Could This Ever Work Out?

I considered writing a book during my sabbatical from dating about a love triangle between two male friends (one of them strikingly similar to our hero and the other a composite of Marty and Indiana Jones) and a girl they grew up with. Through a series of dramatic situations that would hopefully be amusing – “Marty Indiana Jones” would get the girl. “Debacle” would be able to get over his jealousy and remain friends with both of them. The book would close with the three of them walking off into the sunset together, “Debacle” feeling fulfilled because he’s lucky enough to have such good friends.

When I sat down to get started on it, I realized that I had accidentally plagiarized the love triangle from Keeping the Faith. Romantic comedies were my least favorite genre because they usually had unrealistic story lines and predictable characters. Why would I waste my time writing one?

I kicked-off my post-sabbatical search for potential ladies in The City of Wind by attending events in the Tribal community. At these functions, I began the painstaking process of meeting new people. While it’s exciting to be in a room full of unfamiliar friendly faces, making conversation is brutal. Everyone asks the same boring questions. Where are you from? What brought you to The City of Wind? Where do you live? I can’t blame them. What else is the new guy going to talk about?

At one such Friday night dinner, I met a girl named Gozer. With a skinny face, dark hair and sharp green eyes, this girl had little in common with the original Gozerian, except her first name.

I sat next to Gozer at dinner and she cracked me up, telling me about the time she’d locked herself out of her apartment. Unable to get in touch with her roommate, Gozer was somehow able to Spiderman her way up the side of the building. From her balcony, she entered her apartment by moving the air conditioner. The girls in her living room greeted her with a series of screams. That’s when Gozer figured out that she had accidently broken into her downstairs neighbors’ place.

Given how much we talked that night, I was concerned that Gozer was looking for more than just friendship. Even though I enjoyed her company, dating a Gozerian again would be a little weird. Besides, I got a bitter vibe from her. It could’ve been that I was reading too much into her casual cursing, but she was as crass as a middle school boy during a game of touch football. Needless to say, she didn’t seem like the sort of girl I’d want to bring home to show my parents.