go to museums and music stores, and watch bad 80's sitcoms on
Friday evenings. Every once in a while we'll fall asleep on the couch
together and make pancakes the next morning in our underwear. She says
she likes to listen to me type while she reads the latest issue of
Popular Science, and I'm all too happy to
oblige.

And, oh yes, speaking of typing - I'm proud to say that I write about
love now. The two protagonists in my most recent effort are a married
couple who DJ together at a Boston nightclub. Sure they have their
ups-and-downs, but I think they're happy. No shivers yet, but I'm
working on it.

Katie and I are pretty happy with the way things are too. Doing the
friendship thing, that is. It's very much an "I'll scratch your back,
you scratch mine" kind of arrangement. We may decide to start dating
someday down the road... I guess we'll have to see how the story
goes.