When Jenny met Hmm hmm

Shakespeare once said… “All the world is a stage, and we the men and women are merely players.” But what happens when you put a bunch of people on a given stage for the rest of the world to observe, participate, and criticize… with no script, no plot, and no direction as to what is about to happen to them. Maybe that is why it leaves most of us wondering… are we living in a comedy or a tragedy???

I have had my shares of ups and downs in life, just like the rest of us. And despite all the BS I have been subjected to, I still remain fairly optimistic. Don’t get me wrong, I am still cautious as all hell, but I am also the one that isn’t afraid to take a chance every now and then on a wild card. After all, those are the kinds of decisions that can lead to tons of fun… or absolute disaster. Unfortunately you have to let all the plans unfold before you can decide what it is.

I choose to believe my life.. is a comedy, and a romantic one at that. Part adventure, part chaos, with all the Kraft cheesiness your stomach can handle. Maybe that is because I am one of the many women that gets sucked in to believing that the Matthew McConaugheys, the Tom Hanks, the Richard Geres of the world are in fact real live sample sizes of the general population. You just have to be lucky enough to find one.

My favorite of all these films has to be without a doubt.. When Harry Met Sally. It was one of those films my dad would constantly mention in regards to a guy friend I had growing up but I never got his references. He always insisted I was “girl who thought she was low maintenance, but was actually in fact high maintenance.” He said, “it took me twenty minutes to order a sandwich.. and that ‘on the side’ is a very big thing for me.” I simply said.. “I’m a girl that knows what she wants and how she wants it.”

It wasn’t until I was much older, and having my tonsils ripped from my throat that I was bored enough to actually sit down and watch something that was made when Billy Crystal still had hair, and Meg Ryan did not yet resemble a fish. Two hours later… I was left with a whole new repertoire of movie quotes to choose from… and an even bigger question in life.. “Can men and women really just be friends.. or does sex always get in the way??”

I’ve always been a firm believer in the fact that men and women can be “just friends.” Sure, sometimes there can be awkward undertones of unspoken feelings, but I can honestly say that I have a key group of male friends that are just that and want nothing else. Just the girl they have come to love and respect like a little sister, who knows her sports, loves her beer, and can’t get enough buffalo chicken wings. And then…. There is the other kind.

I once had this amazing friend named.. Hmm hmm. We met in the most random of ways, and began a friendship that was almost as random. He was super smart, funny, and boyishly charming. But the thing I admired most about him was his overall selfless concern he seemed to have for me. He looked out for me, offered advice when he could, but was really there as a shoulder when I needed something to lean on.

But like any good foil, we were total opposites. I was much fierier, while he was laid back. My idea of a good time was white water rafting, or spending time outside, his involved sand and an outdoor Tiki bar. He loved to gamble, while I was frugal as hell. He was sarcastic and biting, while I tended to be a bit of a goofball and oversensitive. Yet somehow, this oil and water mixture made us perfect sparring partners, and instant friends. It was nice to have someone to talk to that “got me” and could keep up with my banter.

We hung out together, quoted the latest episodes of How I Met Your Mother together, and just genuinely enjoyed being in each other’s presence. Even when we weren't together, we were constantly texting or drunk dialing each other with our random life stories.

Then, something happened. I'm talking about the kind of something’s that only happen when two reasonably good looking, fun loving individuals have one too many cups with the Captain, or Mr. Grey Goose.

We hooked up.

It was like that awkward scene from When Harry met Sally, where the two of them know so much about each other, except how they react in such a situation. Because we knew each others war stories and horror stories, there was that awkward silence of.. What the hell were we supposed to do now? We didn't want to act like the guys and girls we complained to one another about. The “Why didn't you call me girl?” The “Emotionally unavailable dude.” The “I’m scrapbooking pictures of our future children” girl. The “wait three days to call her guy.” Between the two of us, we had seen it all, and we definitely didn't want to be THOSE people.

For days we acted like nothing had changed. But let's face it. We both knew it had. We didn't know how to act around each other. I couldn't possibly tell him bout my ex giving me problems, because now, he had a vested interest. Or at least I hoped he did. And I didn't want to hear his war stories from his latest trip to Vegas.. because there's a reason what happens there stays there… so people can keep their relationships and their self respect.

And then it dawned on me.

$hit. I LIKE Hmm-hmm.

I’m majorly, totally, butt crazy, head over heels for Hmm-hmm. But now I have no idea how to act around him. I couldn't strut around in my cute little outfits, or talk to other boys to try to make him jealous. I mean, its Hmm-hmm. He knows what makes me tick. How I operate. It was like he had been a spy in my world this whole time, and all it took was a little liquid courage to bring his true feelings to the surface. It was a weird tension. You know.. Where you're afraid you like them more than they like you?? I began to find myself in midst of a power struggle. The laid back buddy in me saw it as something casual, just a random thing that happens between friends. But the other side of me saw something completely different. The other side of me said.. maybe, just maybe.. “there may be something there that wasn’t there before.”

Was I just supposed to ignore the fact that I found someone that I could genuinely be myself around, because the friendship was already there??.. For once, I was actually speechless. So I just played the game. I said the things a girl in my position is supposed to say, and found myself more lost than when I started.

Revert to Plan B.—TELL HIM THE TRUTH. I mean, we were friends before the incident, why not after??? You can revert back to your old friendship if things don’t work out, or he’s just not that into you. Right?.. (Buzzer)

It was a winless situation, and instead, I took a cue from Charlie Chaplin and stayed silent. He would drop hints that he didn’t want me “seeing” other people, or that he was jealous, but maybe this was all just some playful banter. The longer this dialogue exchange took place, the more I realized I was not willing to give up my personal freedom, for someone who wasn’t respectful enough to do the same.

Til this day, the situation remains unresolved. There are so many questions, so many things I would like to say to him that I simply couldn’t find a way to put to words. Maybe that’s because I value what we have enough to stay silent and just let it be. After all, he’s become too important to me to risk losing him as a friend.

I guess that’s why were torn between living our lives as comedies or tragedies. Because while life may present you with the answers to all the things you were looking for, it may also put them just beyond your reach. So for now, I’ll continue to just toil away at my career and just let life come at me as it will. I’ll laugh about the comedy, overcome the tragedy, and just soak up the moments in between. Because while the storyline may be a little vague, at least I know the person holding the power to write it.