Takes one to know one

When I named this blog Fake Dates and Faux Pas, I had a particular faux pas in mind--the grand poo bah of all faux pas--and I've toyed with recounting it here but kept chickening out because it doesn't paint me in a very flattering light. But the time has come to let the truth be known because, right now, the truth strikes me as really pretty funny--which may mean that I am, in fact, sick in the head.

So let's examine some history, shall we?

(NOTE: I don't think I've done any 'nym-ing in this blog in the past, but in this post I'm changing all the names except for mine because I'm not really looking to make any enemies just now. I'm only a part-time jerk, and today's a day off for me.)

I could back the clock waaaaay back and give you all kinds of details, but they're mostly irrelevant, so I'll just bullet-point the necessary backstory:

• I was diggin' on a girl in my last ward (we'll call her Sally)
• She went home for the summer, and we had a delightful email correspondence
• In said correspondence, we made a lot of fun plans for the fall
• She returned to Provo a few weeks earlier than planned
• I assumed this meant we could carry out said plans
• Within 4 or 5 days of returning to Provo, she had a boyfriend

To be honest, it was quite a blow to my ego that she hooked up with somebody before I got a chance to give her more than a quick greeting in passing--and it certainly didn't help that I found out about him from her roommates instead of her (we were still emailing fairly regularly--how did it not come up?). Nevertheless, I still hoped that we could carry out the fun plans we made (which mostly entailed hiking various mountains), and I figured that this required me to befriend her new beau because the chances of me being able to get her to go hiking with me (a boy) sans boyfriend were pretty much nil. I didn't imagine this would be a problem, though, because I figured any guy Sally would date would be the nice, laid-back, fun-loving sort because that's the way she was.

No such luck. I met said boyfriend at Sally's roommate's birthday party the Sunday after Sally's return to Provo, and it did not go well--at all.

It had been a kind of wild evening for me already. I had just met my new hometeaching companion (we'll call Mark), and he and I hit it off and sat talking boisterously for--I dunno--and hour or two before we headed to the party. I was all kinds of riled up--so much so that, had I taken a brief moment to pause and think, I would have said to myself, "Okay, little Jepson, we probably oughtta just go into the bedroom and talk to the walls--no social ventures tonight, my friend--not when we're in a mood like this," but I wasn't in the sort of mood to pause or think, so all I could think was, "Party? Party? Why, yes, I do feel like a party, actually," and so we went.

I had lived in the complex about a year at this point, so I had a pretty good grasp on the people who lived there--especially during the summer because there weren't a whole lot of us--so when I walked into the party and surveyed the scene, I immediately picked up on the unfamiliar face that was quietly sitting, brooding in a corner away from the action.

"Hey New Guy!" I said, walking over, a look of indomitable gregariousness most certainly plastered on my face. I took a seat on the side table next to him, knocking over a picture and a box of Kleenex. "My names Kyle; who are you?"

"Nathan," he said.

"Nice to meet you, Nathan. Are you new in the ward?"

"I'm not in the ward."

"Ah, just here for the party, then--I can respect that for sure! Where you from?"

"It's complicated."

"Complicated? How can it be complicated--did you move a lot?"

"Not really."

"So how is it complicated?"

"I dunno. Where do you want me to start?"

"I dunno," I said. "How about the beginning--the very beginning--where were you conceived?"

See? Sometimes I just shouldn't be out among the people....

He didn't find this joke remotely funny--actually, I think it kind of offended him.

"Don't remember, huh?" I asked. "That's okay. I don't remember my conception, either--probably better that way, don't you think?"

This, as it turns out, wasn't funny, either. We weren't exactly hitting it off.

"Kay, so," I pressed on, still annoyingly enthusiastic, "where were you born."

"Utah," he said.

"Really?" I said. "Me too! I was born in Logan, but my parents were living in Idaho at the time--don't remember anything about it because we moved to California a year after I was born and lived there ever since. How 'bout you?"

"I grew up in Utah for a while," he said, "then I moved to California."

"Well that doesn't sound too complicated," I said. "Why'd you move? Dad get a job or something? That's why my family moved--kinda."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't want to talk about it?" I asked. "Was it a bad experience for you? I admit some people don't like California, but really how bad could it be?"

"It was a court order," he said. "I don't want to talk about it."

A court order? A court order?? Oh dear, who am I messing with here?

Change the subject, Jepson--quick!

"How do you know [girl whose birthday was being celebrated]?"

"I don't."

"Don't know [girl], don't live in the ward--just a party hopper, then?"

"I here with Ms. Peterson."

'fraida that....

So this is Sally's boyfriend. This, then, is the man I was hoping to befriend. Totally the nice, laid-back, fun-loving sort--totally the kind of person I wanna spend my weekends hiking mountains with. Conversational types are the best on long hikes 'cuz there isn't much to do but talk.

A real winner.

Attempt one was not going well. Time to back off and try again later.

"Oh," I said, "so you're the new boyfriend. Well congratulations! Anyway, I'ma gonna go get some cake now. I love cake--'s the reason I come to parties, really. You want me to grab you a piece?"

"No."

Come to the party of a girl you don't know and you don't even like cake? Tough life you're livin' there, buddy.

"Okay. Well. Nice to meet you, Nathan," I lied and went to get some cake and mingle with actual nice, laid-back, fun-loving people.

One of my roommates came to the party a little later and struck up a conversation with Nathan. This particular roommate has some unbelievable people skills--the sort of guy who people enjoy showing their puppies to regardless of whether he pets or kicks them--so it appeared to me, from my distant vantage point, that he was able to do quite a bit better than I did.

When the conversation ended, my roommate talked to me about it.

"Have you met Sally's boyfriend?" he asked.

"I tried," I said. "I tried to strike up a friendly conversation, but he didn't want any part of it."

"Yeah," my roommate said. "I chatted with him from a while but--I dunno--I get bad vibes from that guy. Something's not quite on the level."

"He told me he got moved to California by court order," I said. "He could have some sort of traumatic (or violent) past."

"Yeah," my roommie said. "Not a guy I'd wanna mess with."

This too should have sent up some red flags in my mind. I mean, not that this roommate is a professional bare-knuckle boxer or anything, but still....

The event of the night aren't especially clear to me (it has been, like, eight months now), and I don't remember what brought it up. But something was said or done that caused me to say to Nathan, "Oh. Well, I hope that doesn't put a damper on our new relationship," at which point he stared me in the face and said, "We don't have a relationship."

That was the breaking point for me. That was the point when I wanted to stand up and say, "Chill out, man: I'm trying to be your friend, so why don't you just sit yourself down, slap an inane smile on your face, and graciously accept my soulless platitudes so I can butter you up and get at your girl."

See? Takes one to know one. We're jerks of slightly different flavors, but we're jerks just the same.

It was shortly after that--while I was eating, I believe, my second piece of cake--that I got the idea for what I wanted to do. I was sitting next to Nathan on a couch, and he was doing his best to ignore me, and I decided that, no matter what he did to ignore me, I'd make sure he'd never forget the day we me.

The party wound down. Most folks left. It was just the girl whose party it was, some of her roommates (one had gone to bed already), Nathan, my roommie, my hometeaching companion, and me. Sally and her awake non-birthday roommate (we'll call Jane) were on a small couch; Nathan, my roommate, and I were on a longer couch arrange perpendicularly to the other; my hometeaching companion was talking to the birthday girl over by the cake--so they weren't really a part of the social casualty that followed.

"Well," my roommate was saying, "it's been fun, but we probably oughtta get goin'."

"Yeah," I said. "Sally, welcome back, it's good to see you again; Jane, always good to see you. Nathan"--here I grabbed his head and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek--"a pleasure to meet you," and I jumped up and fairly jigged out of the room, taking in a glance Nathan's discomfort, Jane's surprise, and Sally's utter horror. My roommate, who was halfway between standing and sitting, slowly sat back down and facepalmed.

I walked triumphantly back to my apartment. Nobody ignores me--no sir! Deny me friendship, I'll compromise your manhood. Don't mess with me, man--I'm a loaded gun!

Back in my apartment, dizzy with insanity, I leaned against the counter and drank a glass of water. Another roommate walked in and, upon seeing what must have been a disconcertingly crazed look on my face, said, "Kyle--what'd you do?"

"I just kissed a man," I said, I took another sip.

A while later, my other roommate returned from the party completely chagrined.

"I don't know what you were trying to accomplish there, man," he said. "I told you I got a bad feeling from that guy."

He told me that he had just spent the last several minutes running interference for me--smoothing things over so I didn't get lynched. Later, Jane came over and told me that Sally was extremely unhappy with me: "I don't know that you're an enemy," she said, "but I'm pretty sure you aren't a friend any more."

The drama that ensued from that fantastic faux pas of mine is a tale unto itself, and this post is plenty long, so I won't address it here. Maybe some other time--if popular demand demands. What I'm driving at, though, is this:

I'm a jerk.