Attention Rich!

Hey dude, leave your site in my comments. I can't find it now, and I always went to it through there. Another problem of being a lazy, freaky linky love person. Damn HaloScan. Damn them to hell...

On to today's topic...

I've only dated one and a half people from work. It's always seemed like a really bad idea, as I don't seem to excel in the relationship arena.

One of them was kind enough to move a couple thousand miles away so that I wouldn't have to see him all the time, but the half bastard is still there.

I didn't really date him, honest. I didn't even know I was dating the half bastard until it was to late. I call him the half bastard because while he thought he was dating me, I had no clue.

It all started with my pain in the ass friend J. J has a heart of gold and would do anything for you, but when it comes to men she is totally clueless. She has no shame, and any miniscule amount of attention any guy pays her is immediately taken as a token of their undying love for her.

As you can probably assume, men run like hell from her. Men have set world speed records running from her. I've heard all about this boyfriend or that boyfriend, only to find out that the guy is dating other people. Dude, if he doesn't say "I want to be with just you" he isn't your boyfriend. She doesn't get it. Not one bit.

Anyway, J went with me to this charity thing we had for work, and half bastard was there. She struck up a conversation with him, and when I walked over they were getting along just swell.

He asked "us" if we wanted to go see some band that night, and we thought that would be cool. J was so excited she could barely contain herself. I listened to her gush about how great their conversation had been all the way home. She was really diggin' him.

I kind of knew him from work, but not real good. He seemed cool enough, and he hadn't run away from J in the first 15 minutes, so maybe this was a match made in heaven.

So we met him at this really cool club, and found a nice booth. He pretty much sat there in silence, while J and I talked about this and that. We kept trying to pull him into the conversation, but he just wouldn't cooperate. Oh well, it wasn't going to ruin my good time.

Somewhere around the beginning of the 3rd set J had to go to the bathroom. After she left the table, half bastard started talking away. Ahh, maybe he was just being shy around her, a good sign, right?

Wrong. He leaned over the table and said, "When are we ditching her and going home?"

I was like uuuuh uuuuhhh uhhhhhhhhhhhhh...Never? She then came back to the table. I sat there shell shocked not really knowing what to do. Half bastard then invites us both to come over to his house, as he wants to show her some collection of something that I don't remember they were talking about earlier.

"That sounds great!" J exclaimed, ecstatic that he had actually spoken words.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I didn't want to tell her what had just happened, as she was kind of (understatement of the year) insecure to begin with, and unfortunately this kind of thing tended to happen with guys a lot in our friendship. So out the door we went, to go to this guys house to see a collection of something I don't remember.

On the way there I tried to tell J that I thought he was a little strange. She wasn't hearing none of that. We got there, and he started giving us a tour of his house. It was nice, but when we got to the basement there were like all these birds. Like all the walls were filled with cages.

"Why the fuck do you have so many birds?" I asked. He just shrugged. J kind of looked at me nervously, like maybe I wasn't so off target with the whole strange thing.

He then stopped talking again, and we sat in awkward silence for about 5 minutes when I proclaimed that I wanted to go home NOW. So we left half bastard's house, J a little disappointed that she hadn't found the love of her life.

Half bastard then somehow got my phone number and called to see when we could have a second "date". I was nice about it at first, and tried to break it to him as gently as possible that we had in fact, not ever been on a "date".

He, to this day, still hasn't given up on the notion that we went on a date and will call out of the blue to ask me for a second date. So clueless. Maybe he was J's soul mate.

So why did you have to get tortured with this whole, long, rambling story? Today on the way into work I saw him. Shit, shit, shit.

I saw him up ahead of me, and began walking real slooooow. He had seen me too, so he started walking real sloooower then me. I stopped at the bulletin board, and tried to pretend I was really interested in this lime green El Camino (sp?) that was for sale. He stopped and got a drink from a water fountain, tied his shoe, took off his coat, put it back on, all while I was seeing lime green spots from having my eyes so fixated on what might possibly be the ugliest car I have ever seen.

He finally just walked over to me. "What are you doing this weekend?" he asked. "Working." "That's all you ever do. When are we going to let me take you on a date again?"

"We've never been on a date. We will never go on a date. It will never happen. Ever."

He won't believe me, and we'll have this conversation again. The original "date" happened like 10 months ago, and he still hasn't given up on it.

Men. Sheesh.