not so perfect after all

Let me introduce you to one of my friends from a certain martial arts school that I was a part of...we'll call him Stickman for purposes of anonymity. He represented the Guy of the Ultimate Crush. He was a cutie, and not just any cutie, a cutie that could do flips and give really warm hugs. His games flowed and he had great control over his kicks. Whenever he was in class, we would kid around with each other, pushing or nudging each other. He gave hugs to everyone and was very nice to everyone. He wasn't selective as most people there were. Niceness from the Stickman for all! When you talked to him, he looked at you as if you were the only person in the room (male or female) and when looking at him, you can't help but be mesmerized by his hazel eyes with green and blue flecks in them. Simply amazing. All the girls thought he was a hottie, especially THIS girl who sometimes got two or three hugs per class. Cha-ching!

It's been about two months since I had seen him, and even before then, his job kept him from coming to class regularly. As one of the items on my "Things to do before leaving SF" list, I called him to say goodbye and to get his address. So I called him...caught up a little bit, told him what I was up to. Totally unexpected, he asked me if we could hang out before I left. Um...okay. The next day, we were going to have lunch together and I realized, what would we talk about--just me and him? I had never really had a long conversation with him before...we had talked on the phone briefly at times and held small conversations in class, but to sit face-to-face for an hour or two? Eek. So I suggested waiting for Q to get off work because I knew she wanted to see him too.

One of the funny parts of our lunch was that we had to all guess where our waitress was from, because her accent was light, but still noticeable. Stickman guessed Australia, Q guessed Ireland, and I guessed England. The answer: "I spent a year in Australia, but I live with roommates who are Irish and British." Whoo-hoo! We all won! We also talked about memories in class where people farted...or when a certain someone's tampon flew out. Gross.

I'm so glad Q came because she did a lot of the talking. Why is this so hard for me, I kept asking myself? It wasn't until afterward that Q mentioned that he never asked any questions. That's right...and he likes to talk, but he's not one of those who could just ramble for hours either. You had to keep asking him questions, and that's what we had done all through lunch. Ask, ask, ask. It's not like he's self-centered, either, but I guess he just doesn't think to ask questions about other people. I wasn't sure if my difficulty in talking to him stemmed from this feeling in the past of "*gasp* It's Stickman!" or if I really didn't know what to talk to him about. Either way, it left me with the feeling that I didn't have to have his address. Maybe we'd keep in touch, maybe not. He was sweet enough to insist that he bring us something back from his upcoming trip to Mexico, though.

Ironically, I had a dream about him last night...and not just any dream. One of those dreams where you wake up blushing. I had had dreams about him before, but those were friendly dreams and I would always ask, "Why am I having romantic dreams with so-and-so who I don't like and NOT about Stickman??"

You hear a lot about closure and how it's necessary. Oftentimes, I just like to keep things going, thinking "but what if..." but I'm glad we had the lunch, because it clinched the fact that there really is no connection between us. Aside from him being one of the sweetest guys I know and the fact that we just like to kid around in class, there's nothing that showed any promise of anything more. And I knew that from the beginning...which is why everything was so high schoolish in terms of the Crush. But still, I occasionally asked myself "but what if..." and now, I no longer need to ask.