Making Friends

If, one year ago, you had told me that Eric would come over to my house for dinner and that we would have a relaxed and laughy time of it, I would have

Well, I don't know what. Crossed my arms instinctively around my gut like you'd punched me? Frozen stiff and started crying and sipping air? Burst into hysterical laughter?

But there it is. We had a lovely time.

He and I were supposed to go for a beer last night. But it was one of my after-work skating nights, and you know, after I spend more than an hour walking and skating and walking, I don't want to leave my house again until the next morning.

I also really wanted to make vegan crustless quiches, so as to use up some silken tofu I'd bought but not used for my last lez meal. What I did not want was to be eating the leftovers for 5 meals in a row.

So it felt a bit weird and I almost didn't do it. Eventually I threw caution to the wind, hit send and thus asked him if dinner would work.

It would, he would bring the beer, he would see me at 7:30.

I spit-washed a small stain on my shirt, made sure there was nothing between my teeth, and started blending up some tofu.

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Every time I try to write out how I feel about this, the nuance gets lost in the channels between my brain and fingers.

Let's just say I'm thrilled. In an entirely, and unconflicted, platonic way.

I didn't think we could pull it off, and that makes me a little giddy. It feels like we've pulled the rabbit from the hat, the wool over someone's eyes. I mean, sure, we made noises about staying friends, but it was the early days of a break up, and people will say all sorts of things. I wanted to believe we could, but I didn't, not actually.

We've been inching towards friends for a while now, since last July, in fact, when he was not long home from Berlin. I saw him getting a coffee at Umi, and instead of running the fuck past - what my feet desperately wanted to do - I took a deep breath, went in, and said hi. It was totally weird, and it took a while for my breath to expand into my entire chest again.

Each time we've seen each other since, it's been a little easier, less awkward. Last night was the final proof to me that the wool, it had been pulled.

He was here in my space and we had an excellent gab. The conversation flowed. We laughed a lot. We talked about the graphics he's going to do for my next dirty zine, and it was only slightly strange to be talking abstractly about sexual stuff with someone with whom I'd once been quite concretely sexual.

Whatever frisson of connection my brain was making between the person at my table and the person I'd imagined him into last winter washed out before coming directly to the surface. A shimmer a few inches down, maybe, now and again, before it spread back into the deep.

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As 7:29 flipped over to its next minute, my doorbell rang.

I always did enjoy that.