an ocean of ones and zeroes

February 6, 2005 at 3:22 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

at 3 am, marnie and i go our separate ways and make a promise to make sure we take another go at a night out and talk about everything and anything again. it was the closest thing i could come to a before sunrise moment, which i was quick to point out. it turns out marnie was also thinking the same thing. the only glitch? yeah, i’m not in THAT market.

i get to thinking, lying in bed, how the best conversations in my life have always been with women. which is not to say i do not have hets among my friends, but the women i have in my life just get me talking and i find it easier to relate to them. maybe it’s because such exchanges have no malice, and i am acutely aware that i am not sweet-wording my way into these women’s pants.

so the problem now is, how do i relate to someone i like?

when it comes to that question, it always feels like i have nothing to say. as if my words were so heavy and laden with meaning that if i said the wrong words or do not say them right then feelings will get lost in translation. that i would do the wrong thing with my words, so i don’t speak at all.

‘what’s your name?’

‘vince’

‘uh-huh.’

‘uhm.’

‘so…’

‘yeah.’

in his mind he must have been saying something like ‘got anything else to say?’ and in my mind i would have said ‘zero’ with an awful smile.

*******

at kahlil’s birthday, i am amazed at just how many single people i know. sure there was a couple, and then tintin is married. but the rest were single people with no one in their lives right now. they are not going out on dates, i haven’t heard them gush about a crush or rant about an ass or bitch that’s messing them up inside. they spend their nights at tats playing pool, or at the office surfing the net playing zuma or bejewelled on yahoo. but as far as i know, none of these people have had dates in ages! and by rubbing it in they’ll probably kill me.

but it just got me thinking yet again: do our friends define us, or do our definitions form our sets of friends?

are we just together because we have no option but to be together since no one’s getting laid tonight anyway? or is it the other way around — i’m not getting laid tonight so i might as well be with friends?

and the bigger question — if everyone’s just milling around as ones with no other ones on hand, what equation is required to turn them into twos? we are all just positively charged ones — or in the case of some people, “minus ones” — making logarithmic patterns in solitude because sparks are so hard to come by.

and yes, you can insert stephen bishop’s line here about wondering whether finding the right place means recognizing the face, and i guess it’s true. we’re all just here, but why aren’t more of us getting together in the intimate sense of the word?

‘you seem like a nice guy. i hope to get to know you more in the future.’

maybe if we have more people saying stuff like that then maybe it could be a start.

***********

i shouldn’t take sex as a measure of character. i probably shouldn’t mistake bedroom histories as the measure of one’s worth in a relationship. oh my god. is there anyone out there who hasn’t heard that?

but in MY world, this takes on a whole new meaning. this means basically that you shouldn’t care who’s slept with who, and when and how often. and it’s an idea the old me would have fought and denounced until he wasted all his energies. but not anymore, i hope. and besides, sex is sex. so much of it is going on in this world, (as of last count, at least 2 billion people have done it at least once — and then are those whose liaisons do not necessarily beget children, like MY market, for example) and while it is nice to have some of it happen to me, why should i demand that others be denied of the same joys it gives?

now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a certain guy, who slept with someone i know, that i have to look up.

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