I go out with Jamie and Kelly because they’re fearless. Always talk to randos. Always know somebody who knows somebody who wants to date me. Always seem to arrive at the door of some cool club and drop some name no one’s ever heard like Chester or Hanlon and walk right in. I get the sense 75% of what comes out of their mouths are lies, but I’ll never really know so they may as well just be the truth.

As such — when I’m with them I suspend all personal direction of my life. I do as they say. I talk to who they say to talk to. I am their puppet — yes I know that’s sick borderline twisted, but you have to see those two in action — they could convince Kelly Ripa to eat a hamburger — they’re that good. The other night they convinced the DJ to play that Jai Ho song from that Slumbdog movie and got the entire dance floor to do the dance like it was that rando scene from “She’s All That” — aka the best scene.

Fine. So we go to Tonic on 33rd and gross for drinks and to watch “the game.” When I agree to this plan I have zero idea of what game is “the” game. It’s summer-ish so I assume baseball. The answer is bizarrely hockey which makes zip sense because who plays hockey in June. Jamie and Kelly are acting like they know and so I act like I know and suddenly we’re all major hockey fans. People are asking me questions like, “so are you rooting for the ________’s or the _________’s, and I’m all, “I’m actually a Mighty Ducks fan” because that is a. the only team whose name I know and b. just funny to say. Some people take it seriously and ask me follow up questions to which I say, “sorry – need to run to the bathroom.” Others know I’m kidding slash have no clue and make cute jokes to me. I assess the relative benefits of dating said people based on the nature slash whit of their questions and take it from there — per uz.

Adam is one such guy. He says something like, “so is it Emilio Esteves you love or that fucker from Dawson’s Creek?” Valid question. It’s Pacey, but Emilio wouldn’t be a dealbreaker if he wasn’t the brother of Charlie Sheen who’s on that completely horrible show that’s sort of like my two dad’s except they’re uncles and the kid is a chubby guy not Staci Keanan who later went on to star in “Step by Step” — among the better shows in the TGIF line-up.

Adam and I get to chatting about the things we have in common: living below 14th street, enjoying reading of the newspaper in-hand not on-line, fried calamari, Steven Soderbergh movies…the usual stuff. We click. It’s obvious. He’s saying things like, “we should go to _______” and I’m saying things like, “you and my friend _________ would get along so well.” It’s the makings of hook-up-and-figure-it-out gold.

From across the room Jamie gives me the low thumbs up — classic girl-move that starts as a coy wave Miss America-style but the waving hand makes a quick thumbs up gesture before lowering and showing it’s full approval colors slightly below the hip. You’ve got to know it when you see it — but when you see it, you know it.

Good — I think — she knows him. Game on.

Adam and I continue talking slash drinking until the appropriate hour to leave together without being wildly obvious arrives (11pm in most western nations). We’re all dancy/dancy before the parting hour comes but I’m feeling the need to relieve myself pre cab ride to his unknown apartment location. Sorry, these are facts. He’s in total caretaker mode, so I test it with a little , “hey, just going to pop into the bathroom quickly,” followed by a playful ending, “why don’t you dance with my blackberry for a little bit?”

HAHA: I say. HAHAHAHA: he says. Apparently what he was thinking was: that is excellent advice which I will follow precisely because upon returning from the bathroom I saw him grinding my blackberry.

Correct: GRINDING MY BLACKBERRY. Dancing with my blackberry as if said blackberry were maybe me? Maybe Janet Jackson in the Black Cat video? Maybe whatever Michael Jackson was envisioning when he did that sexy dance on that car during that video they later had to edit. It doesn’t matter — it was so gross/weird/bad/scary and soooo not the preview of his moves he should have been sharing that I was forced to ghost him without warning. I saw the grinding, turned promptly around, and in one look slash point delivered the following message to Jamie. “That asshole you thumbs’ed up me on is grinding my blackberry over there. I’m leaving. You pry the blackberry out of his dirty hands and messenger it to my office tomorrow morning. Thank you.”

Note to self: walking away from someone you’re about to go home with and watching them from afar saves lives.