Ricky...

I burned out a little on writing last week bashing out a three and a half thousand word novel of a thing, and I'm not even sure I have it in me now, but I've two pieces in the brain-pipe (not counting the two I left as enigmatic context-free subject-lines in my Drafts the other evening) that I want out of my head and the other one's a blog-post so doing this first. 

I mentioned Ricky in the email which resulted in my getting all messy and weepy ("Combing the mess of tangled threads..." Sun, 12 Feb 2023 02:05), I also cc'd her on my Bitchkrieg-level smackdown of a now-ex colleague ("Someone set up us the bomb..." Fri, 12 Aug 2022, 19:54), but she's most noteworthy in ("Re: Old thread was needy and whiny; new context- and content-free thread..." Mon, 24 Oct 2022: 23:42) in a sentence which could have been the beginning of its own narrative, but wasn't, because apparently I'm a lit-tease. 

So if Ricky and a smoochy black kitten were the catalyst for tears which two years couldn't coax out of me I suppose she's worth some exposition. 

You know those stories of star-crossed people drawn to each other over time and space, destiny-entwined but out-of phase? Never both single at the same time, or opportunities missed, connections lost, important letters undelivered, so-close-but-yet-so-far on-the-wrong-side-of-the-sliding-doors, deeply-yearning-over-distance, every parting a loss, every moment apart an itch you can't scratch, unrequited-but-not-undesired? 

Well that ain't us. 

Just getting that out of the way. 

When I said "I scored her in the breakup with Emma" ("Re: Old thread was needy and whiny; new context- and content-free thread..." Mon, 24 Oct 2022: 23:42) I was being absolutely and literally honest; Ricky was in the same belly-dance group and we'd hang out smoking shisha after their performances. I don't 100% remember why I looked her up afterwards, but it turned out to be at about the same time she ditched her husband, and been fucked over by her best friend, so some replacement/transference turned out to be handy. She was also having surgery on her hip joint, and of everyone who said they'd come visit I was one of two who did (the other being her brother who literally lived next door, so he barely counts). I swore to spend the next year single, and she the next year sober, so for most of 2012 she was my designated driver through some fairly problematic drinking (I shouted *all* of her drinks when we were out. A couple of diet cokes or lime sodas is way cheaper than taxis, and taxi drivers don't give you a hug and tell you it'll be OK at the end of the night, although you're welcome to tell me otherwise on the condition that the story follows immediately after that sentence), collaborated on some hilarious schemes, mortified the son of an ex-WA Attorney General by being pulled over doing loop-de-loops of a roundabout ferrying us home after a night on the town, demonstrated that you can absolutely straddle and dry-hump someone entirely platonically (she was helping test-drive couches. It was for science), and shagged her way through a good few of my friends. 

We've exhausted a couple of long-running jokes: 

• Every variation of "no fucks to give" we can come up with. 
• So many versions and remixes of the Buffalo Bill/Jay & Silent Bob "Would you <blank> me? I'd <blank> me..." meme, and the song which plays in the background (Goodbye Horses by Q Lazarus is what I'd Rickroll her wedding with... no, I lie, I'd learn how to use mixing software just so i could mash it up with Rick Astley and we all know it, but the thought is there). 
• "Life is short, so tell your friends you love them, but it's also confusing and terrifying so scream it at them in German."

And no, we never dated, because we've never really been particularly interested in each other that way. We do go out on what I call Date-Not-A-Date's (DNAD) where we book each other ahead, wear something a little nice, go somewhere for dinner-and-an-activity (walk along the river, or sit in a park, or eat ice cream in the front seat of the car whilst the rain beats on the moon-roof)... all the semiotic cues which slipstream your brain into particular thought processes like: 
"Y'know, I really like this person. I'm having a really nice time, I hope they are too." 

But never: 

"Will they/we or won't they/we?"

Because at the end of the night we drop the other off and go home. For all that we lose that frisson of excitement, we also skip the anxiety and disappointment because at the end of the night we've already got everything out of it we could want. 

You can probably guess that the DNAD concept was one of mine; the mildly-transgressive reappropriation of a social convention as part of an inwardly-focused mind-game designed for cognitive re-de-reprogramming is covered in my fingerprints. I've been maintaining that I'll not even consider looking until the hole in my life isn't Kat-shaped, and she's been focused on looking after her elderly dad, working full-time, and getting thru her B. Commerce (Business/Management). We neither have time or patience for having "Getting To Know You Dance" after "Getting To Know You Dance", but after nearly decade of serial-monogamy I couldn't remember even what it felt like. It wasn't just a practice-session, it was a reminder of why I should care in the first place. For her it scratches an itch, helps me remain within a Standard Deviation of being a Real Boy(TM), and if anything else gets itchy she still has Bumble. 

There's an enduring love there which one might suggest is in the truest ideals of polyamory, in that it's non-exclusive, and by no means trivial. It's not that we're star-crossed, we're just stars who've fallen into a stable orbit. We didn't miss opportunities, we chose not to pull the trigger. The connection is there, and if one of us misses the train the other will be waiting at the next station. Distances are just geography, every parting is a promise, and absence is conquerable with a phone call. 

So there you have everything, and nothing about Ricky (or Tricky Ricky Nicky, or Richelle N***** A******), but that's also what we are to each other, so it's everything you need to know even if it's nothing you actually wanted to ask. 

Epilogue: