The Things I Wish They Knew

Last night ended up being pretty low key.  A friend of mine now lives in Somerville (quite an inconvenience with my car in the shop, but whatever.)  I took a cab to his place.  We had a few beers and we decided to go sit outside at Legal Seafoods in Kendall Sq. for dinner.  We finished a few beers and he, myself and his girlfriend (who he just moved in with, and is the reason he is way the F over in Somerville) got a cab to Kendall Sq.  Had some great food at Legal's stayed for a few drinks paid our tab and left.  Now, I like my friend's girl.  She is alright, but she rolls her as at me like every 5 minutes.  Most of the time it is when I'm looking at or trying to speak with girls.  I don't know what her problem is.  I mean, fine, you haven't been single in like 5 years, buuuut when you ARE single the only way you're ever going to meet anyone is to try to talk to them no?

So we decided a few more beers were called for, and went to the Cambridge Brewing Company.  We sat outside and had some beer and caught up for a while longer.  As we were sitting there I noticed this cute blonde hippie girl sitting on a bench alone by the street.  I kept an eye on her and after 45 minutes she was still sitting there alone and no one had said a word to her.  I mentioned to my friend and his girlfriend that the girl had been sitting there alone for so long, I was met with an eye roll by his girlfriend of course.  So I though, fuck it, she's smoking a butt, I have a pack in my pocket, I'm going to say hi.  I got "the sigh" from the friend's girlfriend, but whatever.  Fuck her. (more to follow on this)

So I walk up to the lonely stranger and as if I can share her bench.  She says of course and I sit and light a cigarette.  

"Waiting for someone?"  

"Yeah, my boyfriend works at CBC so I'm waiting for him to get out." she said.

I looked at my watch, "May be her for a while."

"Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm gonna wait or not.  He hasn't answered his phone or my texts."

Ok, now, this kind of blew my mind.  I got a little more info and the boyfriend apparently knew she was going to there waiting and had told her he was getting out early, and now he's not even giving her a call to let her know he won't?  I put myself in that position and I think 1) I would at least call and let her know what was up, or check my phone at the very least and see that she'd called.  and 2) I would take the 4 seconds that it would take to walk outside, say hello and explain what was going on.

So we talked a bit more.  Turns out she lives in Allston and takes the bus from Kendall Sq. to get there?  She asked me how I get to Brighton from Kendall and I said "I take a cab."  At which point I SHOULD have said, "Wanna split one." but my conscience stops me from doing things like hitting on girls who have boyfriends (especially when they're within line of sight.)  I went back to my table and got another eye roll or two as I explained her situation.  So we sat there for a while, and JUST before I left the cute blonde stood from her bench and walked away.  At NO point did anyone ever come out of CBC to say hello.  Her timing sucked, because honestly, if she waited about 2 minutes longer, and we happened to be walking down the street together I would have offered a cab.  Not even to try to hit on her, though I'm sure a little of that would be going on, but I really have this thing against letting good looking young girls walk through the streets of the city alone late at night.  And it kind of irks me that a girl that beautiful would be dating someone who is so clearly a bit of a douche.

I mean honestly, you don't call her, you don't go outside to say hello, and then you let her walk herself through an area of a city, that she admitted to me she was not terribly familiar with, in the middle of the night?  

What I wish they knew?: That there are guys out there who care enough not to do shit like that.  I would never do that to any girlfriend of mine no matter what the situation, and I'm sure I'm not alone here.  

Later in the night my friend said  that he told his girl to stop giving me the exasperated eye roll every time I talked to a girl.  This is why he is my friend.  He understands shit like that, and I honestly did not say a word to him about it before he just told her.  Good friends know shit like that I guess.

At any rate, work Monday.  I have my annual review.  I guess it is a good time being that they've shipped me away for the last week.  I already know that I got a raise.  6.5% is pretty good.  I was expecting about 5, so there you go.  Pretty happy with the job at this point.  It's been interesting work, I've been getting a lot of experience in new innovative things, and they pay me well and don't treat me like just a number.  I worked for a company with 6,000 employees.  Let me just tell you, a company like that does not give a shit about you.  They give a shit about their stock price, and if they need to cut $5 million in payroll to make their year end profit numbers they will.  And they don't care who they fire.

So I'm seeing the light as far as my professional situation.  I guess there's just shit I'll need to deal with no matter where I go or what I do, its just a question of what kind of shit and whether I want to deal with it or not.

Thanks for reading.