Dubious honor
I'll briefly recount the story for those of you who didn't hear me bitch about it last April. At our SCBMB (my program)/CMB (another BCM program) inter-departmental retreat this spring, thanks in part to large amounts of alcohol, I hooked up with this girl that I had met for the first time at the retreat. We made out a little bit and shared a bed that night; it was nothing terribly heavy. I got her number and later made a date with her, which was when things started getting weird.
I got a series of strange e-mails, saying that we should go out "as friends" and saying that her behavior that night was "uncharacteristic". After some additional e-mailing, I eventually discovered that the reason for this strange behavior was that a guy whom she had been out with a couple of times had, since the retreat, become her boyfriend. We still went out for dinner, which, tellingly, went more smoothly than some actual dates I've been on. I enjoyed her company, we laughed off the weirdness, and things seemed to go as well as they could considering she was already spoken for.
I've bumped into her on rare occasions since then, but haven't had any in-depth conversations. I got an e-mail yesterday from Jennifer, who is in her program, telling me that she was now engaged. The first ramification of this is that she didn't follow the Matthew Ward prescribed rules for engagement: you have to date for at least a year if you knew each other reasonably well before you started dating, or at least two years if you've just met. For those of you keeping track, they've been together no more than four months, and they've known each other no more than five, as they met through an internet dating service.
The second ramification of this is that, apparently, I have the dubious honor of being her only casual hookup/one-night-standish-thing ever (unless something has happened since), and the last one before her engagement and pending marriage. It's certainly not a role I ever saw myself fulfilling, but I suppose it's something of which I'm somewhat proud.
I got a series of strange e-mails, saying that we should go out "as friends" and saying that her behavior that night was "uncharacteristic". After some additional e-mailing, I eventually discovered that the reason for this strange behavior was that a guy whom she had been out with a couple of times had, since the retreat, become her boyfriend. We still went out for dinner, which, tellingly, went more smoothly than some actual dates I've been on. I enjoyed her company, we laughed off the weirdness, and things seemed to go as well as they could considering she was already spoken for.
I've bumped into her on rare occasions since then, but haven't had any in-depth conversations. I got an e-mail yesterday from Jennifer, who is in her program, telling me that she was now engaged. The first ramification of this is that she didn't follow the Matthew Ward prescribed rules for engagement: you have to date for at least a year if you knew each other reasonably well before you started dating, or at least two years if you've just met. For those of you keeping track, they've been together no more than four months, and they've known each other no more than five, as they met through an internet dating service.
The second ramification of this is that, apparently, I have the dubious honor of being her only casual hookup/one-night-standish-thing ever (unless something has happened since), and the last one before her engagement and pending marriage. It's certainly not a role I ever saw myself fulfilling, but I suppose it's something of which I'm somewhat proud.
posted by L. Maxwell Ward at 8:53 PM
