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The next few days that followed our first date were those I had a hard time not thinking about what may or may not have been happening. Class didn’t bring any kind of distraction. During my 8am Archeology I wanted to put an arrowhead through my eye.

All I really wanted to do was to see Barney. What was the matter with me? I had gone from independent art-student to a pile of mushy goo over a dumb boy within a weeks time. And not just any boy. A quirky old friend named Barney whose last relationship was also two years prior, and with a friend of mine, no less!

I also had too much history with our circle of friends—our circles overlapped into a Venn Diagram of Barney & Ali. This was getting complicated and I wasn’t sure it even started yet. I had worked hard to move beyond some of that history that carried over from high school and early college. Hence my dreams to high-tail it out of Ashland after graduation.

Back in the college days of the early 00’s, AIM was a necessity for your social life. Facebook was in its early phase (college students only) so naturally there weren’t as many users as there are today. The demographic has also changed slightly. (That’s a joke.) There was no wall and no news feed. The thing to look at was your IM friend’s away message if they weren’t live—that could tell you a lot. Unless, of course it was just a song lyric or some lame and vague attempt to get attention. That doesn’t happen online anymore, though. (Also a joke.)

Barney had left me a message on my Instant Messenger while I was out for a run that he had “an idea for this weekend” and that he’d call me tomorrow. I think I finally fell asleep at 2am that night.

I spent that Wednesday in class, got a run in, and then to the art studio to stretch a new canvas. That building was bad for reception, but my phone let me know I had a new voicemail. It was Barney. I called him back and he wanted to know if I was up for taking a late night walk. Perfect! I had small group that night and an informational meeting about intramural softball, so late was good. I was supposed to meet him on King Road (near the house he lived in with his roommates) at 10pm.

The hour finally rolled around and I met him on the sidewalk of King Road. We ended up taking close to a 2 mile walk, past the hospital on Hillcrest, then down Eastern Avenue*, cutting down East Liberty to Center Street and back down College Ave to the new athletic complex and the Eagle statue on campus.

*We talked and laughed as we walked right past our future first home together on the corner of Eastern and Banning Avenues. We would own that house for 12 years—even had our two babies while living there. Amazing!

We talked about our families, and got familiar with the main characters of each. I finally got the scoop on the weekend idea. He wanted to go on a double date with one of his roommates and new girlfriend. He was an usher in friends Erin and Adrian’s wedding, but afterwards he would be free to catch a late movie. They will jokingly never let us forget it, but apparently he skipped the reception entirely to pick me up for our date. I swear I thought he had participated fully! Barney said he’d introduce me to his roommate and date as his “friend”. He corrected himself. “Friend with perks.” Not sure what he meant by perks, other than this walk and IM-ing. I still wasn’t ready to be in a serious relationship any time soon.

The next evening, I got a tour of the house he rented a room in and quickly learned about his OCD. A neat freak. His lined up shoes. His perfectly fluffed and karate chopped pillows. I also learned more of how driven and ambitious he was with what he wanted to do with his life. I liked that. After three hours of talking and talking, I was back in my dorm room and but had a hard time clearing my thoughts to sleep.

The double date came and went, the movie was unbelievable. Unbelievably stupid. It was “Dark Water”. I was mostly annoyed that Barney paid for both of our tickets and we wasted 2 hours of our lives. Good thing it was at the dollar theater. I offered to pay him back the dollar he spent on me as a joke. That was also the weekend he had a bout with a sinus infection, something I am very much accustomed to now. Something different happened back then though. I went out of my way to buy him tea and kleenexes and go check on how he was feeling. I was filled with such compassion back then.

I finally checked my AU mailbox for the first time all semester and to my surprise there wasn’t just junk mail in it! A package containing a stuffed animal and a message from “Jason”. He wanted me to start calling him Jason. I was fine with that. I didn’t know how much longer I could stick with “Barney” since my perception of him had also changed dramatically.

This was not just any stuffed animal. It was a seagull that made, well, a seagull noise! He had learned one of my rare talents. I can do a pretty spot on seagull impersonation. It’ll give you a headache.

Since he was recovering from a cold and I needed to focus on my school work, I figured it was a good time to just get some space with this thing we were doing. Whatever it was.

Then the phone calls stopped. Barely an IM. At first I didn’t notice, but then the silence became evident. I missed him. He should be better by now, right? He sent me a stuffed animal for crying seagulls out loud!

Finally, an Instant Message. And how do I interpret this one? “Hey friend, let’s get together and talk about some stuff.” Friend? Stuff? What stuff? Did we already have stuff? Ugh. We made plans for the 15th, Thursday evening.

So after eating dinner with my Clark Hall roommates, and stopping by my friend Kristi’s house for a chat just down the road from Jason’s place, I scuttled on over. Something felt different in the house, though. I felt like an intruder—out of place. There were a number of guys over hanging out in the common living room. They were watching SNL skits or something and Jason pretty much ignored my existence. What was happening?

I didn’t want it to get to me, but I didn’t want to leave either. I just decided I would relax and talk with the other friends around and we all laughed quite a bit, almost to tears. I thought at some point Jason was going to pull me aside and say let’s take a walk, or something, but it never happened. So when was this “stuff” going to be talked about? I didn’t have time for games.

It was midnight and I was dog tired. I stood up from the couch and started making my way to the back door, saying goodbye to the group and they all managed a “See ya!” or “Bye, Allison.” Jason watched me walk right out of there and he didn’t say anything more. Didn’t walk out, didn’t offer to drive me back to my dorm like he had a handful of times in the last couple weeks, nothing. My mind scanned my memory to see if I could pinpoint anything that would have made him shy away from me. Maybe it was the seagull impersonation. Maybe he actually loved the Dark Water movie and got offended that I wanted to run to the store to get real tomatoes only to come back in and throw them at the screen… Honestly, I felt hurt.

What I didn’t know at the moment was that in fact there was something going on. He had invited me over to break it off with me.

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Watch for the sixth installment of “How We Met” coming soon.