Weirdness

I mentioned that I had lunch with a friend on Saturday.  What I really should have said is, I had lunch with a "friend" on Saturday.

Because she's his friend.

And as lunch went on, I realized that she was most definitely not my friend.  Here's what happened:

Friday, I get a call.  "Heeeeeeeey [OhioGirl], guess who?  I'm in Stockholm!"  And I'm like really.  Why?  Because, you need to know that right away, I did not trust this.  This girl, was my friend once upon a time ago a million years ago, then I started dating him, and suddenly she was his friend.  They work in the same industry, so every time we had dinner parties or whatever, they would be locked deep in conversation about they people they knew and stuff.  Not like that, I don't mean anything was going on, just that they were all - oh we're work colleagues, talking about work, you know, important stuff not like the neighborhood gossip you are blathering on about.  Because you know, discussing who is sleeping with who in an office is totally different to discussing who is sleeping with who in a neighborhood.  Way more intellectual.

So when she called, little warning antennas went up, but then I was like, it was all a long time ago, and she did call me, and it would be really nice to talk to another American and somebody from home... and okay, I am a teensy bit curious about the gossip from home about what happened with the Ex and me - I know it's got to be huge and it won't be good for me to hear but I want to anyway.

She wanted to meet for lunch someplace near her (fancy) hotel, but I was like, no, you come to my turf.  Which she agreed to.  Another warning bell.

I felt like I was going into battle.  People round here are pretty casual.  Funky casual, but I can't pull that off so I just go with casual.  I started out when we got here keeping up my usual regime of roots/nails/facials then realized that it wasn't the done thing (once Erik made some comment about how it was funny his little sister wears make up all the time, like it was unusual and weird), so I decided to be natural and Swedish (don't panic though, I still wear clothes!).  But to see Ms X I had to be in full on groomed mode.  I felt like a farmer preparing fields for planting because after all this time, a combine harvester was practically needed.

But we got there, and for once Swedish weather cooperated with me and I met her at this cool bar out in the sunshine and of course a Hollywood star was a few tables away, so I was like - yeah, this is my life now, you make sure everybody back home knows about it.

She didn't know we split up.  What the eff?

She was all like, so where's [Ex] today?  Me... uhh, at his new girlfriend's I guess.

I asked the close people I told not to spread it around, but I a) didn't think they would, and b) didn't think he would keep it a secret.

But nobody knows.  At least, according to her, nobody knows.  Something's up.

There's more, but I have to digest it a little before I can share.  It's all very weird and effed up.  OhioGirl is on her guard.