My Stock Is Plummeting...

If RetroStats is anything to go by. It must be all the prosaic entries I've been posting lately.

Well, here's a little intrigue for the faithful few that remain.

The kid I "hung out" with a couple of weeks ago both annoyed and repulsed me during the course of my last Tuesday night class of the semester. Last week he off-handedly suggested that the next time we try out The Helmand (Afghan restaurant of excellent repute here in the city), as you may recall. This was perfectly fine and in keeping with our agreement that the next meal would be on me. No boundaries overstepped. No presumption of anything. He wasn't weird.

Leading up to class all day on Tuesday, though, I felt uneasy. I sensed that there would be uncomfortable tension with him. So, I deliberately sat one seat down from where I usually do. True to my expectations, he adjusted himself so he was sitting next to me. He led with "You owe me a meal; don't think I've forgotten about that." I understood this to be his attempt at another off-handed reminder that he and I are supposed to go out again. But his neediness was so bald and obvious in that moment, and as a result of being embarrassed for him because of that, I became detached and formal. I assured him that I had not forgotten, adding "I get paid at the middle of the month, and at the end, so again, it will have to be at one of those times."

As we were going over poems, he found himself without copies of two of them, which meant he'd have to look on with me. I was so determined not to given him any fuel for the fire, that I simply gave him my copies, then looked on with the person sitting next to me. In that moment I felt that by simply being alive I was encouraging him! He made other half-baked attempts at humour/flirting that I dodged and deflected with an icy stare.

I left class quickly because I was concerned that he was going to try to have a "moment" with me. Instead, he tossed off what I'm sure he thought was a breezy "call me." I lost even more respect for him.

I felt stuck, because this guy, just two weeks prior seemed like a great potential friend; hanging out with someone I didn't know well was novel, and therefore exciting. What's more, he'd been generous enough to pay for my dinner the first time, so it would not only seem odd to refuse to spend time with him at least once more, but would also leave me with this uncomfortable debt over my head.

If I let that meal he bought stand as is, It's as good as saying we went on a date (I say this because of where I think his head is. I mentioned before that I suspected he made more of it than I did.) But I was chagrined to go out with him again, alone, which might arguably subject me to more discomfort in the future.

Then I got a brilliant idea.

I asked one of our mutual classmates, a woman, to join us. He knows her and they once attended a reading together (she invited the whole class, but he was the only one who responded in the affirmative), so I thought I could just play that "the more, the merrier" card and inform him "oh, by the way, C will be joining us. We'll just meet you there." Which is what I did.

Come to find out from C, she knows exactly where I'm coming from where he's concerned, and is more than happy to lend her services, because she too felt weird at the thought of being alone with him at the reading, and at the last moment "dragged a coworker along," much to his seeming chagrin. She said he seemed annoyed that another person was with them, though the initial invitation was by no means exclusive to him. Since then, she has deliberately and significantly distanced herself from him, she told me.

I felt extremely validated and was pleased to have my instincts corroborated.
He hasn't yet acnowledged my message about C and I meeting him at the restaurant as yet. I wonder if he'll slink off, or if he'll force me to get hyper blunt with him (which, I'm telling you, he does not want, because I won't spare him if it comes to that).

The underlying drama of all this is that it made me realize how burdensome unsolicited, unrequited interest is. I nearly sent g an e-mail apologizing for subjecting him to my feelings for so long. Suddenly his totally ignoring me at the St. Patrick's Day party in 2002 made a lot of sense. I felt so retrospectively embarrassed because he, at times, must have felt toward me what I felt toward this kid on Tuesday night.