“A man’s morality is tested when he’s asked to be a wingman on a friend’s blind date.”

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One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

– James Russell Lowell

So many beautiful women passing him, he didn’t know where to direct his attention. He liked getting the attention back, even though he knew he wasn’t physically-desirable; it was still nice having these young, pretty faces smile back at him. If only he were more handsome. It took him forever to be able to smile back and now if only they came to him to help him complete the cycle. But he really didn’t want them to: honestly, he really didn’t know how old any of these girls actually were. There was a nice, tiny Filipina, with a blemish-free smile and an onion booty: has to be under fifteen. What about that tall, slender White girl with the amber hair down to her ass, with no tits and a flat back? Gorgeous, undeniably, but young. Obviously too young. But was she? The Friend had worked with women before who were underdeveloped: petite husks for the blossoming female underneath. So it wasn’t unheard of. But they were always taken, and never taken with the Friend. No, he was more the “dateable” type, his ex’s had told him: a man a woman ends with, and not part of the journey. He should believe them, since they all left him in the end anyway. No, he was contented with being sidelined. The girls on his computer could comfort him later.
The mall was packed today. No telling why, must have just been one of those days, where the planets were in-alignment and everyone had money to spend, but no one seemed to be carrying around any shopping bags. A shopping mall bursting with the young & bountiful and no one was buying anything. Maybe we were all just here to scope ourselves out, be communally creepy to one-another, in the one public place where it was allowed. In the same way all these young girls kept looking in the Friend’s direction, a curiosity, burgeoning with emotion & development. It must be so easy for some of those guys, isn’t it? Just to roll up on someone half-their-age and be able to ignite that spark within their teenage will as easily as the opposite sex could to him, the flame burning hot & bright for the tight, chaste juvenile body. Was this what made the collective blood of the predators of the world boil for flesh? Someone who didn’t know any better? Someone with no frame-of-reference, no prior dick, no resumé? No experience meant no disappointment to the Creep. No one talking down to them, making them feel low for their inadequacies. Now, they could be the one in charge. Now, they were finally a man.
The Friend had to jolt himself back to reality, lest he became stuck in the warren of his mind. He was here for a purpose. He was here, to help out his buddy, who walked beside his Friend with a faux-confidence one can only lather from a social entourage. The boy was nervous: he was nineteen and still a virgin. The Friend, who was a few years older than the boy he had met in College, had to reassure him there was nothing wrong with that: Hell, even he was a virgin till he was 20, although he was thankful this was no longer the case. The Friend could remember the conversation:

“Hey, what are you doing this weekend?”
Nothing, why?
“There’s this girl on Facebook who wants to meet me.”
Hey Hey! Good for you!
“No, not good for me. Look at this horse:” The boy showed his Friend her profile picture. Hers was a sad, gangly face, with dyed-blond bangs shielding weighted eyes full of restlessness & longing. Acne. No smile, just closed lips. It revealed nothing, yet everything, “she won’t leave me alone. She must have been on one of the groups I joined, cause she just started messaging me out-of-the-blue.”
So?
“She wants to meet. Do you want to come with me? Be my backup?”
Why don’t you just say no if you’re not interested?
“Because I don’t know if she’s hot or not. She doesn’t look great on her profile pictures, but she’s still in High School, so I’m kind of interested.” Of course he was: she was seventeen. What man ever said no to a seventeen-year-old? And how many of those men were featured on a Creep Catchers video later? “Maybe she’s got a nice body. She wants to meet at the mall on Saturday. What say you for a field trip, Sir?”
Sure, I need something at Best Buy anyway.
“Okay, great. You know, just in case I need an out. And if things go well, then you’re OK taking off without me?”
What are friends for?

Now, they were minutes away from the coffee shop they had agreed to meet at. Her, presumably, with no idea the Friend was even coming. And the Friend very uncomfortable & subsequently very-obviously aroused in his one-size-too-small jeans. He knew he should have just worn some sweatpants, but for whatever reason he was compelled to look nice. He had on a clean flannel shirt with the red plaid that never went out of fashion, and had actually managed a full shower – including shampoo – without his landlords stomping on the ceiling; their own imitable way of telling him that hydro wasn’t cheap. And when he felt clean, he felt good. And maybe that was part of the reason he seemed to be attracting so many glances: clean in his finery. “Girls like clean and nice.” His mother’s words reverberated through the twenty-odd years from whence she said them. But clean was only 50%: he had to be a nice guy, too. He looked over at the boy. Why wasn’t he more nervous? Wasn’t this the first time he’d ever been asked on a date? Even if he wasn’t that interested? Wasn’t that something to be excited about? Why did he look so dull?
Here they were. And there, at a table by the window, was a lone girl, with dyed-blond hair & droopy eyes. She saw the boy: she knew what he looked like from his profile picture. And then she saw the Friend: she had no idea who he was. And then whatever excitement she had felt seconds-prior faded into confusion, and then betrayal. Betrayed again. This girl knew trauma. And the Friend felt a wash of shame for being the one responsible. But he had come this far. And it wasn’t about him: it was about the boy. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind, I ran-in to a friend here and asked him to come with me.”
Hello.
Hi. I’m Lily.
Hi Lily. The boy and his Friend wandered away to order their drinks. “What do you think?”
I have no opinion.
“Really? I don’t think she’s much to look at.” She wasn’t, at first glance. Ironic that the boys had taken so much time to get ready without expecting much, and that so much was on-the-line for her and yet she wore baggy, oversized yoga pants & an old sweatshirt that looked like it had followed her from Middle School. They hadn’t even seen her stand up yet and truly, first impressions were everything. The Friend looked behind him, back at Lily. She came across immediately-disinterested, slouching over her large Frappuccino. So sad. The Friend hoped that he didn’t make it worse on her by being there.
I haven’t even started talking to her yet. I don’t know.
“But don’t you think she’s kind of dull-looking?”
There should be more to someone than just the way they look. The humility surprised him as it came out of his mouth. He thought of all the pretty girls he had passed on the way. He looked through their made-up faces and really began to think, what would it be like to date them? To really know them? To know how nubile they really were, how little they knew about the world outside of the classroom aside from the latest trends, the latest music, their dreams & their ambitions through a lens narrowed unambiguously by time. He didn’t want to talk to immature women about The Weeknd or Netflix, or their pets or their extra-curricular activities: all the things you would small-talk normally to an adult before graduating to current affairs & opinions, culture, life, love. It was part of the game, but only a small one. Lily was 17. As far as the Friend was concerned, she fell squarely into the category of off-limits. So when they got back to the table with their drinks, the Friend was alright with nodding-off, paying little attention to the conversation between the boy and her. He’d much rather play Hide & Seek with the other girls walking by, and the fantasies they inspired. He didn’t bother to think whether or not Lily ever looked his way at all.

*

Now they were walking on the promenade, Lily and the boy ahead of the Friend. The Friend had nowhere to look except the boy and his potential mate. They seemed to be getting along well-enough together, despite him not directly listening to what they were saying to one-another. But the boy was laughing and Lily was smiling so there wasn’t anything to worry about then, was there? Should he leave? Go to Best Buy and leave them? In a moment of Lily’s guardedness, the boy looked over his shoulder at his Friend and mouthed “10 minutes?” while pointing at his wrist.
Well, there you go. The Friend supposed it wasn’t going so well after all. And then he thought of Lily’s smile, and all he could muster was how guilty he would feel when they left & she was all alone again. And no one deserved to be left like that. Especially not her. She really didn’t look so bad: now that he had seen her walking, he knew just how thin she really was under all those layers of clothes. Such a contrast to all the other girls walking by who were contented to show off every nook & crevasse of their bodies before even taking anything off. And her face wasn’t that ugly: just the usual marks of adolescence. In fact, the Friend was becoming quite fascinated with her face, and he began making all sorts of assumptions in his head for all the different reasons she might have looked like that: an abusive household? Was she raped? Bullied? What was she hiding that unlocked her mysteries, and how hard would someone have to work to break through that mould? The boy felt like he was, but they had time before they met, to string themselves along online without knowing a single damned thing about each other other than their own intentions: that he was using her, and that she was seduced by him, by an idea of him, an idea that he cultivated. And in another five minutes it would all be over. It actually made the Friend mad. It was so hard for him to talk to girls that he resented the boy for squandering his chance now: a nice girl, who maybe wasn’t his type but would help both of them grow up, learn something outside of his sheltered existence. Not so young for 17 after all.
And then he thought of the girls with nothing to hide, who bared all, in their size-zero leggings and their crop-tops with their hair in all sorts of shapes & colours so as to lie to themselves that they were individual, and that there aren’t a dozen other outcasts all doing the same things with their hair, all vying to be noticed, to be joked-around with, to be teased and then cajoled into sleeping with someone too old to teach them a lesson they’re truthfully too young to be learning in the first place. Who needs to think about sex at thirteen? Fifteen? Even at seventeen, how does anyone know they’re with the right person? Lily thought she knew, at least she looked like she thought she knew: someone who had led her on, who had agreed to meet her without any decent pretension. He was a better man than the boy. He had to be. And didn’t the better man deserve to be with the woman who wanted him? “Well, I’m going to take off now, it was nice meeting you! Maybe we can do it again sometime.”
Oh, you’re leaving so soon?
“Yeah, that’s just how our transit connection worked out. Are you coming?”
I still have to go to Best Buy.
“Oh, well, we can wander over there on our way to the train…”
Actually, I was going to ask Lily if she wanted to come with me.
Oh?
Yeah, if you weren’t doing anything.
“It’s your choice man, if you want to stay. You know I have to get going.”
I’d love to hang out some more.
Great! It’s not an exciting stop, but I want to go anyway. The look on the boy’s face was of the same betrayal on Lily’s when she saw the Friend, and now they had reversed, as Lily’s pale, poxy skin warmed to the thought of another man who was interested, maybe; another man so soon. And the Friend bloomed too, at the thought of something to do that wasn’t simply masturbating. And the boy scowled from his decision, which he was too proud to go back on now.

The exchange was vocally-sparse, but meaningful, in other, inspiring ways. Lily was very quiet as the boy picked out the accessory he was looking for, and he appreciated the absence of pestering. What’s that? Why do you need that? The Friend didn’t really want to answer any of those questions: this was just for him. And he didn’t have to that afternoon. Once they were done, the Friend felt compelled to ask her to eat, and they spent some more time in the cafeteria, sitting next to each-other, enjoying the company, saying little. Maybe it was because she had said all she had to say with the boy earlier, and she just assumed that his Friend was listening? But he didn’t think so. Maybe the companionship was enough. But the tranquility they found in such a bustling part of the plaza was poignant in its own way, so thank God he didn’t have to try and remember anything she said. She didn’t test him like that. The Friend didn’t want to overthink it, but maybe, just maybe, this discreteness had something to do with her past? Her muteness spoke of a worldly-reservedness she probably wouldn’t have elaborated on. It fascinated the Friend, more than her age; more than the innocence portrayed. That he could somehow save her. More than her inadequacies did this kindle the sparks of manhood within him, and he asked for her number. She gave it to him.

*

That was three years ago. Today, the Friend lives in a one-bedroom basement suite with Lily & their child. The house is a mess: not only is the house itself they moved in to in-disrepair, but – for being a stay-at-home mom – Lily never cleaned. In fact, the mess on the bedroom floor was so bottomless that it would reveal new treasures every time the Friend jabbed his big toe on something heavy – that happened more than once – or went searching for a pair of his own boxers that she had worn, and then discarded in a moment of absent-mindedness. It wasn’t absent-mindedness. She was a child. Twenty-years-old now, but still a child, stuck whenever she was from taking charge of the simplest of personal responsibility, like laundry, or hygiene. And a child to look after, as well! But she was a good mom. At least the Friend thought she was, and he should know, being the child’s father after all. It just never seemed like he was able to catch a break anymore. “Well, get used to it, because that bad luck will follow you for the next eighteen years!” His father laughed at him over the phone. And as the phone fell to the Friend’s side in-acquiescence to it all, another saying of his mother’s called out, echoed, from the hole she had dug in his subconscious mind, no longer dormant, conscious, and loud & clear: “Choices.”

//jf 2.3.2021

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