Hello, my friend, hello.

For the record, I am not a Neil Diamond fan.

It's been a while since I've been around. As anticipated, I've been busy this semester. However, there have been other occurrences, most of which I have not anticipated. Here's the rundown.

K-Bat is moving to Japan. Like, this Tuesday. After all that talk about how great every country other than the U.S. is, I'm surprised he came back to the states for as long as he did. He said he'll be taking online classes at a local (to me) four-year so he can finish school while he teaches English overseas. That seems to be a trend these days, the desire to teach English to foreign nations. My English isn't the best, but I'm confident in saying that my grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary is better than most, and so I'm worried that other countries will get a bad impression of us when they learn a new language from someone with so little mastery of it. Not that their impressions of us aren't already poor. The move to Japan was anticipated.

Also, I've had to take a step back and reevaluate my definition of friendship. Loopis and Albert are up-and-down sometimes, but I don't stick an uninvited nose into others' business; if things work out okay, and even if they don't, I'm here to do what a friend should do -- be an impartial support system. K-Bat text me a couple weeks ago after FILTH and asked if Lindsey and Albert were still together (take a second here to get a sense of impending doom from the drama that's about to follow). Apparently, L and A had a fight sometime around a month ago and Mr. LTA decided to run his mouth (like usual) and started telling everyone they had broken up when they, in fact, hadn't. Now I know that life is stressful enough for Loopis with her cocktail of a myriad of autoimmune disorders, trying to figure out what to do in life that will make her happy (aren't we all?), working, and balancing a relationship. The very last thing she needs is someone who is supposed to be a friend slandering her when she's not around to smack him in the back of the head and tell him to stop being an asshole.

So I less than politely told him to remove himself from situations that don't require his attention in the slightest and perhaps find a girlfriend or a fuck doll to occupy the free time he will have once he stops butting his way unwanted into peoples' lives. After that, I thought about what friendship really means to me, and a few names got crossed off the list. The distancing myself from the Stavros group was anticipated (but not so soon).

Last week before FILTH Angela was telling me how strange Ken had acted that day; that he had been living with her for the past week to save some money and sanity, that he stopped drinking (also to save money) and become more irritated, and that earlier in the day during which we were talking he woke up, left with all of his things, and made no indication of coming back that night. She told me the previous night that she had asked him why he had been so cranky lately, and he replied with a cranky response and went to bed. When she asked if he wanted her to leave a key to the apartment so he could get in after work, he said no, and he would talk to her "soon." As a girl, that's a little unnerving. I told her not to worry about it, Ken was probably just stressed about the financial, health, and living situations he was in, and that it would probably pass.

We went to FILTH and Ken was unexpectedly there, which made Angela nervous. She asked if she should say hi and I told her that he probably needed space and he would approach her if he wanted to talk. We had a pretty good time, until Angela sent Ken a slightly offensive picture via MMS thinking it would be funny, and Ken totally took it the wrong way and went off on Angela. Completely inappropriately. Saying things like, "keep the hell away from me" and "you're a psycho bitch" and "you should be on meds" and "I never want to see you again." If Angela could be accurately described by those phrases, more than likely she would not be my friend. We were both confused and angry. I told Ken (and I tried to be explicit in my intent, since I berate those who get involved when they shouldn't) that it's none of my business but he should at least talk to Angela about what happened because she seemed to have no clue where it all came from; if he wasn't going to talk to her anymore, she at least deserved some legitimate closure.

One week later and they are back together. He apologized for everything he said, and for some things he hadn't been saying ("thank you for cooking me dinner" and "how was your day today?" and "you look beautiful"). Newsflash guys: girls like compliments and well-deserved appreciation. Telling a girl she looks nice isn't quite pulling teeth. Suck it up and assuredly you'll get more in return. Both the breakup and swift reunion were unanticipated.

As for me (whom I have yet to touch on, with the exception of stating I've been incredibly busy with school), things have taken a turn for the weird.

From time to time when I'm online, I read Craig's List personals. Not just men seeking women, but all of them. Men for men, women for women, men for women, women for men, casual encounters, missed connections, etc. They're entertaining and it's interesting to read ads about people ISO LTR (in seek of a long-term relationship) when you can tell that every word in that ad is complete bullshit.

Anyway, I've made it to the m4w (men for women) page, and I come across an ad posted by someone with an extra ticket to see Dane Cook this Saturday. Here is my quandary: I would love to see Dane Cook. I am still kicking myself in the ass over missing him a couple years back when he performed at my college FOR FREE. I can't afford a ticket for myself (he's compiled some fame since a couple years ago) and I don't want to miss him again.

However, I don't meet people online. It's kind of weird, they're mostly liars, and it's also got a danger factor. After little debate (I am impulsive, after all) I send this guy an email with some information about me and a picture. I've decided that I don't care what this guy looks like or who he really is, I'm going to use him for the ticket just like he'd probably try to use me for an easy lay (which wouldn't happen). The only thing that really bothered me was why he wouldn't just ask a friend to go with him, and instead post a CL personal.

This guy emails me back, with kind of a bad picture, we chat it up a little, and he seems okay. He's 25, lives in Brandon, is joining the National Guard within the week (which turned out to be yesterday), and he gives me his phone number. From there we start texting each other, decide to meet for dinner to see if we'll get along for the show, and go out a little under a week after the first email was sent.

He's very handsome. The picture turned out to be a really bad picture. He is very attractive, and in great shape too. I am a horrible navigator, so I got lost trying to find the place we decided to meet at and had to call him to bail me out. Dinner was good, the conversation flowed pretty smoothly and I found myself actually liking him (despite earlier in the week telling Lindsey I was just going for Dane Cook, there's no way I would end up liking this guy).

After dinner we played some pool, then he walked me to my car where we ended up standing for two hours in the cold talking. It was really nice, I haven't had too many experiences with guys lately where they actually care to talk to me that long before trying to get into my pants. I wanted him to kiss me. He eventually did. I thought I felt some chemistry, he said the same thing. We continued talking and he told me he'd be leaving soon for 7 months once he enlisted in the National Guard, and that he was taken off guard by how much he ended up liking me, and that maybe this is something that could work out. But if it did, he said, he wanted me to know right off something very important, and that I should come over after work so we could talk about it.

My brain immediately screams out two things:
1. He has AIDS.
2. He has kids.

It turns out he has two kids, one is two, one four and a half, and he's getting his divorce finalized this month, but the split was mutual and amicable. He wanted me to judge him first on character, and then if things seemed to go well he would tell me the rest.

And I still like him. He's not only mature because he's that much older than me (four years would be the biggest age difference I've ever experienced), but wiser because he has children and because he has this amazing ability to learn from his past mistakes, which apparently has dropped off in the rest of the population.

There are so many positive characteristics about him, I'm really surprised that people (not just guys) like him still exist. So right now I'm trying to run with it and see what happens. After he told me about his kids and impending divorce (and cleared the air with that), he's been completely truthful (as far as I can tell) about everything else I've asked him about or wanted to know.

Then immediately my defenses went up. I'm so used to people lying to me that everything he says that sounds "too good to be true" (as in, the truth itself) comes across as a lie, when in reality there's nothing there to lie about.

I don't know where this is going, but this is why I didn't want to date anyone.