They met at the drive-in on one of the last nights this year it was worth attending. While I wanted to see Daniel, I confess that enlisting his company had as much to do with the fact that Melanie had invited along her former roommate and current best friend Clio (a girl from their dorm, Emily, invited herself along but her introduction may as well be her swansong here). Daniel would be going past their college on his way home and so could drop them off, meaning I could have two extra hours with Melanie. Some utilitarianism will have to be pardoned.

This was only my second time meeting Clio, the first occupying a few passingly awkward moments of introduction last spring when I was visiting Melanie in the dorms. I then liked Clio in a (for me) superficial way as she occupied the combination roles of Girlfriend's Roommate, Girlfriend's Friend Who Doesn't Viscerally Vex, Musician, Good Room Decorator, and Character With an Awesome Pseudonym. I was predisposed to like her in a distant way, but I wouldn't have said I knew her at all prior to mocking what has become of Sandra Bullock's career.

I don't recall Daniel and Clio talking much during the tail-end of All About Steve and the whole of Diablo Cody's horror abortion Jennifer's Body. We all talked at the screen, mocking the instantly clichéd dialogue forced into the character's mouths, but that doesn't reveal much but compatible senses of humor (which is enough for me to build a friendship). While I was nestled in Melanie's commodious trunk with Melanie and Clio, Daniel was on a folding chair outside the vehicle.

It was reported that Clio and Daniel spent the whole of the drive back having Good Conversations (with occasional peeps from Emily in the back seat). By the time he dropped them off, Clio nurtured a more than slight fondness for our man in black. When Melanie told me this, I pointed out that I feel I had finally deduced Daniel's type after having been shown three good examples (Hannah, Melonie from Canada, and Jess) that had sufficient overlapping to make out an archetype. Clio fit some of the characteristics, but I wouldn't say she epitomizes what I have decided Daniel is patiently and not especially actively seeking in romantic entanglement. Furthermore, Daniel had frankly asked if the drive-in were a way to fix him up with someone and I reassured him that I don't do that, so I was invested in quashing potential crushes from all comers. Clio didn't seem to care, deciding friendship was perfectly copacetic as well. She just liked Daniel and wanted to be in his life.

Danielbeast

Through social networks, I followed the burgeoning friendship. Clio and Daniel created massive conversational threads twice daily, diving into half a dozen subjects in depth each per post. Melanie dutifully reported that they had three hour long phone conversations more than once. Despite this, I was surprised when I learned they were cuddling together while watching movies, taking this at no more than face value.

The exact parameters of their friendship are best only speculated at. Like an electron, we can only know where it is or where it is going, but not both. So I would much rather know that, in this moment, two people I have grown to care for happen to like one another to a superior and unconventional degree.

Though the drive-in has been our only group outing so far, the mutual liking takes things to another level I had been craving. This familiarity was what I felt around Jess and her friends when I first met them, but their pseudo-family formed long before I arrived on the scene and I would be Cousin Olivering at best. It has been nearly five years since last I felt it in my own life in the form of Zack, Keilaina, and my then girlfriend Emily.

Through conversations, largely between Clio and me, we've sussed out the core synergistic entanglement. Both of us want to be kinder, smarter, more compassionate in response to Melanie (who is, herself, generous and splendid in reaction to us). It is a relationship of mutual and sustained betterment, one that I hope lasts. I may be vanquishing my abandonment issues, of which a desire for a surrogate family most certainly is a symptom, but that doesn't mean it stops being a delightful thought.

Soon in Xenology: Maybe a job, Halloween, parties, Ilana, Tom.

last watched: Zatôichi
reading: Fates Worse Than Death
listening: Regina Spektor

Between Sobriety and Oblivion ««« 2009 »»» Party with Intentions