:: Tears of the Moon ::

:: Monday, October 27, 2008 ::

Compartmentalizing Reverend Book.

I've given him so many pseudonyms that I can't keep them all straight anymore. Which is probably the point, since the point of this blog is to focus on my feelings, and not the people. To distill my writing into feelings and not need to get bogged down with specific locations, people, and situations.

So, which plot do I place Reverend Book (for the microscopic amount of readers who might've fallen into this blog by mistake, the boy is not a man of the cloth. He is, though, a fan of books and Firefly), in my list of friends? Being a friend, he is by default on my target range. It takes a while for me to have friends who truly get me, much less single and male. So, by being a guy who gets me, he's already in my danger zone to start with.

But I'm a patient girl. I prefer to wait it out, and not zoom in and focus on any particular guy at any given time (Donna Moss, is that you?). I don't overthink the rapport, or the dialogue, the easy camaraderie. Maybe that's the problem. I've always been too laidback to take notice and show some interest. And, deep inside, I'm deathly afraid of losing another friend if it all ends up ugly. I'm deathly afraid of being injured. When J left, it killed me. When the other guy and I broke up, I feel the loss and the vacuum that the friendship left with me. When Almost Guy took up with the non-bitch, it hurt my ego because apparently, brains does not make the trick with men.

Not when men have two heads, they don't. He finds my mind interesting, but I am sadly lacking in other, rather feminine charms and wiles.

How does this relate to Reverend Book?

Because I'm confused. I don't know where to put him in those slots in my mind. Where?

It's a rare and precious thing to know someone who gets the same joke. As another friend once said, we (Book and I) were like a meeting of the minds.

Should I be alarmed that she said that phrase in a horrified tone?

Why would she find it horrifying to imagine me and the guy?

But that's not the point. I'm wondering if I should start rethinking this seriously. Because I might already by treading into Weird Territory and I didn't know. I might be wading into something and it gets weird just when it's been comfortable. It's way too comfortable to talk to him everyday. To talk about insignificant non-work crap like "how was your weekend?" when we chat. Or think about each other when buying things like books, DVDs, vacation. To give each other care packages and send stupid funny email forwards that only the other can get.

There are ways that you can still rationalize that this is entirely innocent and has a perfectly sane answer. Hell, I can be that person on the other side of the mirror, holding up my own reflection.

It helps that very people people notice the friendship between us. People will automatically think we're friends because of similar ways of thinking. Because of that, us sitting beside each other at a meeting, referring each other for projects, is something that people take for granted. People will not give it a second thought if we each automatically include the other in any project, for consultation or meetings. And since none of them get the joke, they will assume that the other will get it, and let it go. At least someone will laugh at the joke. Or someone will answer or rephrase the question.

I don't imagine myself to be the ONLY one who does this. He has many friends in the office, and adamantly keeps everything aboveboard with any girl. No amount of mudslinging will stick on this guy. I, on the other hand, am determined to fill my weekend schedules. Because I am determined to have a life, people know I have a life outside of work.

Will he miss me if I ever left? The kind of sadness brought about by what-ifs. Because he has an ironclad grip on himself (something that I can understand and relate to), relationship talk is something he avoids getting into like a healthy person might want to avoid Ebola. He never engages in talk about the boy/girl dynamic. Again, it's all aboveboard.

As a friend, I am myself. And since there are few that I am myself with, I make the effort. I make the effort to see him if he's around, send care packages when he goes away. I offer to drive him to the bus stop if I can. I'd offer my couch if I had my own place so he'd save up on room rates. I wonder if his niceness is something that he only rarely shares with other people. I wonder if people know that he cares too much sometimes, and is way too innocent in other times. That, despite the direct sarcasm, he's really an immense softie and is loyal to the core. I hope I am saying this without rose-tinted glasses.

I let him know that I'm scared of the other girl because I don't want to be hit by stray hard-heeled Chucks if I'm not careful. That, because of our friendship, the girl might want to do some voodoo shit and send me bad karma. He knows that I'm freaked out, laughs at it and tells me not to worry. How can I not worry when the her fixation is like the eye of Sauron? I don't want to be picked up by the glare, but by my sheer association and closeness (he's single, I'm single, we jive. People can draw the natural conclusion and ask the inevitable). I acknowledge that we're friends. Man already thinks that this friendship is getting way too platonic for comfort (is there even such a phrase?) because we know each other's shit like the fact that I have to be on leave to study finals, or he needs to buy cemetery candles for his dead relatives. I know shit like that, but I don't know the reason for the absorption.

It may be because I am utterly enamored by the fact that I found a friend LIKE THAT.

Again.

But NO, I will not compare him to the first. They are worlds and galaxies apart. And, I'm a different person now.

Although I can't deny some similarities, I can say with conviction that this connection is something that I find important to me right now. I might even say that it's my replacement for losing the Boyfriend Backfiller. I will fight to keep it. Even if I have to fight against myself, because I don't want to question my good karma over this guy.

Maybe the solution is that I should get more friends. Since I have so few, I fixate.

It still doesn't answer the question though: Where is the Reverend Book in my life?

I'm still confused, and unsure. I can't see beyond the next five years except to hope that we're still friends. I don't know how or what I'd feel if the dynamic of this friendship ever changed. Or that circumstances around us change that THIS friendship becomes a what-if. Maybe.

I'm still frigging confused.

:: D said @ 4:24 PM [+] ::
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