Lunchables

17:50, 11 April 2003

Piyush just left my apartment; I just spent four hours with the guy, stone-cold sober. It was awesome. I'm so proud of myself (even though I feel so stupid being proud of myself for something that people do everyday...). And I still like him! As we were talking, I even imagined kissing him and it wasn't the most repugnant idea I could think of... which is very impressive.

He picked me up at 13:30 and we walked to Doughboys. The walk was perfect because it sort of diffused the awkward tension that would have been there if it had all started abruptly, you know? At Doughboys I, predictably, got the fantabulous French Onion soup.

By guy standards, he has an eating disorder. He drinks diet Cokes, he avoids chocolate because he loves it so much, etc. He said he's gained 20 lbs. since coming to LA. I was like: "Where?" The guy is slim, I tell you. Anyway, he told me that he used to weigh 210! I totally can't picture that at all. Then he got all serious and dropped it all. We had a whole big dieting/fitting into one's clothes/etc. talk and it was totally cool. He's also really into clothes (his family is in the fashion business in India) and dressing well and all that. And no, he's not gay. He's foreign.

He loved Doughboys! Triumph for me. He continued his invitation streak: now he wants me to take my summer vacation weeks to go to India with him. He wants us to go on a weekend trip to Vegas after graduation because it is a travesty that I have never been there. He wants to rent bikes and ride on the boardwalk on Venice Beach. He wants to convince me to hurl myself out of a plane with only a parachute on, free-falling downwards at an acceleration rate of 9.8 meters per second per second until I reach terminal velocity--it's known as sky-diving, I believe? Yeah, right, on that one. He wants to take me to good Indian food. He wants me to come clubbing tomorrow night. So basically, he wants me.

I don't think the plethora of invitations are sketchy, mind you. It's not like we're going to the travel agency tomorrow or anything. It's more like all these ideas he has for fun stuff we could do; nothing is concrete. I see the whole thing as an indication that he wants to spend time with me in the future, which can only be construed as a positive, right? At least he thinks I'm fun enough to want to see again.

After we ate (he paid), we walked along 3rd Street, through the Farmers Market. He insisted on buying me ice cream because he knows I love it. We walked through the Grove and back to my apartment. We had a cigarette on my stoop. We were talking about how I don't have a TV, which surprisingly smoothly segued into me casually inviting him up. I had done a cursory cleaning just in case this happened. You know, mop the floor, throw a bunch of shit on your bedroom floor and shut the door, wipe off the counters, get rid of all the dirty dishes in your sink, etc. He came up and we sat in my living room and talked. For two hours.

We talked about so much random shit: him growing up in India, various drunken stories from US, Great Britain, Italy, etc., the practicality of the Euro, the balance of power in today's world, our respective college experiences, my trip to Central Europe, my parents, my riding career, shopping, eating, drugs, etc. etc. etc. He looked at the pictures of my dog, my friends, riding pictures, my family portrait. We seriously just sat there on my couch chatting. Is this what normal people do? It was kinda fun.

I wasn't paralysed with nerves, either. Beforehand I was, yes, as you can read from my earlier entry. I changed my pants right before because my cords were feeling tighter and tighter by the second. But as soon as I saw him and we started walking, the awkwardness melted away and it was just chill hanging out. The walking was such a fucking genius idea, man. Anyway, so far we seem to get along very well. I mean, it's a good sign that we can talk for hours without getting bored of each other, right? I feel good about it. We're going out tomorrow night! Yay! (Don't worry, I'll be wracked with nerves tomorrow!)

Delayed

13:08, 11 April 2003

He called. He's going to be twenty minutes late. Thank God: now I can sit in a puddle of my own paranoia for twenty more minutes! There's something so frightening and, at the same time, exhilarating about going out with a guy I like who might like me. It's like any flirt with danger: rollercoasters, sky-diving, swimming with sharks, etc. Except this isn't physical, it's mental; the only thing you can ruin is your mood, your day, your pride or your self-esteem, depending on how much you let rejection weigh on your soul. I, of course, accord maximum weight to and therefore recieve maximum self-esteem damage from rejection. It is a weapon of mass destruction when aimed at me.

Nervous

12:53, 11 April 2003

Chatted online with Piyush last night; he was talking about how we're both going to be in NYC in May, coincidentally, and how he's going to take me partying. I was like: "I cannot keep up with your drinking!" and he said it wasn't the drinking but his company I needed. He said he'd take care of me. Hee hee hee!

About lunch, he's all: I want to take you out to somehwere you like, no you choose, do you want this, that, etc. Either he's a very conscientious friend or he likes me.

It's now T-minus-7 minutes, I think. It could be T-minus-37 minutes. I don't remember if it was 13:00 or 13:30 that we decided on. Anyway, I haven't had anything to drink and I haven't taken a diet pill. I'm straight sober. Freaky. I'm starting to get really nervous right now.

I'm wearing pants. I'm going to have us walk to Doughboys (where I picked to eat, of course!) because I think walking there will help calm me the fuck down. I went to the gym just before this, because I thought it would help me get my mind off this. It did, for a while, but the panic is creeping back into my brain. I can't write about this anymore: it's making me froth at the mouth with anxiety. Check back for more later.