Half Sweet n' Half Nuts

If you spend the entire night with a stranger swapping life histories, sob stories and dreams for your future can you call the stranger a friend?

It all happened one Friday night... we (my roommates and I) were invited to an ex-colleagues "house cooling party" i.e we'd gone for the house warming party when he and his roomie had moved in and now that they were moving on to bigger and better things we were invited to another party to say goodbye. We didn't really know either of the guys very well, just acquaintances at school but it was deemed that we make an appearance so we did.

It was one of those nights when I was possessed by the lunar madness and my apartment and room feel like a prison and my cell respectively and I just had to get out. I needed the most frivolous form of human contact... loud music, carefree dancing, irrelevant banter, your regular party inanities. So we went. We didn't really know too many people there... even the hosts didn't know most of the people who showed up, so for me it was the perfect party for that kind of night. Of course the people I went with didn't quite like this, so we made an appearance and came back home after an hour.

Lets just say I wasn't quite thrilled to be back. I was craving some adventure though I didn't quite realize it. So after a while I called the hosts and went back. The party lasted till about 4:00 in the morning. All the while I found myself in conversation with my ex-colleagues roomie (at the risk of blatantly borrowing terminology lets just call him the boy). I'd met him only once in between the rising and falling of their house temperatures (warming/cooling) at another friends party the week before and had found him easy to talk to and comfortable to be with.

At this point I must add a disclaimer. Most people would like to believe I had developed a soft spot for the above mentioned boy and I was giving him a lot more importance than might be considered wise, if one were to follow the practice of giving men something to chase after. I'd like to first off discount any such notions. In my belief I was simply looking for someone new to talk to and hang out with so as to escape the boredom of my monotonous existence at that point; although I will grant the boy was certainly agreeable company and the evening was quite enjoyable.

When the party ended, and the boy was dropping me home I did what any well mannered girl would never think of doing - I asked him if he really wanted the night to end and if he was going to sleep after dropping me home. Since he had a commitment to drop a friend off somewhere two hours later, he said he wasn't going to sleeping yet anyways and if I didn't want to sleep either we could go for a drive. I agreed. In short, we spent the next few hours driving around town, talking, laughing, completely at ease with each other like old friends.

Its odd but I didn't feel like I was doing any thing crazy or risque. I know from past experience that my uninhibited behavior could have been misconstrued, he may have mistakenly assumed I was coming on to him, he may have considered me a social leech who just refused to go home for the night... or any number of other social faux pas. But he was there, driving, telling me about himself, listening while I talked, not irritated by my propensity to talk A LOT, and I don't think he looked all that uncomfortable either :D

Of course, all good things must end. We had exchanged phone numbers, he promised to call and make plans to meet up before he flew out of town. I assured him he didn't need to worry about it too much if he couldn't. We both knew we'd probably never meet up again. And I came home that morning feeling happy and light.

I would have said I think I made a friend. But since he never called back, for whatever reasons I care not, I shall leave it as a delightful night shared with an amiable stranger on the streets of LA. And look back at it with a smile.