But, close to eleven or so I got up and was gonna go get a quick bite (and return right back to bed after, natch) but decided to see what those messages actually said. Turns out one of my friends, C. (the one who claims I was leading her and another friend on), was having a birthday bash at one of the local watering holes. Now, she has a party tonight that she's been inviting everyone to for over a week, but it turns out her birthday actually was yesterday and not today.

Well, sucker that I am, I thought that I'd call and wish her a happy birthday on her actual birthday, though I still had absolutely no desire to go out at all. Well, as she'd been drinking since 5, the end result of that was I had no idea what she was talking about except that she and a whole crowd of others are heading to yet another place now, to see some friends of her play a show. Much as I'd rather not have, I bit the bullet and decided it was close enough to bar close that I could be bothered for a couple of hours.

Hah, but get this: Everybody else who'd been there earlier was somewhere else, the only people left in the "party" that I joined were C. herself, and A. (who, as you party people might remember, is in some weird way in competition with C. for -- um, oh yeah. ME.

Y'all feelin the fun yet, my peeps?

Nah, really it wasn't all that horrible. Though I did get yelled at by C. for about five minutes for supposedly never answering my phone and not calling people back. ("Change your message, because you're lying when you say you'll get back to people ... WAH WAH WAH, oh BOO HOO." And yes, this is a direct quote.) She also hit me in the head a couple of times.

Now, after the lecture last weekend about not flirting if I don't mean it, I was hesitant to give her a hug and actually kinda turned my face slightly when she went to kiss me -- honestly, it wasn't so much a conscious thing, but in retrospect I think it was kinda right. She was also giving me bedroom eyes a couple of times, and at some point gave a long lingering look when mentioning how, having lived as long as she has, she's finally learned to "start liking nice guys."

Ohh-kay. So long story short, we end up putting her to bed because she's trashed. While still there tho, at some point A. buys me a beer, and says something about how I always buy. I say, "Do I really? Well, I wouldn't remember, I'm usually drunk by the end of the night."

Feel tha drama, kids? "Oh! Is that a slam?" she says.

See why I wanted to stay home? No, that was not a slam at her, if anything it was a slam at me for being drunk quite often. So, after C. is dropped off, we get some grub and head to my place (she lives close, and insisting I take her home would have seemed rather silly as she knows I still can't carry anything). Yet still -- well, long story short, after about an hour or so I'm like, "Alright, I'm going to sleep."

I was just tired kids. For real. No harm in that, right?

Well, somewhat predictably, after she says, "Okay" she also starts kissing me. Now, a little kissing is fine, never hurt nobody, right? But consider when it's hella late at night, you're all alone in the dark -- and this person is not going to stop kissing you. Because obviously, the hopes being that once the ball starts rolling, it just won't.

So yah, I finally do have to say, "Okay. Good night, hon. Sure you're okay to walk home?"

Now here's the thing, party people. The previous night, amongst all the other drunken revelry in which I indulged, I at some point was talking to some cool peeps from a local sandwhich shop, and as this one girl there just has the coolest, most upbeat personality in the world, I'm telling her that this goes neither unnoticed or unappreciated. (Should that be "nor"? Whatever...)

So yeah, chatting a bit, and at some point (you'll have to take my word for it that it occurred naturally, I'm not gonna recount the whole conversation) I ask her if she's single.

Now yeah, I was trashed so maybe I'm not remembering this right. But I do believe it went, "...are you single?"

(pause)

"...No..." (For the record, in retrospect I think she was just heading me off at the pass as it were, but that's all cool.)

So way-drunk me is like, "Aw, that's too bad."

To which her friend, who is newer working there and does not know me, chirps, "Omigod, that is like the worse line ever!"

WTF?

First of all, I was not aware that simply by having a conversation every guy in the world is in danger of delivering a "line". Secondly, even if I was showing some kind of interest (and I was, but to be honest they were both ahead of me there. I was drunk enough that I asked that without having any idea of where I was going next. I was just curious.), I would still think that a "line" would be something I've actually learned and have attempted to use as a hopefully "clever" way of impressing a girl, not a pretty straightforward way of conversing.

Are we all just seeing "line" in a different light, then? If you're a chick, would you have called this a line?

Oh, but lastly -- even if it was a line, c'mon -- wouldn't you say, "worse line ever" is overstating it just a bit? I mean seriously -- even if I had somehow picked up asking someone if they were single as a "pickup line" (and again -- doesn't that seem just a little too -- I dunno, blatant or something? Uncreative? Direct? To be a line?), even if that were the case -- I still have very little doubt that there are much, much worse lines in the world.

The only way that her statement makes sense is if she's assuming the entire conversation was just a lame excuse to finally ask that question -- but as far as that goes, I'm afraid both myself and the girl I was talking to would have to tell her, "Honey, you're all in the koolaid and you don't know the flava..."

Nah, if she wasn't new she'd know that I'm one of their favorite regulars there, and though I'm quite friendly I'm certainly not spending my time hitting on the female staff. In fact, this would probably be the first time any of those guys have seen me when "shy" or in the least "reserved" could not be accurately applied to me. I simply am not a mac daddy.

So my point in all this -- not only is there the ongoing C. and A. drama, but ... well, there's a few other somewhat-unresolved romantic entanglements still cluttering up my life. And yet -- can't even have a conversation with someone without the peanut gallery telling me I'm doing a shitty job of it. Geez, the whole world's a critic.

So I don't know, kids. Frankly, it's way early for me to be up and even half conscious. So if I'd made any sense thus far, we should really consider ourselves quite lucky.

More to come, tho. Promise.