[QUOTE=ZipperJJ]
You do seem to get really serious really fast about women. Like the girl with the ID tag. You wanted to “just be friends” with her and do “just friends” things like walk around the lake and go to movies. Those aren’t “just friends” things. I have lots of male friends and we don’t do those sorts of things. You wanted to schmooze her and have her fall madly in love with you.
The woman from your office that you got all twitterpated about. You obsessed over her in your mind for a long time. You had this long pretend relationship with her in your head. Then, once you did what you should have done in the first place - made a move - you found out it wasn’t going to work out and were able to move on.
[/QUOTE]
I understand what you’re saying, but I have to disagree with you on a couple of points.
First of all, I was serious about the “just friends” thing with ID Girl. Really. Honest. I know no one believes me, but really. Honest. And yes, in my world friends sometimes go to movies together. Lately, I don’t, as most of my friends simply don’t go to movies. But when I go alone, I often see couples or groups that are very obviously not romancing each other. If I see a bunch of teenage girls at the movies, I don’t assume that their going to go home later and have a wild orgy. I’m going to have to assume they’re friends.
And yes, just friends walk around the pond together. I’ve seen them. It’s a nice way to socialize, be in a nice place, and get a little exercise. Perhaps they are romantically involved, but unless about 80% of the population of this town is gay and/or lesbian, I’m going to have to assume that at least some of those people are just friends.
I just ate a late dinner at a restaurant. Sitting next to me were a man and a woman. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I really couldn’t help it, as they were kind of loud. I gathered that they’d just seen a movie together. And the woman was talking about her boyfriend, and the man was talking about how he almost scored last night. Unless they have a really open relationship, I’m going with friends here, too.
In fact, the reason I had dinner late was because I spent the day in the company of a lovely woman. Did we have hot monkey sex? No. Did I try to schmooze her? No. I think if I had, her husband, who was around part of the time, would have had something to say about it.
I don’t know what kinds of activities you do with your friends, but in my world opposite-sex just friends hang out in each other’s apartments, go to dinner, go to movies, and take walks. To me, that’s normal.
As far as the woman in the office, yeah, my fantasies sort of got the better of me. But it would have been quite inappropriate of me to ask her out right away. It would have been bad form to ask her out during the first week of my employment. And both my girlfriend and her husband would likely have objected. No, I waited until 3 weeks after my breakup, about a year after her divorce. That seems like perfectly appropriate timing to me.
Even after that, it was her idea to be platonic friends (which never materialized, and may never). Among the activities we discussed doing were going out for a drink, a concert, a different concert, a museum tour, and yes, a walk. The walk was her idea.
but I’m not so mean-spirited as to wish ill on those with better luck.