Shoulda Stuck With the "Friend" Thing

ME:If you`re not attracted to me. I totally understand, and I won`t press it. You can`t date someone you`re not attracted to.

SHE:I am attracted to you. It`s just that...I don`t know....

ME:Well, shouldn`t we give it a shot? Look, we have a lot of fun together, we both live close enough.... What`s
your favorite movie?

SHE:Meet Joe Black.

ME:That`s in my Top Five! See, we`ve got a common vibe going on. I`ll prove it--I`m thinking of a number between one and twenty. Try to guess what it is. Just guess.

SHE:Thirteen.

ME:Okay that wasn`t it. But it was close....

SHE:Fourteen.

ME:...No.

SHE:Six.

ME:Uh, guess again.

SHE:I don`t know, seventeen.

ME:Close! It was nineteen! You were only off by two. Two is a close enough number that we should date, no?

Needless to say, this didn`t go anywhere. Which is just as well, because I usually end up dating the wrong chicks.
I go for the wrong types, I have poor filtering systems. My friends just shake their heads. "Why didn`t you say something?" I`ll say, after the girl has gutted me and broken one of my appliances.
"Well, you seemed really into her," they say. "Didn`t wanna burst your bubble." Then one day the bubble bursts, and I can`t make toast.

The Woman
The woman from the dialogue above, let`s call her Trouble, was absolutely the wrong woman for me, but I couldn`t tell. All I can say is, sometimes the trailer looks great, but the movie sucks.

The "trailer" for Trouble: a hip, confident, witty downtown-style chick. Stable job, well-read, studied martial arts but still smoked. A catch in my book.

The actual "movie": a confused, man-hating kneejerk Feminazi, though I wouldn`t discover this until months later (that`s another story). I should have read the reviews.

The Warning
I did hear one review. "Stay away from her," warned a mutual friend, who`d gone to school with Trouble. "She`s a judgmental girl. You might fall in her favor now, but once you do something that doesn`t line up with her vision of what you should be, you`ll be on the outs. Trust me." But did I listen? Nooooooo....

The Setup
Trouble and I are in a cafe downtown, late on a Thursday. We`ve been hanging out every other night for a week. Sparks aren`t flying just yet, but I figure they`re preparing for takeoff.

"I`m surprised we`ve seen each other so much lately," I say, as the gruesomely hip waitress throws the menus at us. "You don`t seem like the type of girl to give so much of her time to one person."

"I`m not, Ivan," she says, scanning the menu. "But I like spending time with you." Green light, or red herring? I started to fall for her. Even though she lived in the far east and I was going broke on the tolls.

Why Do You...
Trouble and I continue hanging out. When she moves from Bedok into Holland Village I see her even more, and before long there`s some chemistry happening, electrons trading places and all that sh-t. One night in her new apartment, I bring up the idea of the two of us dating, and our little burgeoning relationship slams into a pothole.

"Us, going out? But we`re friends," she says, and my teleprompter reads AH, F-CK on it. I`ve been shot down by Friendly Fire, the worst kind.

Later I go home to mop the floor. During periods of distress, I tend to clean. The upshot of things going wrong with women is that my kitchen usually ends up spotless.

Build Me Up, Buttercup, Baby...
Okay, I think. Trouble and I will just be friends, fine.
But one night we`re at my place, and she starts in with the flirting. Like an alcoholic trying to stay sober, I`m trying to stay in the Friend Zone so I lay it down. "Listen, Trouble," I say. "you`re gonna have to crank the flirting down a notch. Because frankly, you`re confusing the sh-t outta me."

"Well," she says, slowly, "you`re not the only one who`s confused."

Ai-yah. Ai-gu.
Later that night, we`re at her place, on her couch. I make the move, she`s receptive, and stuff starts happening. Nothing too hot and heavy, PG-13 all the way; but nevertheless, stuff. I`m thinking my Friend status has been revoked.

Just to Let Me Down
Two days later, the winds change and we have the conversation I printed up top. The deal is off, my show has been canceled, the gig is up. Why she changed her mind, I`ll never know.

I`m scrubbing the kitchen counter at 2 in the morning when my roommate comes home. "Girl trouble?" he says, eyeing the Scrubbing Bubbles. He`s been following the story, and I give him the update.

"Yo," he says, after I bring him up to speed. "Woman like that, who can`t make up her mind, sounds like trouble. She`d be even more trouble if you started dating her. It`s good that you didn`t get into it--later you`ll realize you dodged a bullet."

Turns out he was right; I later found out she is a pain in the ass, and I did dodge a bullet. Problem is, I think I subconsciously enjoy getting shot at.

"Plenty of fish in the sea," says my roommate, gesturing towards our window, beyond which lies the rest of the island. He`s right, there`s a whole city of women out there for me to meet.

I`d better stock up on Mop `N Glo. ©