What Happens When You Connect With Your Missed Connection

I’ve placed my feet on the wall above his headboard and I put enough pressure on them to bridge my back, looking backwards at him. “Oh?” This is an observation no one has even seen fit to share with me, and I’m intrigued.

“Yeah well, if a guy doesn’t drive you crazy; like — maybe make you a little mad — you kinda check out. ‘Nice’ isn’t something you respond to very well.”

“It’s not like, I dunno, I doubt his sincerity or whatever I’m just—” There’s too may pauses, too much sighing on my end. The words I’m about to say sound tired before I even get them out. “I’m just… not into it, I think? Is that bad of me?”

“Not necessarily bad; but it does explain why you’re constantly setting yourself up to be disappointed by the guys you meet.”

“If they’re going to be nice to you then you aren’t going to be crazy about them. Like, the Sad Guy or whatever. From what I could tell he was not just nice, but pretty into you — yet you were constantly trying to talk yourself out of hanging with him.”

I let this sink in, still reclined on Jay’s bed and staring at the ceiling. I hear him flipping through stacks of records; trying to find the next album for our stoney hang sesh. I don’t have to look at him to know he’s waiting for my response.

There’s nothing to say, though. He’s right. The music stops when Jay lifts the needle, the comfortable silence between us interrupted only by the sounds of him pulling his next selection from its sleeve and placing it on the turntable. A voice unknown to me starts crooning about women over a dated disco beat, and I realize: I’m still waiting for someone to win me over by making me miserable.

_____

There are a lot of people I’d expect a text from at 2 a.m. on a Saturday — Anthony inviting me to his house so he could blow my mind before inevitably making a comment that would leave me feeling like crap; a girlfriend I’d been out with all night letting me know she got home okay; a random friend living beyond the reach of the Eastern Time Zone idly saying “hello” — anyone, really, except for Dick.

Wht u up to? Based on the time and the boneheaded typo, I figure he’s under the influence and trying to ‘get it in.’

I respond, wondering if I’m doing so out of habit or boredom. Just got home. You?

I’m in midtown at Rudy’s.

We’re still in the early stages of getting to know each other, or whatever it is we’ve been playing at over the last month. There’s no reason for him to be texting me from a bar. There’s no reason for me to be responding, either — but my friends’ insistence that I should give him a “real” chance has taken root. Sounds… interesting? Conversational filler. It’s like saying “okay.”

Kind of. How long u be up?

His sentence structure is killing me. I know he doesn’t talk like this in person, just like I know it’s petty for me to be annoyed by something like grammar in a text message. It’s just late enough for anything less-than-eloquent to paint an unflattering picture — of his character, of his ability to plan ahead. This couldn’t even be classified as a booty call — it’s a not-home-yet sexual shakedown.

I dunno. A while. Why? This coquettish behavior is not me at all. I muse over the fact that back in the day, before sex was a thing I had even considered having, I would never have flirted with a boy I didn’t like. Funny how much a few years — and the loss of sexual inhibitions — has changed things.

Maybe we meet up later?