2000. In the previous two years all of my "friends" had proved themselves. The people I spent time with, I wanted to like and be on board with, but considering how welcoming they were to me and changes in my life, I just didn't and couldn't. I also couldn't be close to or trusting with anyone anymore because of things I was doing which absolutely required a solo lifestyle to be effective. When I spent time with others, I was mainly just physically present.

I made "friends" online. They didn't know much about me but I could at least enjoy some time with people my own age who gave me a chance. I felt a lot more connected to them.

One of which, I had a bit of an ongoing crush on. He was centered and intelligent yet seemed to be experienced enough to not be pointlessly judgmental. He could form thoughts and opinions and stand up for himself, and he was creative and interesting and generally dynamic. He was also a redhead, which just about sealed the deal for me.

I didn't want to have a relationship over the internet. So... yeah. Fuck. Oh well.

I was just about to graduate high school when I met Jordan. I was hanging out in a room being an asshole to people and joking about shit, like I do. People came and went all of the time, so I didn't notice when Jordan started coming around. After a while, though, I sensed that I was being "watched". He must have started participating somewhat in whatever conversations were going on, and they might have been directed closer to appreciation of my trail of thought...

I finished school as well as the majority of my solo-creating behaviors and now had time to concentrate on things normal people concentrate on. Hm. This boy liked me. Interesting. Where he lived was closer than where the redhead lived... almost accessible. Maybe I could give it a shot?

We talked, now directly.

He told me he played football. Wow. On a ten point scale, he went from an 8 to a 2 in an instant. That's just what a little pseudo-goth wants to do, date a jock... even though I thought that was unnecessarily judgmental and possibly irrelevant. but yeah. BAAA.

He seemed pretty creative and intellectually aware despite. He made something up that impressed me. Back to above-even odds for a while...

Then he told me he'd been drinking to the point of "wasted" at someone's cabin, or something like that. Meaning, there was a party that he got wasted at. I couldn't decide how to interpret that. Everyone my age was drinking and partying, and I had, and I would, but I would have preferred a non-drinker or at least someone who didn't feel the need to pollute themselves to the point of total debilitation. Below even odds.

In several other photos, he showed me a picture of his bass guitar. Back up.

One day he told me he was going to sing a song in front of a band covering Deftones. I didn't really care one way or the other about the Deftones ("My Own Summer" not included) but this was very interesting. That's not a very jock sort of thing to accomplish, even if Deftones were popular and pretty accessible at the time. Almost a 9 again...

However, redhead over there was also into music and FINALLY started listening to Tool, OMG, so it was ultimately negated.

A few months of this back and forth, should I or shouldn't I crap had gone on... I still didn't know. Jordan quite obviously liked me and was pestering me about it.

I brainstormed one day about WHY I liked the other guy. What the heck was he doing that was so great that I wasn't giving this Jordan guy a chance when he was clearly available and liked me and generally seemed alright?

It occurred to me that I liked the redhead because he "thought". I knew where he stood on a variety of topics. If he wasn't that smart on a topic, he did a damn good job of faking it. It's very rare that I meet people smarter than me. I could see myself spinning lies with the redhead in the future, even if nothing came out of that in terms of "relationship" ever.

I suppose it's unfair that I came in with a series of random questions without giving him any sort of preparation or warning that he was going to be judged on his answers. However, the redhead would have been able to answer them regardless. Perhaps if he wouldn't have had an absolute answer at the time, like if my timing had been off, he would have at least given it a shot. Similarly, the randomness of the questions upheld the purity of the answers...

Jordan's answer, all across the board: "I don't know". He didn't even try. I got a general sense that he didn't care about anything.

And thanks for playing Interview With The Emotional Vampire. Your consolation prize is a short discussion of how I'm pretty sure my crush on the redhead outweighs all... and maybe next time you like a pretentious smart girl you'll know to have an opinion on something.

Unsurprisingly, we were only in contact about a month after that when he randomly fucking disappeared from planet earth.

His song: