Travelling on the bus regularly you get to know people... well one small introvert does. One of those people was a regular fellow traveller as we often worked overlapping shifts in the same shopping centre. And we got on well... even enjoyed each other's company... as we meandered along on the morning commute. It helped fill in the time pleasantly and as it turned out, we did have things in common even though we live very different lives.
It was the beginning of a pleasantly light, casual, friendship. Which is about all an introvert is really capable of truth be told. Net buddies is one thing... maintaining a real life friendship is a whole different kettle of fish. To be honest apart from our Tuesday night vanillas, neither of us have friends. We work crazy hours and in all honesty, we like each other's company and resent the intrusion into our time together.
Anyway back to the embryonic friendship. It was developing outside of the bus trips since she stopped working. We both wanted to take up jogging which never eventuated, though she did join the gym and has started yoga. On the odd Tuesday morning we meet up, as one finishes a workout and before she goes to class, to catch up for coffee.
We chat about what is going on in her life... she has a husband, two children and an assortment of cats. Things that are going on since she quit work, peoples bad ink choices, the continual road works in the area... you know... stuff... are the topics of choice. Nothing deep and meaningful which suits one down to the ground because once you get past the gossip and the clichés, you have to start sharing your lives and well... as they say on Fet... it's complicated.
The trouble with living in this type of relationship is that it infects everything. See for us it might be how we do sex, but it is more than our sex lives. It is how we relate to each other, to the world around us and more importantly somewhere along the line it becomes apparent that it is just easier to be honest and tell people... hello, nice to meet you, we are bent. Otherwise you end up as we did with the Tuesday night vanillas, getting lectures on how to train your man to be better. Hell even his mother lectures one that He is spoilt and...
Now our little friendship was not at that point. Hell it might never have got to that point... those secret squirrel tendencies are very good at deflecting conversation back onto you. And frankly not having had a catholic background, one does not believe that confession is good for the soul. Unfortunately that choice of if and when to tell, may have been reefed out of one's hand by the fickle finger of fate.
Yesterday she showed unexpectedly at work when she dropped in to say hi. Hugging each other, while surreptitiously inhaling the coffee she was waving around, one expressed surprised that she was so far from home... in a centre neither of us would dream of shopping at. She replied that she had been dragged out of the house, for her own good, by X so they could take the kids (it is school holidays here) to the movies. At this point X came round the corner and lo and behold who should it be but spiffy glasses girl.
Of course Mr Complete Honesty thinks all of this is hysterical. As one regaled the story to Him the chortles of laughter are getting louder and louder. At the end He turns around and smugly says well you could have just been completely honest with her. Which was followed by more snickering in the background. Yanno some of us like having a private life... L
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