I remember the first time I met one of those girls, the one who you think is your partner in crime but who you find out is really into insider trading. The type of girl that befriends you only to try to get what you have.
It was my senior prom and I was happy to have Glen, the cutest guy in the junior class, agree to go to the event with me. I grew up stuck wearing thick welfare glasses and was always the smartest girl in the class—this being a deadly combo in the high school dating world. This date was a major coup for me, having just gotten contact lenses and a new lease on teenage life. I spent hours talking about the anticipation of that night with my friend.
I had yet to be kissed by him and thought surely prom night would be the night. Having only had my first kiss a year before, at the not-so-tender age of 16, this was a big deal. Imagine my surprise when I saw the aforementioned friend on the dance floor making out with him for everyone to see! Thank goodness this was pre-dirty dancing. I nearly strangled him with his tie, not caring a whit about who saw, and went to throw a pitcher of soda on him, but he sidestepped and it drenched a girl in a white dress instead. I hightailed it home, taking the limo leaving them stranded, liplocked-cum-slackjawed.
Every woman knows about these barracudas and are on their guard. With the men-to-women ratio in New York City, things can get vicious. Dating is like a game of musical chairs, no one wants to be left without a man to plop down on when the music stops. Still, one can often be blindsided.
I had recently made a new friend. I was thrilled as it is hard to make new female friends. We bonded, talking about how the majority of our girlfriends had married, bore children and moved to the dreaded suburbs. Even better, she lived only a few blocks away. When you live on dreaded York Avenue, as I do, not having to hike it to the subway or hail a cab is always an added benefit.
We became fast friends, having dinners, drinks, going to outdoor movies and sitting at the pool on 77th. We even talked about how we’d spend winter nights at each other’s apartments watching movies and laughing over the silliness of men.
One night I was upset, having had issues over exclusivity with the man I was dating—a man who I will call HW, because he is a self-proclaimed Happy Wanderer. I avoided other friends for the whole week, not wanting to discuss it, being in a cranky mood and knowing people would ask what was going on.
I agreed to meet my new friend, though, knowing she knew nothing about my relationship.
She noticed my frown and questioned me. Over margaritas, I told her the painful saga of our relationship. When I mentioned his name, imagine my shock when she said, “Oh, I dated him.”
Fuck this small and incestuous city!
She went on to explain she had met him back in February, just a few weeks before I started dating him. She said they went to dinner once and that she was not into dating him because he had intimacy issues. He never called her again.
Once home, I alerted HW that my new friend was an ex-date of his. We laughed. After suggesting we include her in a ménage a trois, he seriously assured me he was not interested in dating her and said the only reason he asked her out the first time was that she was hitting on him forcefully. Still it nagged at me. Could the Universe really have this much of a sense of humor? Are there really six degrees of Kelly Kreth? Or maybe HW, being single and 45, had indeed dated every eligible woman in the tri-state area. He was cute.
A few weeks later I met my new friend out for dinner. After stuffing ourselves with copious amounts of Italian food and wine, I was tired and walked her to East 83rd and 2nd where I turned to go east. She continued on 2nd, towards her home.
I was shocked and confused late the next afternoon when she emailed me saying nonchalantly that she hung out with HW last night, after we parted. Just seconds after leaving me she ran into him. I wasn’t even across the avenue before she was sitting next to him eating pizza, even though we had just eaten a very big dinner. Hmmm. Suspicious! Apparently she’d also asked him to accompany her home to walk her dog, afterwards inviting him up around midnight.
Nary a text from her alerting me that she just happened to run into the man we spent the night discussing. The man I had slept with just two days before. When I tried to question her about the circumstances surrounding this bizarre coincidence she was evasive.
Why wouldn’t she have immediately called me over from across the street? Why wait until late the following afternoon to email how funny it was running into HW? I was baffled at why she’d prefer to hang out with him alone, a man she only went out with once, months ago, than to invite me along, her new BFF, the woman he had been dating for over five months.
I don’t own the men I befriend. The point was there is supposed to be a sisterly bond between women. A code of chicks before dicks. Imagine my horror to discover she blabbed to him that I was crazy about him. Surely if she wasn’t one of those women she’d know that that had been something told to her in confidence and clearly a violation of the code of women.
It was the last time I saw her.
It was my senior prom and I was happy to have Glen, the cutest guy in the junior class, agree to go to the event with me. I grew up stuck wearing thick welfare glasses and was always the smartest girl in the class—this being a deadly combo in the high school dating world. This date was a major coup for me, having just gotten contact lenses and a new lease on teenage life. I spent hours talking about the anticipation of that night with my friend.
I had yet to be kissed by him and thought surely prom night would be the night. Having only had my first kiss a year before, at the not-so-tender age of 16, this was a big deal. Imagine my surprise when I saw the aforementioned friend on the dance floor making out with him for everyone to see! Thank goodness this was pre-dirty dancing. I nearly strangled him with his tie, not caring a whit about who saw, and went to throw a pitcher of soda on him, but he sidestepped and it drenched a girl in a white dress instead. I hightailed it home, taking the limo leaving them stranded, liplocked-cum-slackjawed.
Every woman knows about these barracudas and are on their guard. With the men-to-women ratio in New York City, things can get vicious. Dating is like a game of musical chairs, no one wants to be left without a man to plop down on when the music stops. Still, one can often be blindsided.
I had recently made a new friend. I was thrilled as it is hard to make new female friends. We bonded, talking about how the majority of our girlfriends had married, bore children and moved to the dreaded suburbs. Even better, she lived only a few blocks away. When you live on dreaded York Avenue, as I do, not having to hike it to the subway or hail a cab is always an added benefit.
We became fast friends, having dinners, drinks, going to outdoor movies and sitting at the pool on 77th. We even talked about how we’d spend winter nights at each other’s apartments watching movies and laughing over the silliness of men.
One night I was upset, having had issues over exclusivity with the man I was dating—a man who I will call HW, because he is a self-proclaimed Happy Wanderer. I avoided other friends for the whole week, not wanting to discuss it, being in a cranky mood and knowing people would ask what was going on.
I agreed to meet my new friend, though, knowing she knew nothing about my relationship.
She noticed my frown and questioned me. Over margaritas, I told her the painful saga of our relationship. When I mentioned his name, imagine my shock when she said, “Oh, I dated him.”
Fuck this small and incestuous city!
She went on to explain she had met him back in February, just a few weeks before I started dating him. She said they went to dinner once and that she was not into dating him because he had intimacy issues. He never called her again.
Once home, I alerted HW that my new friend was an ex-date of his. We laughed. After suggesting we include her in a ménage a trois, he seriously assured me he was not interested in dating her and said the only reason he asked her out the first time was that she was hitting on him forcefully. Still it nagged at me. Could the Universe really have this much of a sense of humor? Are there really six degrees of Kelly Kreth? Or maybe HW, being single and 45, had indeed dated every eligible woman in the tri-state area. He was cute.
A few weeks later I met my new friend out for dinner. After stuffing ourselves with copious amounts of Italian food and wine, I was tired and walked her to East 83rd and 2nd where I turned to go east. She continued on 2nd, towards her home.
I was shocked and confused late the next afternoon when she emailed me saying nonchalantly that she hung out with HW last night, after we parted. Just seconds after leaving me she ran into him. I wasn’t even across the avenue before she was sitting next to him eating pizza, even though we had just eaten a very big dinner. Hmmm. Suspicious! Apparently she’d also asked him to accompany her home to walk her dog, afterwards inviting him up around midnight.
Nary a text from her alerting me that she just happened to run into the man we spent the night discussing. The man I had slept with just two days before. When I tried to question her about the circumstances surrounding this bizarre coincidence she was evasive.
Why wouldn’t she have immediately called me over from across the street? Why wait until late the following afternoon to email how funny it was running into HW? I was baffled at why she’d prefer to hang out with him alone, a man she only went out with once, months ago, than to invite me along, her new BFF, the woman he had been dating for over five months.
I don’t own the men I befriend. The point was there is supposed to be a sisterly bond between women. A code of chicks before dicks. Imagine my horror to discover she blabbed to him that I was crazy about him. Surely if she wasn’t one of those women she’d know that that had been something told to her in confidence and clearly a violation of the code of women.
It was the last time I saw her.
