Friend Date

Which really is what it was.  It was two people who enjoy each other's company and one of them is emotionally frizzled to bits so really can't get involved in anything and the other one is Swedish and if I understand correctly will take about eight years to get involved in anything anyway, hanging out.

He took me on a tour of 'his Stockholm', to places like his high school - which they call 'gymnasium' which really confused me because isn't that what 'gym' is short for?  So I thought he meant it was some kind of special athletics school and  I was like, no wonder you grew up to be a trainer if you just did gym class all day, and he was like, uhh no we did math and history and stuff too, and I was imagining them doing that while playing basketball or something and it all got quite confusing!  Damn that whole different language thing!

He told me some really cool stories too - seems once upon a time this wasn't so much the cool place to live!  People used to call it the "dirty south" of Stockholm and it was where all the factories were (he showed me some old factories that are now apartments and offices, very cool!) and the people were really poor and sometimes rough.  Apparently even when he was a little kid (though it was starting to change) you had to be really careful walking around some areas of Södermalm at night, and some of the old people who still live around here sometimes act that way.  He told me his little sister once got freaked out by this old guy who told her and her friends to hurry and get home because it was getting dark, but really the old guy was just confused and looking out for them.

So it was friendly and nice and we both ignored the little frizzons of moments when we stood a little bit close to each other or accidentally touched, and tried to forget the other night when he leaned down to give me a hug and a kind of kiss on the cheek ended up on the lips and it was incredible and fireworks but we both knew it couldn't happen not now, not like this.

Except it did.