One Way Street

Over the past couple of days I've been thinking a lot about the bonds between people. When your life intersects with another for any significant portion of time a dynamic is formed. Some of these people become friends, some become lovers, some become acquaintances, some just keep on being strangers. Every dynamic is different, and they change over time.

Last night I realized that one of my friendships slipped away. I'm not entirely certain when it happened, but I know now that things won't ever be the same. We'll still talk and joke, but the connection is gone. And it makes me sad.

About a week ago my old roommate Tiffany asked me if I'd like to go out to dinner with her. Even though we work for the same company, I haven't had much of a chance to talk with her for a couple of weeks. We'd exchange casual banter as we passed in the halls, or talk for a couple minutes as I passed her desk on my way to wherever. But schedules have been kind of a bitch lately, and we really haven't done anything of substance in a while. So naturally I welcomed the chance to go and hang out.

Being that I'm not great at choosing restaurants (call it apathy), Tiffany made all of the arrangements. She knows me well enough to just go ahead and make the call. And like that, it was set. Tiffany, her husband John and I would all meet up at the local Olive Garden after work. I swung past her desk on Thursday, just to confirm that we were still on for dinner. She let me know that John wouldn't be able to make it, but we were still good otherwise.

Work ends on Friday, and I head out. Tiffany and I work slightly different hours, so I had to head straight from work to the restaurant to make it at the appointed hour. Meeting right after work was something I wanted to do anyways, because she'd moved further south and the commute to and from work wasn't the shortest drive.

Tiffany was already seated in the restaurant by the time I got there, 6:00pm on the dot. She'd called me while I was on my way, and was even nice enough to ask me if I wanted her to order me a drink. I was minutes away at the time, so I thanked her, but said I'd figure it out when I arrived.

I sat down at the booth, and quickly discovered that my expectations for the evening had been grossly wrong. We weren't having dinner -- she was killing time until the traffic died down enough. She'd ordered an appetizer and a drink before I'd gotten there, along with two full take-out entrees for her and her husband. As she explained, she was going to "go home, lie around and watch TV, eat my food, fuck, go to bed." [blink]

After I'd managed to order my iced tea her phone rang. Not a problem at all. She answered it and had a five minute conversation with her mother-in-law, while I passed the time reading through the dessert and drink menu restaurants leave at every table with the condiments. It didn't bother me at all -- her phone call -- particularly because she'd mentioned months ago that she'd had a rough start with John's family. I was very encouraged by her banter with the lady, combined with the fact that I noticed that she wasn't just being polite. Things appeared good between them, which was a good sign.

Despite our waitress (who wasn't quite adept), I got my meal ordered just after Tiffany finished up with her call. She directed her attention back and me, and we started to to catch up. Well, not exactly.

Tiffany started by updating me on work. As I said, our jobs don't directly interact, so I wasn't really up to speed with how things were going in her neck of the woods. She talked about some of the new challenges she'd taken on, along with the normal day-to-day stuff that comes with it. I asked questions and she responded to them, and we talked until we'd pretty much exhausted the topic.

After that I inquired about other stuff important to her. I asked about John, following up on some of the recent events. She was pretty short with me on most of it, until she finally just changed the subject to me.

It's not that they're having problems, quite the opposite. I'm sure every couple has their ups and downs, but the general sense (gathered from the entire night, along with our brief talks the past couple of weeks, and with what I've heard through the grapevine) is that they're doing well. She was just tired of talking about it, so we moved on.

By this time my food had arrived, and I started my half of the killing-time-not-dinner we were having. Naturally, I began with the same thread she had: work. A lot of what I'm doing now isn't really visible to the rest of the company, and you can't explain it without a lot of backstory, so I just hit some of the highlights. I talked until she cut me off, telling me to talk about something outside of work. So, moving on.

Since we'd shifted over to social stuff, I decided to mention my recent getting of a life. Tiffany said she was proud of me, surprised really, because I'd never really been the type of guy to go out and do stuff with any sort of frequency. Prior to this year, I don't think I could have fathomed the possibility of a scheduling conflict. It's nice, y'know, to actually get out and spend time with people.

Lately a lot of time has been out with Maria and Richard (two friends I've mentioned before, who are now -- finally! -- an item). Tiffany asked what I thought about their new relationship, and I told her. We talked about what makes them work, and my general feelings on romantic relationships. This segued into eHarmony and my search for someone.

After nearly a year of going at it, I've finally gotten to the point that eHarmony's doing something. Initially, I think, I had my matching criteria too restricted geographically, so I wouldn't get more than a match or two every blue moon. Recently, there's one woman in particular that I've had a good repartee with, but it's much too soon to say much more about it here.

Tiffany asked about it, so I started to talk about my experience. Every couple of minutes she'd interrupt me, and jump into her own story on the subject. She'd finish, and tell me to continue, only to jump into another topic moments later. It got to the point that she'd forget what what we were talking about.

It was frustrating. Not that I was annoyed that I couldn't talk about myself. I could care less about that. It became quickly apparent that her inquiries about my life were nothing more than a veneer. Tiffany didn't really care about anything I had to say. We'd talk until she got bored, then she'd jump into something else. And the whole time she was snappy. It was about killing time before she could get home and start her real evening. I was a filler.

Maybe she was just in a bad mood, who knows. But I've come to the conclusion that our friendship doesn't mean what I thought it did, and I'm sad about it. Whatever it was that kept us close for all these years has faded away.