It all started with one, single observation.
I can’t nail down when exactly I made the observation, but I recorded it in the wee hours of Monday, January 19th, 2004. The observation centred around the significance of one word.
“Fling.”
To some people, “fling” is what hobbits are especially good at doing with small rocks. In the years between 1999 and 2003, I only use the word in my journal three times, and every time it had this meaning.
However, in the 18 times I’ve used the word since January 19th, I’ve used it with the meaning more tied to the university setting: what two people do when they’re bored of not having sex.
I’ve been aware since that day (and before) that two distinct types of people exist – those who engage in flings, and those who don’t. It may seem like a meaningless distinction to make, but you would be surprised at the correlations that exist. The glaring one is the link between the flingers and non-flingers, and their behaviour regarding drugs / alcohol (which is redundant, because alcohol is a drug, but everyone says it this way...and I’m all for being explicit.)
You may have read that paragraph and be scratching your head as to where I fit in. No, I don’t have the non-flingers’ attitude towards drugs. The reason I haven’t don’t the fling thing is because I don’t think I’m capable of the necessary emotional detachment. (By the end, you’ll probably agree with me.) There are other reasons, but that’s the big one.
It has nothing to do with a fling being inherently wrong. They don’t happen against any of the participants will, who am I to say anything of that nature is inherently wrong? You show me someone who possesses the universal metre stick of morality and I’ll show you a dogmatic fool.
This was the beginning of the thought process. That thought process was much like a “system process” on your computer, actually. Doing its thing in the background, most of the time. Occasionally the process grabs your attention to request data or to make an observation based on said data. Also like a system process, a thought process is capable of crashing. For me, the thought process crashed on the afternoon of Friday, December 3rd, 2004 – the Imprint staff lunch.
It started when the people I was dining with asked me what my column next semester was to be about. What started as a description of my column ended up being a discussion on dating. Dating turned to dating friends. I actually thought dating friends was a good thing, but the other four people opposed me. They all argued that it was better to date someone you weren’t friends with, and best to date someone you knew peripherally – an associate. That I could accept without too much trouble. So we have different ideas regarding dating friends. No problem. Then one of the proofreaders I was dining with said something like this:
“Unless, you know, it's casual sex. That's okay. It only gets messy when one of you gets emotional about it.”
I couldn’t believe what I just heard. I queried three of them, asking if they’ve actually successfully done this. They had.
It was at that moment I realized my ideals weren’t contrary to a single action, but ran against an entire paradigm. I wanted to oppose them and continue to argue the point, but how could I? I’d been single for 2.1 years at that moment, so one could make the case that they were all more successful than I. I didn’t have a fucking leg to stand on!
I have always claimed that I had dated friends, but began to analyze the truth of that statement. Really, I have only two potential examples here: Laura Cowie and Patricia Vepari.
Patricia I probably met the afternoon of Tuesday, September 3rd, 2002. I didn’t mention her specifically when talking about that day, but I did talk about the rally that happened after we played that “get to know the people around you” Bingo (in residence), and I know I certainly met her there.
I do know with certainty we “got together” the evening of Saturday, September 28th, 2002. Do the math and we’ve known each other for 25 days. Did we fit the definition of friends? It was only 25 days, but we did talk for hours and hours, and it was at the very beginning of university, where everyone makes a lot of friends in a short time. Better find that guy with the universal metre stick.
Laura was a very different case. I got to know her well over the summer of 2000, and we became “official” sometime during April 2002. (My records weren’t as tight back then, and there was a lot more ambiguity in the situation anyway. Sorry, no pinpointing days here.)
It’s not that simple, though! On Monday, December 4, 2000, we had a substitute teacher in our Finite math class. I switched seats to study for my Fitness and Leadership test with Megan MacDonald and Georgia Sauvé. Megan’s exact words to me were, “So, I hear you and Laura are going out now.”
To make a long story short, Megan revealed to me evidence that showed Laura had a crush on me. While Megan is an evil person who will mess with the minds of others for her own amusement, her evidence was reinforced by evidence I saw on my own, once I was looking for it.
While one cannot argue Laura and I weren’t friends before we went out, I did have my work cut out for me (Assuming a me-centred point of view.)
Perhaps the most important part is that I am still friends with both Patricia and Laura...but that’s something I’ll get back to later.
The girl I was attracted to after Patricia was the (arguably) lone female physicist in my year, Kate Ross. Kate isn’t really important to the point of this essay, but it is important to remember one thing: my experiences with her taught me how not to act Really Creepy (tm) when you Really Like (tm) a girl. Like most lessons, it was one I learned the hard way. We’re on good terms now, but I can’t help but think we’d be better friends if I wasn’t so overbearing. I would be more cautious the next time.
Which brings us to Margie Mansell. My experiences with Margie will help me illustrate nicely the points I am trying to make. Yes, I do have a purpose to writing this...it isn’t merely some self-indulgent history lesson. Please bear with me though, just another few of paragraphs of background and I’ll actually start to say something meaningful.
I first met Margie on either September 17 or 18, 2003 – clubs day. While I did notice the lass sitting behind the Film Club booth was cute, she was not the reason I signed up for the film club mailing list. First of all, it was one of the very few clubs I could comfortably join as a White male heterosexual atheist. (As an aside, I still haven’t met my club polar opposite, the Chinese lesbian Christian.) Second, I’ve always been mildly interested in movies and film. Growing up, I’d always seen my mother reading biographies of long-dead actors. It was something she’d talk about occasionally, and something I knew I had some interest in, but didn’t know enough about. I would later learn that both my mother and the Mansells selected the exact same shower curtains – a collage of famous-but-still-long-dead actors: Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, ilk like that.
Alright, so you have me. A passing interest in film was not the sole reason for me joining the film club. But no, the mere fact that Margie, the sign-up booth girl was cute had nothing to do with it either.
At that point in time, I knew two groups of people: the people of South 8 and the Physicists. I (correctly) guessed I would lose touch with most of the people in South 8, and I didn’t know the Physicists as well at that time. We did some socializing at Weaver’s Arms, but we never went to clubs as I did with the people of South 8. In any case, I knew my social sphere would need rebuilding. This is one of the reasons for my activity in September of 2003.
I joined Film Club, I did the Science Frosh week, hell, I even wrote for MathNews, all as part of an initiative to expand my social sphere. That’s not the only reason I did those things, but it was a factor. I can back this up with pertinent quotes from my Journal records from the time. Yes, I know it seems off topic, but I just wanted to point out that September 2003 led to the social structure that exists today, and all the associated complexitites...
Back to the story – I met Margie in September of 2003, and saw her whenever I had the time to attend a Film Club meeting. Weekly film club emails floated into my inbox. I got to know a little about Margie and some of her friends, notably Adrian Chin and Rachel Shugart.
It wasn’t until February of 2004 I found her attractive, after I had gotten to know some things about her. I think the thing pushed it over the edge was learning how incredibly geeky she was. There were other things I liked about her, but this stands out. It’s a theme.
So I really liked her. What should I do? Should I ask her out? Despite what other people said to me (“Dude! Just ask her out!”) I decided asking her out was a Bad Idea. Like Joyce Hong before her, and others after her, she was one of those girls who was and is constantly being hit on. By everyone – complete strangers and friends alike. There was a point in time when I was determined not to ask her out simply because everyone else was. Joyce often complained about being asked out by every guy in residence (except me – Jo, though ridiculously hot, I did not find attractive). Besides, neither of my relationships started with one person “asking out” the other.
This led to a unique situation. I couldn’t ask her out, yet I was still attracted to her. We were already kind of friends, but becoming better friends every week. We would go and watch movies, or sometimes go to Club Abstract. None of this was over contrived on my part. I learned how not to be creepy from Kate, remember? However, if some girl I like asks me to go to a club with her, I’m not just going to not go. The whole “becoming friends” process already had inertia, outside of how I felt. Was I going to change that?
We spent so much time together, Tim Foster started referring to her as my “De facto girlfriend.” We became such good friends, in fact, I got to hear about all her problems with other men! And I thought that only happened to characters in movies!
In the end, though, I’m grateful the whole thing happened. I “came out of the closet” eventually, and her blasé reaction to the whole “me liking her” thing was surprising to me. I learned a lot from Margie, from the friends I’ve made because of Margie, and the friends I’ve made outside of that sphere since Margie.
What if I had asked her out back in February or March of 2003? She would have turned me down, this is a certainty – and also the least of the impact on my life. She may have never asked me to volunteer for Imprint, thus ending my involvement there before it began. My Ross-inspired anti-creepy rules would have prohibited me from even going near the Imprint office. Most importantly, I would have never became friends with her. To me, that would have been the greatest loss of all.
Now, nearly 2000 words and 36 paragraphs later, I can get to the main point of this bitter dissertation. I learned from my experiences over the last year that there are two kinds of people in this world. There are those that will never date their “friends”. They would rather go out to Louie’s to pick up, or go to Bomber hoping to see some guy they have a crush on. I call these people “hunters”. There are those that don’t go out and pick up, and almost always date someone they are friends with first. I call these people “farmers”.
I realized that, as a rule, the hunters are the ones to have the flings. The farmers do not. There’s a whole line of thought, a methodology that separates these two groups of people. Paradigms.
I remember John Kooistra giving advice to Joyce back in September of 2003. He was saying that when things will happen, they’ll happen. Don’t go to the bar and pick up. Just get to know people, and if something develops into a romantic relationship, so be it. If it doesn’t, don’t sweat it – at least you made some friends. That is classic farmer thinking. John, like myself, is friends with his ex-girlfriends (one of whom we have in common). I deemed this to be an acceptable level of contrivance.
The hunters...I don’t know what they think like. I only know that those people have varying success maintaining friendships with those they used to date, and even less success in staying friends with those they’ve had a fling with. Why would I want to imitate them? I wouldn’t want to not be friends with Margie.
Since I don’t have a stenographer follow me around, this isn’t an exact quote, but I’ll do my best. “Isn’t that kind of underhanded? [Asking friends out.] People get to become friends because they’re intellectually attracted to each other, and then if one discovers the other is romantically attracted, it can undermine the entire friendship. She’ll begin to question the very reason you became friends in the first place.” This is what famed Imprint columnist, Adam Johns, said to me on that fateful Imprint lunch day of Friday, December 3rd, 2004.
Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhh! It was clear that he wasn’t comprehending what I was talking about. I didn’t pretend to be Margie’s friend back in February 2004. I was her friend...a friend first and an admirer second. I wasn’t just going through the motions in some attempt to get into her pants. I know I liked her, but I also just plain liked her. It would have pained me greatly to never see her again, be it after a failed relationship or just plain after asking her out. Friends first, dammit! Whenever she asked me for advice regarding men or anything of that nature, I listened to her, and gave her honest advice. How could I do anything else? Part of liking her was genuinely caring about her well-being. I could have tried to poison her mind against other men, contrived against every moral fibre in my body to try and get her to date me. Where would that of lead? The best I could hope for would either be lying to her for the duration of the relationship about always being honest, or come clean eventually about what a bastard I was in trying to get her to date me. Neither one of these is good. FRIENDS FIRST!
How could I not date friends? It’s not as if I’d even contemplate dating someone I wouldn’t be friends with. “Yeah, that hypocrisy and terrible sense of humour of yours I couldn’t tolerate in a friend, but I can totally stand that in a girlfriend. Let’s go out!” Read this over and over again until the implications sink in: All of the close female friends I’ve had throughout my life, I’ve been attracted to at some point. Without Exception. Over the last 6 years, the reverse is true as well. Whether I had some crush on them first and then became friends with them years later (Georgia Sauvé) or was good friends with them and then became attracted to them (Laura Cowie), the two are inarguably linked.
Men, this is where you thank whatever god you believe in that I’m not bisexual.
This is what I wanted to say to Adam Johns, but couldn’t in less than 2,500 words. I also couldn’t say it knowing full well that he was arguably more successful than I, relationship wise. I also couldn’t back up my points with some example he couldn’t pick apart. It called my own (brief) dating history into question.
This is where the bitterness comes in. It should be clear to you now that I’m a farmer. Yet, somehow, the girls I find myself surrounded with in Waterloo, save Patricia, are all hunters. “Knows the most hot women of all the male [Imprint] staff.” Too bad they’re all friends with me, thus I cannot date them! “You know tons of hot girls. Why aren’t you going out with any of them?”
I’m tired of the women I know and care about complaining about the bastard men in their lives, yet completely overlooking the men who they are already friends with and treat them well. I’m not talking about myself here. I’m not the lone guy friend of anyone. I mean this in the general sense; all of these women have guy friends who liked them at some time or another.
“But he’s like a brother to me.” Maybe that’s part of the problem. “Brother” and “Sister” are words I can never truly understand. With the way people talk to me, and confide in me (and always have – I can’t explain what makes it such that people mock me in public but trust me in private – but it has happened for years) perhaps I’m a Brother to all these people.
Part of the reason I wrote this essay was to try and refute those things that Adam Johns and the others said. I am unable to understand the logic that would let me fuck my friends but never date them or become emotionally attached to them. I wrote this partly because I’m exceedingly bitter that people following either paradigm are finding themselves a lot less single than I. (At least I know that the farmer paradigm still works for some people. Congratulations Tim and Patricia.) I wrote this to explain myself. I wrote this because I’m tired of seeing people engage in flings they ultimately end up regretting.
Second last but far from least, I wrote this because the entire situation with Margie has already repeated itself and has run full course. The parallels are surprising: We become friends, I get drawn into more extracurricular activity, another entire world gets added to my social sphere, and at the same time I become attracted to her...but can’t say a thing. I’m a friend first, and an admirer second. I seem to be one of the few guys to not hit on her. I listen, I give honest advice, but at the same time, it pains me the things these women do. But their best interests are served if I just sit here and keep quiet – and mine too. To be completely honest is to risk excommunication. I hate it, but that’s the way it is.
The biggest reason I’m writing this is I can see the whole cycle repeating itself a third time. The conditions are right for the entire boondoggle to happen again next semester, just because of those three seeds I planted in September 2003.
"You know tons of hot girls. Why aren't you going out with any of them?" Perhaps on Wednesday, November 10th Margie should have used the word “attractive” instead of “hot”. She’s right – unlike September 2003, I know no shortage of attractive women – sylphs. But I am a friend to them all, and they are all hunters. To them being a friend means never being attracted to them – but meaningless sex, that’s okay. I already know I can’t do that. I am caught between two irreconcilable paradigms. I am doomed to be emotional support for these people, a de facto boyfriend even, because I am a friend and a Samaritan. However, it seems that these very traits that have earned me both popularity and some close friendships have also penalized me dating wise. For that reason I am a bitter man.
"It's all about the sex." - Kate Ross, Winter 2003
"Sex is Sacred" - Patricia Vepari, Winter 2003
Michael Lee Davenport – Monday, December 20, 2004