Something in me told me not to go. As recieved the cellular invitation pacing around my kitchen to his birthday dinner only half hour before the reservation time, something told me not to go. But as we all would feel flattered by a sober invitation, i fell in my resolve and felt myself, as if watching from the outside, falter and agree to come. By sketchy directions, i did find this italian restsutrant. we walked in and he was siitting there at a fourteen person table, on one side, he and his roomate and some girl in between. Sure, there were six other people, but they were all crowded on the other side of the table, as if they also unconciously felt, as i did, that they didn't want to touch the other side,and whatever dynamic it held, with a ten foot pole. So i skipped three seats and sat at the end of the table. I thought more people were coming, so they certainly could fill up the void in between that i didn't want to broach. He got immediately weird about my distant choice of seating and asked us to move in, and of course we consented as i made some self-deprecating joke about being merely auxillary friends, so therefore the choice was a reasonable one.

So the night went on of eating, he was concilliatory, and darted his deep brown-black eyes over to me on occasion, trying to mantain some respectful degree of connection. But at the end of dinner he walked the "chick" out to her car, and i knew that the so called "crush" he admitted to having on me had seen it's day.

i'd like to say i'm fine with that, but he made that decision before he really knew me. that tells me that he is not coming from the right place. i feel bad for him. I think he's really special. Listen now, i may use this experience to fuel creative juices, but i am going to be fine, don't worry about me.