It was funnier when it happened to Joey in Friends...

And just when I thought my life was too boring for drama....

Okay, here's the obligatory overblown TMI (too much information) set up. Sorry, but I'm stickler for having people I'm telling stories to know the whole deal. So, while I'm not going to give histories and back stories to everything, I am going to be relatively thorough.

(Warning: After writing this post, this one might be even longer than the frozen dinner one. My apologies, but I needed to get some of this stuff outta me.)

My closest group of friends from high school all stuck around the town where we grew up after failing out of, transfering, or (gasp!) completing college; at least for a couple of years. Within the last few years, most of them have moved away. One lives in Manhattan, two are in Las Vegas, and me and another stayed in waspy rich whiteville.

So, obviously, since everyone else has moved away, my and this other friend spend more time with each other and have gotten to be closer friends. To augment our friend circle, we've hooked up with some more fringe friends from high school, and have subsequently grown closer to them.

I was closer to this fringe group than my other friend, but I've since brought him into the fold.

Initially, when we first started hanging out with this new group of friends, I had a crush on one of the girls, who happened to be the sister of one of the guys in the group that was one of these formerly fringe friends.

As we got to know each other, I realized that this was only really a physical crush; her personality wasn't all that stimulating to me, and well, contrary to popular belief, that means a whole heckuva lot to me, so I sort of mentally checked out of serious interest in her. She's a really flirty person, which can be flattering at first, but that's not a trait I'd want in someone I'd want to be involved with for something serious, and, since I only really look for something serious, she was pretty much out.

Besides, if you're going to get involved with a friend's sister, you better fucking be serious about it, and not be all, "Well, sorry man, I just really wanted to fuck her, not date her. You understand, right?" I don't have a sister, so I can't totally relate, but I can imagine, and what I'm imagining is NOT a world where wanton urges serve as adequate justification for a sexual soire with a sibling of a friend.

Aside: That, and she just doesn't have anything she's really "into." I mean, given that about half of my passions are stereotypically "guy" things, (computers, gaming, and basketball being that half; while theater, cooking, and good stuff on the glowing box tends to be the more girl-friendly half), it's typical that I'll need some "me" time to devote to those passions; and if my prospective partner doesn't have her own particular passions, which, after asking her, she apparently doesn't, well, there can be a gap; and that gap can turn into resentment, and the resentment turns into me sacrificing my passions to close the gap, which turns into me resenting the fact that I'm making a sacrifice that's not being reciprocated... yuck.. anyways..

(If you couldn't read between the lines. this was a pretty big point of contention with my last relationship. Now, it wasn't like I wanted something crazy. Just one or two nights a week to do my thing, and the occasional binge when something new and great came out, but anyways...)

So the preface is, in a nutshell, I had a crush, but it was totally over with.

So.. fast forward a couple months. My friend, who was from the initial group of close friends from high school, doesn't have the same "over-analysis of everyone because each prospective female needs to pass the 'will I still want to be with her in a year?' test" issue that I have. (jesus, I'm such a woman I should fucking read Cosmo, what with their "is he really the one?" and "is he cheating?" tests and whatnot... sheesh.)

Nor does this friend have the "aversion to starting a relationship with someone he doesn't really care about that he knows is probably going to end badly for many reasons not the least of which is because he's the sister of another friend" issue.

Add this to the fact that this friend of mine is one of the better looking guys in our group, and you can guess that my buddy and this sister of another friend start flirting, and, eventually, hook up. It's important to note that I did not witness this hook up, and the friend called me up and told me about it. Given my previous crush, I think this was the prudent thing to do on his part. He was just making sure it was okay with me; and it was.

There might have been a twinge of jealousy, because of course I find this woman attractive, and I now knew that my friend experienced a thing or two that I had wanted to do, but I definitely was cool with it. I spent enough time with her to know that I don't want to be with her in any meaningful way, and the only thing that bothered me was that I knew my friend didn't either but was willing to play the "this is just a casual thing," game with her so he could see the naughty parts. I thought that was a bit disrespectful to the brother of this girl.

Fast forward another couple of months. A big group of us go out bowling (yes, there's nothing to do if you aren't into bars and clubs, so we occasionally play the sport of suburban rednecks); and, after returning, there's speculation about maybe going somewhere or doing something. I realize that the only people interested are my friend, the sister, and myself. My car is at the friend's place. Knowing about the previous pool hookup, and the heavy flirting going on that evening between the two, I knew better, and feigned tiredness. The three of us drive back to his place, I get in my car and go home. I hear later from my friend that it was just some more first-basey kind of shit, she doesn't "come upstairs for coffee."

Fast forward another couple of months. I haven't heard anything from my friend about him and the sister, and I start to wonder if maybe they're doing more and my friend is trying to, "do me a favor," by not telling me, since despite me making it clear I was fine with his other encounters with this woman, he thought I'd get upset to know that he was dunking his cookie in the glass of milk that I was previously eyeing. It seems a bit silly, but not out of the question, so I keep my eyes open.

Over the next couple of months, I start a workout regiment with the friend who's the sister's brother, and we workout in his basement. (I'm not a workout kind of guy, but it's a no-pressure environment, and it keeps me from needing a rag-on-a-stick to wash myself) So me and another (not meaningful to this story) friend go over this guy's house 4 days a week to lift weights with the brother and his dad.

Since I see this guy, and he still lives with his parents (yes, a lot of us do.. it's unbelievably expensive to live in this area) I therefore see the sister more often. I have a couple of lengthy conversations with her. There was no ulterior motive here, (well, not at first); if I can get the ear of a female, I'll take it; it's purely a Bounty quicker-picker-upper moment, meaning I'll take information about how females think and act any time I can get it; even from ones that I'm not really interested in. Knowledge is power, right?

So, as we have more and more conversations, we inevitably talk a lot about my buddy who hooked up with her in the pool. Now's where I get an ulterioir motive. Despite me giving her EVERY opportunity to tell me, and saying everything short of asking her directly, she carefully and deliberately avoids saying that she has seen or done anything with my friend beyond talking on the phone, pretty infrequently even; she even goes so far as to talk pretty negatively about him. We definitely talk more about my friend's faults and what he might be able to do to correct them, rather than his strengths; and it's harped on several times about how she's not really interested in my friend, and that she doesn't "do" casual relationships, and she's only hooked up with a guy "like once ever." (Um, O RLY?)

This gets me really thinking. In the course of any one of these two-hour conversations, you reveal a lot about yourself; I talked a lot about my issues finding companionship given my distain for the bar/club scene, and my desire to find someone more like me, who would be at home doing the same stupid shit I do and not meeting anyone; and she, well, she tried to avoid revealing anything meaningful about herself. She was like, yeah, blah blah blah my ex boyfriend was a dick even though I was great to him, why can't more people be like me, a.k.a. perfect? (Again, O RLY?)

So anyways, after her vehement denial of doing anything with my friend, (and of course I knew about the pool, and the parking lot), I start to wonder again if my friend is doing this girl, and, a) not telling me, and b) telling HER not to tell me either.

Fast forward to this past Wednesday. I call up my buddy on my way home from work, asking him what the deal was with the Knicks game.

(This guy and I are both big Knicks fans, even though they stink, and we watch most games together, enough that it would be understood that we would probably watch this game together.)

My buddy picks up the phone, a little out of breath, and says, a) he just got out of the shower, and, b) he was just going to watch the game at home himself.

My Spider-Sense is going bonkers. I know something's up. How do I know this? Here's a brief rundown:

1. I've been friends with this guy for over 10 years. I know him cold, and as cliche as it is, this just wasn't like him.
   
2. I ate lunch with him that afternoon, and we had discussed the game already; we were actually going to get tickets and go see the game at MSG; so seeing it on TV together was the next logical step.
   
3. I knew what time he got out of work, and he did NOT have time to go get all sweaty and have just gotten out of the shower by the time I called him.
4. Despite the reputation of the Communications program at a lot of colleges being some bullshit that jocks take, I actually paid attention, had good professors, and learned a lot. You pick up a sense of how people think and talk, and there were like four inconsistencies with the way he was talking to me.
   

I had very deep suspicions, and I'm REALLY big on truth and honesty. So, here's where things get a little dicey. I was already driving, and his house is awfully close to mine. I definitely could've just gone home and let the suspicion eat at me, but I thought, man, I bet she's over there right now, and he just totally lied to me. He's out of breath, well, because... you know. So, I do the shady thing. I drive by his place, looking at the cars.

A car matching her make, model, and color is in the parking lot outside his place.

I memorize the license plate JUST IN CASE; because I sure don't want to be wrong if I were to bring it up later.

Fast Forward, for the last time, to tonight. We go over the brother's house for a little get together, poker night, etc.

The sister's out at the bars/clubs, (yet another reason why she's not for me) but her car's there. It's definitely the same car, same license plate. He lied. She lied.

My buddy had picked me up that night since parking can be tight at our friend's place, so we're walking to the car, and I gotta break the news.

Truth and Honesty are pretty much #1 with me, even though it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, someone who's close to me will know that I won't lie to them, and if you're with me, I'll never, ever, EVER cheat on you. On the other hand, a) if something's bothering me that is going to hurt your feelings, I have a lot of trouble keeping it to myself, and b) if I think something fishy's going on, I want to know the whole truth about it. Things like that just eat at me, and I can't function without saying something.

We hashed it out on the ride home, and you know, I'm totally fine with the fact that he's shtooping the girl I used to have a crush on, I'm just upset that he lied about it, and told her to lie about it too. He played it off, saying shit like he thought I already kind of knew. (to which I asked him why he didn't just say "I'm busy" or "I got someone over" on Wednesday...)

But whatever, him and I are really close, this isn't going to mess up our friendship in the long run. But, as I said before, I have to be honest with people, and if people aren't honest with me, that's an issue. I'm over it with him already, and I always forgive, but I rarely forget. It's just one more thing that I know that helps me understand where I really stand with him.

On the other hand, I still needed to square away things with the sister. I had opened up a lot, and said some things that you only really say when there's a quid pro quo situation; and now, I know for SURE that a lot of those things she was saying were pretty far from the truth; either that, or she's only banging my buddy because he's a good looking guy.

So, I'm not going to be able to look her in the eye until this shit is discussed between the two of us.

I talked to my buddy about this, and I told him my feelings, but I said, hey, you're my friend, and if you REALLY don't want me to say anything to her, I won't. I do NOT want to do that, but I respect your wish in that case.

Aside: I might not do that for all of my friends, but this guy really is a good guy, he's done some really great things for me over the years, and to be honest, him and I had similar "just be a really great guy" philosophies on women until he went to college and joined a fraternity. The geniuses there told him that if he was sick of not having control over every situation with women, he could fix that by being cocky and aloof towards women; act like you don't want them, play games, etc. Of course, some women, being, um, women, and for reasons I still don't quite understand, totally went for that, which encouraged him some more; such that now he tries to be the ladies man who's got it all together in most social situations.

So, he understood, and said that I can do what I needed to make things right with the sister. Now, make things right might just mean that after talking to her about it I realize that I don't really want to talk with her so much anymore, but that remains to be seen. I'm really curious to see what she's going to say when she finds out that I figured out their little secret lover crap.

(Hehe, you know I totally ruined a little bit of the fun they were having... what with the whole excitement of "no one knows" and all that crap...)

Now, that leaves the brother. I see the brother 4 days a week to work out, plus any weekend activities. Now, I think he'll probably be okay with this, (he dated the sister of one of our other friends at some point, so it's not like he can get all uppity and self-righteous) and he probably had suspicions of his own, but it's going to itch at me until he knows too. Which leads me to the current conflict I'm having.

I mean, I dunno, I guess I have a such a big problem with lying, that it irritates me REALLY bad to see it going on when I know the truth; and the little self-policeman is raising a stink in my head now.

How much of this is really "my business?"

I think it's my business to deal with the friend who lied to me. And it's my business to deal with the sister who repeatedly lied to me during sensitive conversations.

Beyond that, I'm not so sure. Am I a total spaz for wanting to be the truth police? I mean, I'm allowed to expect honesty out of my friends, right? But where does that right to spread the truth end? Personally, I think the right ends at the circle of people who would possibly have a care about it one way or the other; but my thoughts and what's socially acceptable may or may not be the same thing.

Holy Shnikes. It's 5:40am. Well, at least I got this off my chest.

If you made it this far, you get a gold star.