Closing the Distance
Written on May 26, 2024 about the events of ~October 2022
The next few weeks were a blur of social events, and romantic prospects. At this time, Holly was always Romantic Prospect #1, but I considered her a relatively distant chance, so I still pursued other possibilities.
On October 1st, we had another Karoke event, this time at Orleans -a larger and more crowded bar. Our group was enormous, but I ended up seated next to Holly, which was nice. Unfortunately, Eliza was on her other side, and the two of them were rapidly becoming friends at that point, which meant I didn’t get much time talking to Holly.
During one of the few brief conversations that I did have with her, I got to explain more of the story of the Mandy Incident. Her reaction was somewhat muted, and I was quite afraid that she’d judged me poorly for my actions ( I did sort of ditch Mandy at that bar, depending on how you look at it, though she assured me she could get home ok ). I learned much later that this story had actually made quite a positive impression on Holly; I’d come across as the rare man with some restraint, who wasn’t trying to leap into bed at the first opportunity. So this turned out positively for me after all.
The next few weeks included a number of interactions with Holly as part of a group of friends. One Tuesday night, our group made plans to do Karaoke at Painted Burro again. Once again, I had other romantic plans earlier in the evening - a date in Central Square - but I could make it to karaoke after. That date turned out to be really remarkably bad; in my top three worst date performances of all time. That failure, however, seemed to shatter my inhibitions just a little bit. I had already failed badly that day, so I wasn’t quite so worried about looking like a fool, or something. So when I made it to karaoke with Holly and the gang, I had an amazing time, and I definitely was able to get closer to Holly without being too nervous about it. I think that was also the evening when I learned that I could do a pretty good falsetto, so I had a good time doing Taylor Swift in a trio with Eliza and Holly.
A week later, there was an interesting confluence of social events. A group of friends, including Holly, decided to meet up for breakfast at the crepe shop. (This was Holly’s first time at the crepe shop; I tried to confidently give her recommendations, which she didn’t really pay attention to.) After breakfast, most of the group was going biking, but I and one other friend were previously committed to a poker game. We all agreed to meet back at my house for lunch later; I gave Nour my spare key so that he could let the biking group in, if they got there first.
It happened that Nour’s group did make it there first, so Holly got to visit my apartment for the first time without me being there. I was really happy about this; I’d done a lot of work to make my apartment beautiful and hopefully attractive to the right kind of woman, so I was happy to let it “speak for itself” without my nervous presence. I arrived about ten minutes later and turned on the lights - they’d been sitting there in the dark. However, I learned later that Holly had really liked the apartment at first glance, in particular the geometric string-art that I’d made; it had caught her attention as I’d hoped.