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The War Room

Things went sideways on Monday night. You see, my old confusing pal Laurie crept out of the woodwork for her annual attempt to throw my life into upheaval. Technically, this time I invited the upheaval. I’m sure that doesn’t say anything good about me, but I just don’t know what the hell is going on anymore. I need to blog, because then maybe someone will drop a mocking comment explaining why I’m such an idiot.

Here’s how things went down: I’ve been on Facebook for awhile, and I’ve been “friends” with a few ex-professors for awhile. So I happened to notice, on Monday night, “[Laurie] and [two of Stan’s ex-professors] are now friends.” Now, I’d searched for her on Facebook before — around the time she added me on MySpace — but I didn’t find her. Now, she was very clearly there. I debated for a few minutes, then decided, “Okay, I’ll add her.” I figured, at best, she’d take a week or two to add me, maybe write something polite on my wall, and then I’d never hear from her again (true to the pattern).

Instead, there was a flurry of activity that, I shit you not, reminded me of that first-season episode of The Wire where they get the murder of Brandon (Omar’s love thang) via pager and pay phone intercepts. Probably not a good sign, but that’s how my mind works, I guess.

I don’t check Facebook much, so I just added her and clicked off the site. As I trolled the Internet for the freshest and finest pornography, I noticed two e-mails pop up instantly: first, a confirmation from Laurie, then a seemingly sincere, apologetic comment on my wall about how we used to be really good friends, and we should bury the hatchet and start over. I got back on Facebook and stated the obvious: okay. She invited me to do a Facebook chat, which I’d never done before (and was a little creeped out by, to be honest), and we ended up talking for over an hour.

Here’s something you should know: I’m 27 years old, and I’ve reached a point in my life where I can carry on conversations with my penis and we have a reasonably simpatico relationship. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I found Laurie extremely attractive, but when I asked her out and it went nowhere, I settled for friendship. In accordance with that, my penis and I have made the following arrangement (I need to give Li’l Stan some hope): if she’s relatively sober, and something happens, my penis has the all clear to move ahead (in more ways than one) with one regrettable night of passion. It’s a thought that lingered distantly in my mind while we were good friends and evaporated when Laurie disappeared off the face of the planet. Who needed an agreement like that when I’d moved on to more attractive, more readily available women with no interest in me?

It’s important to note that agreement when I describe our long bout of catch-up, arguably the longest I’ve talked to her since maybe February of 2006, maybe even as far back as August of 2005. At least she didn’t pretend to lose my cell phone number like Gina. Laurie did me the courtesy of not only dropping off my own radar screen, but she made me feel slightly better by dropping off the radar screens of everyone I know. She just vanished.

Then she was back, and after a brief back-and-forth, she launched right into the big news: she’s moving to L.A. at the end of January. I was appropriately enthusiastic but secretly bitter. For about five seconds, at which point I made a joking comment about her letting me crash on her floor, and she said, “You got it.”

One of the great things about Internet chatting is you can do a thing they do in movies and sitcoms that rarely happens in real life: keep running off at the mouth as if you’ve heard one answer, when in fact they’ve given another. She gave me a green light, and I continued to make self-deprecating but entirely true remarks about how rough it’d be to live with me.

This took things to an interesting new plane. Here’s what I have a tendency to do when women…basically say or do anything at any point in my immediate vicinity. I overthink everything. I have battle maps (i.e., blow-up dolls) that I cart out and pore over, laying out the best possible strategy with the help of tiny plastic Army men and an old back-scratcher to move them around.

I ruminated over whether or not she had officially accepted me as one of her “woman friends.” Maybe she had entered into some sort of unspoken agreement with me: here we would be, the two of us, together. Alone. In an apartment. In a new city. Full of limitless sexy possibilities. With my previous experience in Hollywood, I’d act as emissary and guide, exuding a surprising amount of charm and masculinity for somebody with such a spongy midsection and pliant ethical framework.

Yes, this was bound to be an interesting experience, and I’d take things as they’d come, so to speak, but I had high hopes that —

“Do you know [Mike]?”

“I’m aware of him,” I said.

“That’s who I’m moving with,” Laurie responded.

Oh.

And suddenly the strategy had to be completely reconstructed. At one point, I asked if they were dating. She said no and theoretically has no reason to lie. Her relationship status may say “In a relationship,” but that doesn’t mean anything; mine says the same thing.

If they are going out, why would she allow for this invitation? Sensing the badness, I attempted to back out, but — I shit you not — she wouldn’t back down, twisting it to the point that she insisted she invited me, even though I really invited myself and she agreed far too quickly. So what is that, if she’s dating this guy? Does she see so little possibility for a relationship that she’s deemed me harmless? So harmless that not even this guy whose name I’m only vaguely aware of will feel threatened?

Honestly… I wouldn’t mind that. As stated above, I would definitely take any sexual opportunities that may arise, but I mainly want to get back to L.A., and this is the cheapest ticket I’ve had offered to me. I can crash on their floor for a few months, no matter how awkward it is. And if I’m perceived as non-threatening, and my penis has agreed not to act without authorization in the form of a naked woman diving onto my lap, how awkward could it be?

The answer, I’m sure, is “pretty fucking awkward.” But like I said, unless he’s wielding knives in the middle of the night because I dared look at his woman askance, I think I can endure. Besides, I have maybe 18 inches (in more ways than one) and 80 pounds on him. A knife could do some damage, but any attempt to start shit that doesn’t involve weapons will end with him in a teary full nelson.

So, okay, let’s say they aren’t going out. What’s the deal here? I can think of two possibilities:

• He’s gay.
• He wants her but is too pathetic to make a move.

If he’s gay, fine. In fact, that’d make life easier — having a neutral third party would ease whatever awkwardness might exist between Laurie and me after several years.

Unfortunately, I got a “straight” vibe off of him, and I’m usually pretty good at reading people. If he’s straight, that’s when the knife-wielding trouble begins. I’m old and defeated at 27, able to reason with my ever-flaccid unit, but this guy is 22. Based on my very, very, very brief awareness of him, I got the immediate impression that he’s a pale, friendless virgin. Well, now he has a friend, at least, and maybe he’s not a virgin (or not anymore — I met him, briefly, more than a year ago), but if he’s not with Laurie, I’d bet the farm on him having lost his virginity with someone other than her. Still, based on my sizing-up and his current behavior, and Laurie’s insistence that they aren’t dating, here’s how I picture the scenario:

He wants her, and bad. About as badly as I wanted Laurie at the tender age of 22. Maybe he did defy the odds by asking her out, and she treated it the same way she did with me asking her out: a cheerful smile, followed by acceptance, followed by never following up. So now, their timing is synced up — he’s graduated and ready to go to L.A., she’s been out a few years but finally got the nest egg to go out there. He brought out his own battle map and Army men to engineer this cozy cohabitation plan. She bought into it out of a sincere, doubtlessly misguided belief that they are now just normal friends.

Meanwhile, his plan involves playing it cool for maybe a month, then making a move that will either bring them together forever or, more likely, cause her to flip out and spend an awkward 11 months with him until he lease runs out and she gets the fuck out. That’s actually the best case scenario for such a plan, but maybe he’ll get lucky. You never know. Whatever the case, Mike is not going to be happy with a guy like me sauntering into his perfect plan.

Once I put all this together, I began to realize that maybe — maybe, mind you — Laurie has an ulterior motive of her own. Nothing salacious, unfortunately, but something supremely safe — because, remember, I’m harmless. Eunuch’s Choice™. So maybe they are friends, maybe she does suspect the unsubtle machinations of a man four years her junior, and maybe, now, she wants me there to make sure things don’t get out of line. Maybe.

Lucy’s take was less optimistic: in her mind, they are going out, and Laurie wants me in the mix to reproduce…something. Based on the fact that I’m attracted to her, I can buy into the notion of chaos in Laurie’s life. I can buy into the idea that something — likely involving her parents, or maybe siblings or local friends — is causing some kind of endless, chaotic static that she senses will dissipate when she moves, so she’s stringing me along to make sure things remain chaotic to some extent.

What do I do when I lay out all the angles and find a big, fat battle map that tells me, no matter what I’m up against, all my troops will likely die, and I still want to go for it because of the possibility that I’ll get to plunder the king’s riches (in this case, the opportunity to stay in L.A. for an extended period, paying a very limited amount for rent)?

I mean, why not? I’ve lived with worse.

Tags: attraction, college, confusion, desire, Facebook, friends, friendship, Laurie, Los Angeles, moving, penis

Posted by Stan on January 16, 2009 6:11 PM  | Permalink  | Print-Friendly  | Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em, Fumbling Attempts at Relationships | Digg It