Feb 7th-11th, 2008:
Take a trip to Cali to start looking for a job, move some stuff into my best friend’s (hereafter referred to as JP for the remainder of this blog) house, which is to be my new permanent residence, and to begin getting back in touch with old friends I haven’t talked to much since leaving for college.
Late on Feb 24th::
Just get into California (after driving about 18 hours from my former state), drop my Dad off ay my aunt’s house (where he will be staying until the following Tuesday, when he goes back) then go to JP’s to begin unpacking and the overall move-in process, and of course, to sleep. When I get there, she’s gone (I assume she’s at her boyfriend’s. they’ve been together about 9 months and regularly do the sleepover thing). And while I’m a little bummed because I was hoping to catch up with her, I don’t mind too much because I’m exhausted and basically pass out on my bed in my new room.
Feb 25th and 26th:
Hang out with family and repeat the story approximately 100 times of why I’m moving, what I plan on doing about school, a job, and get lectured about having just bought a new truck. And then take my Dad to the train station (yep, train station, because that was the mode of transportation he chose to get back to his state), which effectively ended the obligatory family time.
Feb 27th-30th:
Begin looking for a job. Go on interviews. Filling time by starting to hang out with friends, which I thought would be much more plentiful than they were. Basically, the only ones I spend any real time with are JP and CH (a friend from my hometown that I never talked to more frequently than about once every 6-9 months or so, but we just picked right up where we left off…like I hadn’t been gone for about 5 years, which was really nice).
And Barney. Now, here’s a little history on Barney. I have known him since I was about 14 or 15. He was the first guy to ever give me flowers and tell me I was beautiful. He is the first guy to ever have a crush on me (although, to be fair, I’ve since learned that he has a crush on pretty much every female to cross his path…he’s just a lonely guy wanting a girlfriend). When I left for college, we kept very loosely in touch. By that, I mean, we basically lost touch for about 3 or 4 years, until one of us found the other on My Space, and we started our very loose friendship up again. I liked talking to him because he was no threat at all, and he would constantly “fill my bucket” and make me feel better when whatever guy was in my life at the time did his best to make me feel worse. I know it was a selfish friendship on my part, basically only contacting him when I needed someone to make me feel better, but that’s how it was. When I got back in town, we hung out a few times. Basically just “catching up” lunches or he would tag along while I ran errands.
Anyway, Barney knows about my interest in cars, and, in a blatant attempt to get me to hang out with him more, he starting telling me about some of his “car friends” and that they have meets fairly regularly and invited me to tag along to a few. I was definitely interested, mainly because I was getting really depressed for a couple of reasons:
1) I hadn’t found a job yet (I know it had only been a few days, but it was driving me crazy)
2) I wasn’t as close to as many people as I thought I was here, and the ones I was close to (JP and CH) had their own lives (jobs, boyfriends, school) and they didn’t have as much time as I thought they would to hang out.
And, Barney, sensing that I was interested, starting telling me more about these “car friends” of his and filling me in on little stories here and there. One of the guys he mentioned drove an 04 GTO (most of them drove Cobalts, and, well, let’s just say I was less than impressed). Now, he told me about GTO guy a couple of times, mentioning his name (which I promptly forgot, and urged him to just refer to him as GTO guy, because, well, that was probably the only way I would remember him). He was telling me how GTO guy had tuned his car and got quite a bit of horsepower and torque gains out of it, and how he loved working on cars, and about this and that. Anyway, long story short, just from Barney’s descriptions and anecdotes about GTO guy, I was becoming more and more interested. This sounded like a pretty awesome guy (and definitely an awesome car-I love GTO’s!), and I mentioned a couple of times that I’d definitely like to meet GTO guy, and at the very least get a ride in his car! (Of course, I’m sure this was NOT Barney’s intention, but, c’est la vie!)
March 2nd:
Barney invited me over to his house to watch a movie and just hang out, and mentioned that GTO guy might be dropping by later in the night, if I wanted to meet him. I said yes, but with some restrictions. I mentioned that I had plans with CH at about 9:30 that night, which of course, I made just to have an escape plan because I couldn’t take Barney in large doses. I mean, he’s a really nice guy, but there’s only so much complimenting a girl can take from a guy she’s not interested in before it gets annoying…
Anyway, I get there around 8:00 pm. We start a movie, and he starts talking to me about wanting to date me, and how it must be fate that I am back in Cali and single, and so is he, and he really likes me, in fact, he thinks he might love me…yadayadayada…and I try to let him down easy and say that I think he’s a great guy and that I like spending time with him, but I just really want to be single right now (which comes back to bite me in the ass later, big time!) since I haven’t been since I was 16, and that if and when I decide to start dating again, he would be the first to know…yadayadayada…So, of course, with how awkward and uncomfortable this turned out to be, I couldn’t wait for 9:15 to get here so I could leave to go hang out with CH…literally, I was watching the clock. At about 8:35, BARNEY got a call. He talks for a minute, and (thank GOD) it sounds like someone was coming over. I didn’t know who, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was someone was going to come over and save me from this incredibly painful conversation. As a bonus, I found out that it was GTO guy on his way over! Score! He gets there at about 8:45. I remember this because I looked at my phone and remember thinking hey, this gives me about 30 minutes to get to know the guy, and then when I leave, at least Barney has a friend, and I don’t feel like I’m completely ditching him. Score X 2!
Well, the “leaving at 9:15″ plan was completely shot when he walked through the door, and my first thought was “Wow!” I immediately shake his hand, introduce myself, then run out to look at his car (I found out later that his first impression of me was “wow, this girl’s kinda crazy, but in a good way”) and ask if I can have a ride in it. Of course, he obliges, cuz what car guy is going to miss the opportunity to show off his pride and joy to someone (especially a chick) who’s interested in such things? After the ride in his car, I promptly want to take him for a ride in my truck. We go out to a pizza place and have some “breadsticks” and basically debate the whole time (breadsticks is in quotes because it’s one of the things we debated about), which I absolutely LOVED! No one (and I mean no one) has ever been able to debate with me and keep up, let alone maybe actually beat me (I’m not saying he did, I’m just saying he was closer than anyone else). Then we went back to Barney’s house (yes, he’s been there the whole time, but he might as well not have been) and basically flirted the rest of the night until about 1 AM. Then I reluctantly say I have to go, and so does he! Yay! I leave before he does, then wait outside of Barney’s neighborhood for GTO guy to catch up, then ask him if he wants to race on the freeway. Of course he agrees…and proceeds to beat the crap outta me (a couple times because I just don’t give up)…which was more of a turn on than anything else. We then pull over to a 7-11 parking lot and hang out/drive around/talk until about 4:30 AM. We covered topics such as whether or not we are dating anyone, what kind of people we like to date, what we look for in relationships…and other such 1st date kind of talk. *sigh*
And as I drive home, I’m thinking, in not quite equal parts: “damn…how do I tell Barney that I’m completely in love with his friend without completely crushing the guy’s feelings”…and, of course, “man, I totally want GTO guy to call tomorrow…” I’ll let you guess which one I was more concerned with…
