Ballyhooly Dave

I'd already decided I didn't want to befriend housemates* before I met Dave.

We started talking. He was always genial and we talked about important matters. I won't get into that because that would not be right.*

I fell into a pattern, for a couple of weeks, of bringing my iMac downstairs where we'd listen to music on YouTube, drink beer, and talk. I'd smoke a bit, too, of some legal-high stuff I'd bought at a local shop.

One evening in late September, that was the situation. I was high, we were drinking, and we were also talking with the three Tipperary lads who'd recently moved in. Dave sat to my left at the table, and they three were over to my right on chairs and a couch, playing video games.

Dave was talking, when I pissed him off. I told him "ah, relax." It was rude, but not vicious. I didn't mean any disrespect, or at least not much. Dave had been pontificating about something, I think. I don't remember what he was talking about and it's not important.

Dave got really pissed off about that, and he will never forgive me. Mind-blowing, that is, pure baffling. But I know it's true. He has thus far kept a strict regimen of pantwetting hatefulness. Well, that's just my opinion. But the facts are the facts.

Dave went on a little bit about how I get that way at that time of the evening, and don't let familiarity breed contempt. There was a toothiness about the way he spoke -- a viciousness. He used the word "weird," a hostile American-girls' word in my opinion. He mentioned "you're older than me;" and, cherry on top, he made a clear reference to his ... well, I can't write about that. He refered to someboy he knows, with a tone that made clear he was kind of talking to somebody else, there in front of my face.

After a few minutes, and after the attention of the room had moved onward, I turned to Dave and quietly told him that I was really sorry that I'd offended him, and that I hadn't meant any harm. He showed me the hard, cold edge of his contempt, anew. He was going to hold on to this.

And he did.

A while later, I asked him if he'd exchange seats with me. I wanted to use the computer for a minute and didn't want to make him and the lads talk around me. To Dave, this was obviously an attempt to unseat him, a power-play. He refused. I took that opportunity to leave the room, and bring my computer back upstairs permanently.

Return to "befriend" ...

Return to "that would not be right" ...