The Friend Boy Chronicles: Why relationships are like meals

Mmmm....tasty!

After pondering this Friend Boy mishegas, it occurs to me that I need to go out on a date.

“Well, duh” is your likely response, but I don’t need to go on a date with Friend Boy.  What I need is another, low-pressure, low-commitment date with another man.  And to be clear, by date I mean a shared, public activity with someone of the opposite sex in which there is mutual romantic interest and the potential of physical contact in the near future.  I need a relationship appetizer before I go ahead and ruin a meal that I’m kinda looking forward to.  Yeah, I know I left a dangling participle but forgive the lapse in grammar while I tell you why a good relationship is like a good meal.

Think back for a moment on the best meal you’ve ever had.  I have a few in recent memory, but the all-seafood Christmas dinner I had this past year comes immediately to mind.  It was at my cousin’s house in New Jersey and I had to take planes, trains, and automobiles to get there.  Okay so there were no planes, but the trip took a long time and all I could think about was the crab bisque, fried shrimp, trout and lobster tails that awaited me.  I’d eaten breakfast, but not lunch because I didn’t want to spoil my appetite for dinner.  Imagine my horror upon arriving at my destination and finding that the food was not ready!  By that point, I’d not eaten in 6 hours and I was ready to die, so I scarfed down some chips and dip so I wouldn’t faint.   By the time dinner was ready, I was still ravenous and I stuffed myself so full of everything there was that I had to take a nap.  I’m not a Christmas-Day nap person, so this was big.  I was also too stuffed for dessert, and too stuffed for the egg nog and brandy that I’d carried there via 2 trains and 2 taxis.  Then there was the bloating and gas from eating too much, too quickly.  Epic.  Holiday.  FAIL.

Why do you care about my Christmas -Itis and flatulence?  Because that whole bad scene could have been avoided if I’d had lunch or a snack before heading to New Jersey.  And dating is like that, too.  I’ve been stewing in my own juices about Friend Boy, worrying that I’ll scare him off with neurotic texting and then worrying when if he doesn’t text me back.  Thinking that I should just tell him that I’m “interested” but worrying that my confession will tarnish our friendship and our working relationship (did I mention that I’m doing a web project with him?).  All these thoughts running through my head are like churning stomach juices when I’m really hungry; they’re all I can think about, and they’re making me want to jump headlong into the dating main course and act like the clueless dork I pretend not to be.  Need I remind you, as I carry forth the food metaphor, that I’m a little hungry for Friend Boy and its been over 2 years since I’ve ordered from the menu?  Yeah…

At this point in my life, I want to have a meaningful relationship which – like good food – requires time, patience and planning.  A great meal is meant to be tasted, savored, acknowledged for the effort that went into preparing it, then enjoyed and remembered as a seminal event.  A relationship also should not be hastily consumed without regard, but experienced consciously and thoughtfully.  My ex-boyfriend eats his meals in continuous forkfuls, not pausing until the plate is empty.   I should have realized that he’d pay the same level of attention to our relationship, which is to say not very much:  he just sort of plowed through until it was over.  Friend Boy is someone I would very much like to get to know slowly and patiently, the way one tastes a fine wine, rather than gulped down in one swallow. So I’m looking for a romantic aperitif to prepare me for the main event.  Actually, more like an appetizer to tide me over until the main course.  Either way, I need a little something to take the edge off so I don’t try to dive headlong into a relationship only to reach for the emotional Alka-Seltzer.

I mixed my metaphors back there, don’t be mean.  And don’t read anything into that “swallow”; it was NOT portentous.