Sparks all around...

Okay, this is essentially a story leading into another story. I have a friend here in Albany who has become a good friend. He is one of the two people I really consider my friends here. We value frankness and straightforwardness in our friendship, which is invaluable because after our stressful days at work we both just want to get together and vent about our day, and we feel so comfortable letting it all out over a drink after work a few times a week. We hang out frequently, he actually gives a shit about my existence in this small-ass town, and we explore new things together. For the past month or so we have been discovering the fun of Saratoga, a smaller place about an hour drive away from here, famous for its horse races. We used to just go, have a drink at some pub, talk or play trivia or karaoke or whatever the bar's entertainment was, maybe have dinner, then come back to Albany. During one of our trips there I saw that there was an Indian restaurant, and I urged him to go with me because I really wanted food from that place. We sat down to dinner and this waiter came out. I kind of felt that he was looking at me a little too hard and taking a little too long to turn away from the table after filling our glasses with water, etc. I also thought that he was cute, but he looked a little too old for me to ever be interested in. Still, I thought he was attractive. I went back there a second time with the same friend, to order take out and also to kind of check him out a little bit more. Yeah, I am a pervert, what can I say? However, I knew he was getting the impression that me and my male friend were married or something since we always went there together. Fast forward to last week. I went to meet Polly, as mentioned in my previous post, who I was so unbelievably happy to see. We agreed to meet halfway as opposed to her coming all the way down here in Albany to meet me as she had done in the past. I took the bus for 2 hrs to meet her in Saratoga, which is not too far from where she lives. Seeing as how I was in Saratoga again, I suggested that we go to the Indian restaurant, and I told her that there was a waiter there who I thought was cute. We went, had lunch, talked about work and life, and the same waiter dude was there. Already-long story short, I spilled all my feelings out to Polly and told her that I was curious about him. Well I love Polly because she is the type of friend who would do THIS: she fucking researched the number to the restaurant, asked for the waiter by name (my male friend asked the waiter his name the first time we had dinner there) and asked him if he was single!!! Then she gave him my number!! Being that I have low self-esteem, I bet money against Polly on the fact that he would never call me, and that either he was too shy to call or he was disinterested. I chalked my perceptions of him looking at me too hard up to my wishful thinking and at the same time told myself he wouldn't call while clutching onto my phone during my and Polly's trip to Bed Bath & Beyond and Walmart. I felt like a girly-girl pathetic teenager waiting by the telephone, trying to live normally in the meantime so I wouldn't feel bad for wasting time if he never called me. Well, guess what! He called me after he left work at 11pm and we talked until 2am... and made plans to meet the following day (my second of 2 days off). I found out he is only 29 years old (I will never figure out what it is with me meeting men who look quite a bit older than they are). I slept over at Polly's house that night, and she had to go to work the next morning but I didn't. I got dropped off at my home since I live so close to Albany Med. At around 12pm I got on the bus back to Saratoga to see this guy, and I stayed there in Saratoga until 9pm, then endured the 2-hour-plus ride back home. I called up the guy friend who I dragged to the Indian place the first time, and told him what happened. He is happy for me and what is making ME happy is that he is not afraid to still be friends with me (too many people back off when they hear that their friend is involved with someone, but I value friendship even if a person is married. Everyone needs friends regardless of marital status).

I have to get this all out.

This guy is amazing.
So far, I mean (see, that right there's the side of me that's just waiting to be hurt, but whatever, I am happy to meet him and get to know him right now. Nothing else matters).

It's almost like he read a list of what I am attracted to in a man, and is surprising me slowly with all these traits. Except I know he never has, in fact all he knew about me before Polly gave him my number was my name, which doesn't yield much in the way of anything when googled, LOL. He wears lungis when he sleeps, which I LOVE. He is Hindu, and he likes his religion, which I admire because a lot of Hindus I know (esp those who spend most of their lives here in the U.S.) fear the "exotic" aspects of it and declare themselves agnostic. He is Malayali, which I like because he can help me brush up on my horribly broken (shattered) Malayalam. And he likes brown skin, which is to say he shares my viewpoint in not joining the leagues of undeniably brown-ass people who insist on worshipping white skin. He is not afraid to be cute, playful, and serious. I am usually always the one to say how important straightforwardness and honesty is to me, even in friendship, and I heard him say those same words to me yesterday. We like each other's noses.

Some of these are stupid inconsequential similarities that really don't mean anything, I am fully aware of that. However at this time in my life it means so much to me to meet someone who helps me feel less alone, less extraordinarily awkward. And I am willing to milk whatever this is for all the little happy feelings I get from it, all the small highs of feeling like someone who I feel chemistry with enjoys the person I am and wants more of me.

He has been calling me, leaving me nice messages, actually trying to get to know me and keep in touch with me. And, he told me he likes me, he is interested in me. I am to meet him in the morning (my bus is in just a few hours, at 7am) and I am too happy to sleep, as dumb as that sounds. I feel exhilarated, I feel renewed. It would have been enough for me to have just made a friend, since the two I have here I feel like I harass whenever I get bored. But this guy exceeded all my expectations of what I would find after Manish, after coming here, after being jaded by work.