When good words go bad

I promised Mr. Incredible that I wouldn’t dwell on this but he knows me well enough to know these things can’t be helped. There are some words strung together that can almost never be wrong, bad or misconstrued. An example: “I love you.” Usually not a surprise when someone says those words to you, sometimes you’ve even been waiting to hear them. But sometimes, sometimes, you’re walking down the hall in your PJ’s in a West Virginia cabin and run into IBC who hugs you and tells you that he loves you because you’re awesome. Most people would ‘awww’ return the favor and wonder how much he’s had to drink. I told him that was sweet of him to say and then asked him why he said it. Then I rejected the explanation and told him that I knew he talked loose when he was drunk. Then I awkwardly returned the favor with -.5 authenticity and garbled his name in the process. Nice. This morning, IBC now sober, tells me he loves me after I brought him a pastry he requested. I told him, “You should.”

In re-reading the above, it would be easy to think we went away together and then I treated him like crap but there is some context missing from the story that I hope will make me look less like a socially retarded jerk. We are not an item, or whatever the kids call it these days, we didn’t hook up and never have. This weekend, the cabin--me and 15 of his closest friends. I again, not sure why I was invited. These things IBC invites me to--I have felt in both like I’m acting out the soundtrack to the Sesame Street song “one of these things is not like the other...” I’m not sure why it seemed real important to him that I come to both the parents party earlier this year and now this. There were other people there I was glad to see and many more that I didn’t know but they aren’t drive-five-hours-to-see friends. They are glad-I-happened-to-see-you-in-the-hallway-have-you-eaten friends. I don’t even have their phone numbers. They are all young, starting out in their careers and under 30 by that lifetime that exists between the person you are at 25 and the person you are in your 30’s. It’s not as much that I’m a different person now than I was then, it’s just that the conversations have changed. Spending extended conversation with people that much younger is like speaking in a formerly fluent tongue. It’s all very familiar but requires much more attention and strain to follow and participate. I’m not sure I’d go again--I tend to feel bad about myself when I’m socially uncomfortable but I realized tonight talking to Mr. Incredible that I’d spent the weekend doing the mental and social equivalent of wearing ill-fitting and unflattering clothes. Nothing wrong with the clothes--they just don’t look good on me. I’m not normally good in big groups. Even relatives. But after a half-hour on the phone speaking in my native tongue with Mr. Incredible I felt funny, mutually amused, and incredibly well dressed.

But I went because I didn’t want to disappoint IBC, because I do miss seeing him and talking to him. Because I miss stars and trees and nature noises. Because it is good to get away sometimes. Because I knew there was a chance I’d feel miserable, out of place, and sometimes confused about what kind of feelings I had for IBC. But I also knew it would be beautiful and that there was a chance that I could even (gasp) have fun. He may love me like a mother or an aunt or he may even be pining for me (unlikely). Or IBC doesn’t assign the same weight to those words that I do and they were simply something to say.

And that’s when good words go bad.