AE...Why?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole getting-in-the-middle-of-people’s-relationships thing, and how, inexplicably, I always end up alone while my friend’s sashay off into the sunset holding hands, staring into each other’s twinkling eyes. I don’t know why this continually happens to me, but I’ve realized lately that this isn’t a recent development: it’s been that way since the very beginning. In first grade, I liked a boy. I planned to make my move--whatever sort of move a six year old hopes to make--at the school-wide ice skating party, yet, puzzlingly, I somehow instead ended up being used as a Fruit Roll-Up eating pawn while my supposed best friend skated away with the crush in question, leaving me all alone (in, it should be noted, what was a mighty fetching skating ensemble). At the time I acted like I didn’t care, and as I do on a regular basis nowadays, I went ahead and tolerated being cast off like last year’s Manolos. I’m always mildly optimistic that things and people change, but let’s be honest here: they don’t. I’m pretty much the same kid I was when I was six, and absolutely the same person I was in the glory days of college, which, of course, is why the same sorts of things keep happening over and over, whether or not it’s on a playground or on a coffee break.

The most quintessential example of how things always turn out in exactly the same fashion happened at college fraternity formal. Unsurprisingly, another group of my dude friends comprised our school’s Jewish frat. My friend Jan and I were buddies with all the boys, and although not actively sought after, we both liked to believe we were. I mean, come on, how many cute, normal Jewish girls were there at that school? So when springtime formal season rolled around, we sat back and put our feet up knowing we would soon be inundated with extravagant pleas to play escort to various future Jewish doctors, all of whom our mothers would totally kvell over.

Well, it didn’t really go down in that fashion. In the final hour, Jan resigned herself to going with one of our long-standing friends who possessed an extreme case of halitosis, while I ended up accompanying Brad, a boy who had at one point mercilessly and extremely awkwardly pursued Jan, but had since refocused his efforts on me. Brad was actually really fun, despite the fact he paused in all the wrong parts of his sentences and had a wardrobe that looked as if it had just been hauled out from the mothballed recesses of my ninety year-old great uncle’s California Closet. He was, however, so not my type. I wanted to go to the formal though, and thus, after an excursion to the Towson Mall (who doesn’t miss that place?), I happily complied.

The event was at one of the only fancy places in Baltimore. We arrived promptly on schedule to enjoy the open bar. I’d been to this fraternity’s spring formal the previous year, but that night had ended up with almost every female in attendance hurling into the newly-installed toilets in the shiny, granite bathroom. But, come on, what else is a formal for, anyway? This year was much more tame, despite the fact that one of the freshman cleared the dance floor in order to bend his date over and ride her like John Wayne, like we were part of the weirdest 80’s movie dance circle of all time. At the end of the night Brad and I scooted into a cab with our friends and newly designated couple, Allen and Brooke. (Incidentally, Jan was still back at the bar whooping it up, hoping at least one future Jewish doctor would swoop her up and hand-feed her lox for the rest of her days.)

Somehow, Brad ended up in the front seat of the car, and Brooke, Allen, and I in the back. Of course, I found myself sandwiched between the new lovebirds, but that was fine: we were all friends. What could go wrong? I mean, besides everything?

The ride back to our dorms was less than ten minutes, but in that obscenely small period of time, Brooke and Allen went from being in-love to being, well, in-hate. It wasn’t one of those drunken arguments you know they’ll forget about the next day, either: there were weird accusations that seemed inappropriate after only one month of semi-dating (“Do you even love me?!”) and odd resignations of failure (“I guess we just shouldn’t be doing this anymore since everyone ends up sad and alone in the end”), not to mention a constant spray of spittle that soared from each of their mouths and landed daintily on my lap as they bent forward and hissed at one another. I tried to catch Brad’s attention in the front, but he was fully captivated by a Caribbean sign-a-long with Juan the cab driver. Thanks, dude. 

And all of this would have been semi-bearable if as we pulled up in front of the dorms Allen and Brooke, both my good friends, hadn’t leaned further forward, stared me down like Severus Snape and said, “Sasi, what do you think?” I think I’d rather die than be in this car even a second longer, thanks. That’s what I think.

I stared back at them in silence for a tiny eternity, then somehow scuttled out the door by climbing over Brooke, managing to mumble only some sort of “idon’tknow” response. Brooke and Allen stayed in the car, both gesticulating in agony, and fogging up the windows à la Titanic, but certainly not in the Leo and Kate sort of way. Brad walked me down the street to the front steps of my building, his bow tie loosened and his loafers scuffing agains the cracked Baltimore sidewalk, inching closer and closer to me as we neared my front door. Of course, even in my Tom Collins induced haze I was sure that Brad was going to try to initiate some sort of half hearted tactic to secure my undying love, but when we got to the bottom of my building’s steps I did what I always do when faced with an uncomfortable situation: I pretended I had no idea what was going on. “Thanks!” I said in my chirpiest of voices, as I gave him an overly effusive, yet platonic hug. Before he could even reply with the standard “You’re welcome” I had scampered up the stairs and closed the glass doors behind me. 

So much like blind tolerance, ignorance, dear readers, is far better than bliss: it’s an excuse I’ve been using for years and years and years. Works every time.

Stolen from the fraternity website, circa 2004. My dancing face is awesome.