then there was this day we met with my friend. i finally got to meet his girl. and he’d thought we’d arranged a double date but we hadn’t, so he convinced me to call my girl to come have hotpot with us 3.

she obliged because studying… why fi dat? and so we waited for her, walking around, talking, moving.

what i recognise now is that where crises of identity happen is when my friends create strict narratives about who i am, feeding them to their friends before they’ve ever met me.

he’d created a narrative that i was a joke a guy that goes too far an incel a NEET character

and his girl engaged with me accordingly, which was nice.

his girlfriend has the best personality of any girlfriend of any of my friends ever, and i’d be very surprised if they don’t get married.

so, she has a fixed character in her mind of who i am, even if i was low energy that day, and didn’t know why they were forcing banter so much.

as we frolicked around london, doing things and stuff, we eventually got to chinatown, where my girl was waiting. i spot her, but i’m not exactly rushing to greet her.

as i point out who she is, we all walk closer, and closer, and closer

as we do, i notice his girl. everything about her had changed. the entire energy in her had shifted. it was so completely different; i couldn’t possibly describe it but i remember it vividly.

she was in awe

i tried to probe her on this. my girl was walking ahead with my friend. and i was walking behind them with his girl. all talking. but she simply said “she’s so beautiful”

but that wasn’t it. girls say that and that’s never what they mean. so i kind of let it go.

at the time, i was more interested in her opinions of my girl specifically because the relationship was a talibani timebomb, and i was thinking it was some nonsense like her feeling my girl was more superior to her.

but now i see that that was wrong.

it was that the combination of me and her completely broke all expectations, and she was not the only one. a lot of people were like that. surprised, not in a bad way, like she was too good for me. but suprised that i picked such a reasonable and good pick. she was the mona lisa for a girl smack bang in the middle of the bell curve.