vicious social circles

By Todd Stadler · Friday, April 13, 2001 5:59pm

The party tonight at Jerry's house was good. Chock full of intrigue and irony.

The irony stemmed from the large number of interesting and attractive women. Jerry's roommate Stella invited many people from her workplace, making this the first party in a while where there was an entirely different high tech company that people assumed I worked for. Additionally, not every guy in the room worked for Intel. Which was nice.

Still, why is it that in the two months since I started dating, I have met many interesting, attractive, and single young women? Where were they before, hiding? Does the smell of a man in a relationship bring them out? So it would seem. Perhaps because relationships smell like commitment.

Ah well, there is no real loss here, as I am more than happy with Julia. And I am not alone in romantic contentment. The once barren field that was my circle of friends has blossomed in the spring, it would seem.

Jerry talked an awful lot with a girl from his neighborhood he invited to the party. And Hermann was only spotted at the end of the party, looking happily disheveled. Curiously, the same could be said of Kate. Hmm...

And me? I got kneed twice in the groin by a girl who probably thought she was being playful but was, in fact, being annoyingly drunk. Ah, as they say, well.

I would like to use Hermann to point out that our group is still somewhat incestuous, if less directly so. For although I've only met her twice, she is the sister of Josh, who we know through Rebecca, who we know from her dating Jerry. So it all comes back somehow. Except, obviously, for me. I'm dating someone so far outside our social circle that she lives in a different state.