The Housemate: Part III - First Date?

This follows previous posts The Housemate and The Housemate: Part II. I realize this all may make me seem like a silly teenager, but that's how it is.


As we stepped out of the door from the sticky-hot, crowded club into the cool open night air, I quickly established a firm two body widths distance between us. We walked toward the parking garage a couple blocks away, exchanging the normal small talk that follows a concert.

"That was really fun."
"They know how to put on a good show."
"The crowd was very enthusiastic."
"And the opening act was surprisingly good, too."
...

The conversation trailed off. I was quiet as we stood waiting for the crosswalk signal, mulling over how to broach the subject. When it finally came out, I gave my tone a little edge so it could almost be interpreted as a joke, if necessary.

"So... You refused to let me pay you back for the ticket, and I know it was really crowded in there, but still, you were getting pretty close. This was suspiciously like a date. Was it?"

"If you want it to be..."

There it was. The moment of confrontation I'd been dreading since I first felt him rest his palms lightly on my hips as we swayed with the crowd--as my brain screamed "Stop! We can't do this! Don't touch me!" while at the same time all I wanted was to lean back into him. I had resisted at first, subtly trying to loose myself of his hands. But I was not willing to be harsh about it, and we all know guys don't pick up the subtle hints. Besides, in that packed, wild crowd, it was just as well to have someone hanging onto me, and if I was going to be pressed up against someone's warm, sweaty body anyway, it might as well be a person I knew. So after a few song-lengths of feeble resistance, I just let it slide, not leaning back into him but not pulling away either.

But the whole show, my brain had been bouncing mixed signals through my head, so I would not have been surprised if he was picking up some mixed signals himself. Now was the time to explain. My head buzzing and my face flushed, it all came out in a rush.

"Look. I like really like you. A LOT. But it's complicated, because we're housemates. I mean, living together--if things didn't go well, it could make things very awkward. And also there's a certain stigma attached to having a relationship with someone you're living with--when all my old aunties here heard that I was planning on rooming with a guy, I had to assure them that you were just a friend. And at the time, I was convinced that was true; I never even suspected it could be different, because frankly I...I haven't met a guy that I wanted to be anything more than a friend since...college. And in college, even the guys that I might have wanted, I--I never did--I mean--*Sigh.* See, here's something you don't know about me that may help put this all into context. When you put your hands on my hips there in the crowd, you were the first guy who's ever done that to me. There have been guys who wanted to, but they all knew better. And there's the problem: We've been living together for three weeks, and we know each other well enough that under normal circumstances it would be perfectly fine to do this--go on dates I mean, and stuff. But as housemates? I just think we have to know each other much better and be much more sure than we are now before we dive in."

He hesitated for only a second, pausing perhaps not to consider but simply to make sure I'd finished saying my piece. Then he responded.

******

What did he say in response to my little monologue? I wish I knew. The events at the concert described above were all true, but the conversation afterwards was a work of fiction (as you might have guessed--when in real life do people actually get to deliver monologues?). I know I'm leading him on, but...I like it. I want him to want me. And I haven't met anyone I wanted to want me for years. So the hot-blooded side of me wants--well, what it wants is obvious. The practical side of me, which from experience I'd say is more obdurate in me than in most, thinks this is all a bad idea, at least at this early point in the game. But ultimately, the indecisive, cowardly side of me wins out, leaving everything unsaid and up in the air. Poor Housemate.

In my computer RPGs, the conversations are already written, the encounters planned, the few possible outcomes all preset--you just have to select the right lines when they pop up. But the RPG of real life is much more intricate. Someone please write us a happy resolution.


Continued with The Housemate: Part IV.