the pink spoon theory

Late Fall 2004

I came out of the side hallway as Ethan was passing the door. I caught up with him and slipped my hand between his arm and body, lightly resting my fingers right below his elbow.

His arm curled up automatically and he laughed.

"What, you need an escort down the hallway?"

"Yes. Yes I do."

Ethan was one of my few male friends. He was safe because he had a serious long-term girlfriend who he was crazy about. (He may have also been safe because the first time I saw him I thought he was gay....)

He was polite and charming and had a lightbulb smile. One of those grins that has a cartoony twinkle at the end: you can't help but imagine a five-starred animated bling come from their left canine. (Kinda like this guy - no they don't really look alike at all, but he definitely has the lightbulb smile I'm trying to describe.)

Ethan was a few years older than me (okay, 9 is more than a few when you're 21 years old and he's 30) and refreshingly calm.

Not that everyone that age is calm - another coworker within a year or two of Ethan did ask me whether my boobs were real or not the first time I met him, which had been about a month before...as the rest of the table looked on with interest...let's move on.

Since I above all, wanted a life free of romance drama, I was only befriending those men who were not at all available. It was a perfect combination - I had the testosterone in my life that I was wanting through friendships, and none of the backlash of crushes and flirting and feelings and kisses and such that I wanted to avoid.

So Ethan escorted me down the hallway.

I didn't notice a few days later when he stopped mentioning his girlfriend.

One night at a friend's house watching some ridiculous movie and eating as much junk food as possible in order to balance out all of the exercising that we health and fitness teachers had done all week with our students, Ethan offered to give me a foot massage.

Who in the world would pass that up? Not I.

So he settled himself on the opposite end of the couch and promptly sent me into a coma.

It was a great foot massage, and he knew it was great. He told me later that it was a well-planned-out way to get closer.

An hour later, the movie had ended and he asked me to walk him out to his car.

After the 'friendly' hug lasted for three minutes, I walked inside in a daze.

"What the heck just happened?"

I asked my friend (who's living room we were in) what the heck was going on with him.

That's when I found out that he and the serious, deeply loved girlfriend had been broken up for three weeks.

Oh, great. That's just great.

In another week and a half he was giving me foot massages on his couch on the other side of town, drawing hearts on my arches.

Trouble.