Last night an ex girlfriend of mine called, asking me to come out. This girl is affianced, and happily so. As far as I know there is no interest I her for me.

Well, she is also an alcoholic (I think there were probably five times last night that I thanked God that she and I never got married). But the one charm that I do have for her is that, and I may be dramatizing things and being histrionic ... but my family has disowned me and spread all manner of evil rumors about me. I had a very hard time making friends growing up, pretending to be a tough guy and being extremely socially awkward, and she is one of the people who has known me longest and not lost faith in me. Mob bosses have always preferred loyalty to smarts, wealth, etc. and it's that way with her. She's stuck up for me on numerous occasions against the scummy behavior of blood.

Well, I realize last night that I'm rushing through my things to try to make it out to the bar. To see this ex. "Why am I rushing?" I slow down deliberately. It's a much smarter move.

When I get there, she hugs me in front of everybody at the bar. It is very awkward. Almost everyone, and like 70 people, are surprised to see me. Little do I know that she's been talking about me for an hour to almost everyone. She is also raging drunk.

She's with her fiancee and a mutual friend we've known for awhile.

I have told myself, one beer. One beer and that's it. She's someone who importunes, and has little respect for boundaries. It's fun when it's fun, but when it's not, it's aggressive. I have one beer. She has us order more ... and I end up having two. These are tall stouts. Bad decision #1: poor boundary enforcement.

The one thing I will say I'm happy about is dancing. I do not dance. But I have also been single awhile, and if I want things to turn out differently, I have to do different things. I'm relaxing by the bar talking with our old mutual friend, when my ex rounds the corner and yanks me off my chair and onto the dance scene (live band). There's a couple of girls up there, too, one of which I'd really like to ravage and is pretty hot.

Well, I get up there and start dancing, feeling very awkward, but then I remember something I heard from a wise man, and forget about what I might look like and just start having fun. For a good minute or two I lose my self-consciousness and start just having fun. It isn't as good as this, I start dancing and playing along to the song. And I'm looking for my ex, who has retreated, little do I know, opening the way for me to dance with the hottie, who comes alongside me. As I start panicking, she moves away. I just exude the wrong kind of energy.

But you know what? I'm glad I did that. It didn't turn out nearly as bad as I thought it would. And experience is a remembered teacher.

Later that night, we all crash at my ex's place. This is where things got really weird. She wants to 'snuggle'. Her fiancee is cool, I have no feelings for my ex in that kind of way. None. But she starts like climbing onto my recliner chair with me, won't let me leave when I have to, and in a way that I think is common to women, starts playing around and trying to make me feel bad for leaving. Well, I actually feel quite good that I left. It was long past time.

I get back and fall asleep around 4:30 am. This was the me who said I'd leave the bar at midnight. When I wake up, I ask myself why it took so long to fall asleep ... and then I remember that she and her fiancee had bought me a Jager-bomb around 11:30 PM, which I drank. Those things will pump you up for awhile, and me being an infrequent drinker, you get the picture. Two more bad decisions.

Overall, I find this is a person that I really can't spend too much time around because I tend to relent boundaries too much. I do find her company valuable, partly because I haven't made some other really good friends around here, but I can change that. She's been a loyal friend of mine, and having lived the life I have, I prize that loyalty. We've known each other 18 years.

But I am so glad we broke up. So glad.

So I have some good work last night, and some bad. Overall, it was an experience worth having.