Back in April or so, I was out with a bunch of coworkers and my friends Tiffany and KP. Within minutes, Tiffany and P., who I met for the first time that night, were joking that they were husband and wife. So when D. invited me and Tiffany to the birthday dinner he was organizing for P. a week or two later, I knew why I was invited: I was the link to Tiffany.

Or so I thought. After talking with P. all through dinner (with us declaring at one point that we were both so great, we would try to find people to fix each other up with), P., myself, and D. went to a bar where Tiffany was going to meet up with us (it turned out she couldn’t make it). As P. left to go to the bathroom, D. said, “I think he likes you.” And to be honest, as much as I was enjoying talking to him, that possibility hadn’t even crossed my mind. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had to take action.

So I friended him on Facebook. He responded the next day.

May 3 at 10:49am

Dude, I will totally be your facebook friend if you will tell me what I’m supposed to use facebook for. Is it like Twitter but slower?

Your luddite friend,

P.

And then,

May 3 at 10:54am

And I’m sorry for boring/offending you out of [the bar] on my Birthday. I think I was talking about sex or singing about sex or something that was probably both offensive and boring at the same time (maybe you were offended by how boring it was, which is probably worse than being just straight-up offensive). Anyway, thanks for coming, and next time I promise to be blandly exciting instead.

I thought that was hilarious.

May 4 at 2:08am

Blandly exciting. Ha! I was neither bored nor offended on your birthdee, just sleepy. My new-apartment resolution is to get to bed early (I’m not doing so well so far, as you can see by the timestamp on this message). It’s not entirely my fault. I’ve had a bunch of gigs.

Facebook is clearly just a vehicle for Scrabulous. Oh and the return of the annoying forwarded chain mail, in the form of FunWall.

Did you ever get to sing on your birthday?

Note my subtle mention of gigs. It’s my trump card, really. His reply:

May 5 at 7:18pm

No! There was no singing! I have never done karaoke, and I had mentally prepared myself to do so that night, but no. A dark spot on an otherwise fine birthday.

I just don’t understand why I need Facebook. I have a Flickr account, a Friendster account, a Twitter account…do I need a FunWall on top of all that? Do I need to play vampires and werewolves? Really? I want to understand, I really do. I want to be…popular.

How was your gig? I have to come see. When are you playing out next?

Sadly, the next gig I had was up in Marin, with my bluegrass band. He asked where, because he grew up in Marin. I mentioned it was at the new Sweetwater in Larkspur, and that was that.

I didn’t really expect that 10 minutes after we finished playing, P. would walk in, arms open in a “What the…?” gesture. It took me a few seconds to believe it was him. “You’re done playing?” he asked incredulously. “I thought you’d be playing until midnight on a Thursday night.” Alas, no. We played a half hour over and we were done by 10:30.

“Want to hang out with us for a beer?” I asked.

“Well, yeah!” he said. A beer at the Sweetwater with the band turned into a beer at the Silver Peso with Prentice, P., and me. “I really like him,” Prentice said as he was in the bathroom (I love how trips to the bathroom are the times when secrets come out). I felt the same way.

We walked Prentice back to her car, he walked me back to mine, we talked outside and nearly froze to death, then we sat in my car to warm up slightly and talked some more. And then he kissed me. That kid is a goooooooooood kisser.