It’s Hard to Rely on My Own Good Senses

Last week, a wonderful thing happened. Well, it wasn’t as wonderful as it was bothersome and annoying. I had two old friends come over for a visit. Now I don’t want to sound like a jerk or some really crappy friend, but honestly, it’s sad when I end up being the responsible one in the group. I don’t think I’ve ever been known for my responsibility. But hey, stranger things have happened.

I just want to point out that both my friends are just awesome people and I loved every minute of their stay. Well every minute except when they were waking me up early in the morning, using up all my hot water, changing the channel on my TV, and taking up all the space in my refrigerator. But you know what, that’s ok. You have to be willing to put up with some abuse from your friends now and then. I mean after all, they are my friends.

Bill came down from New Jersey so he could do some work with the UNC girls soccer team. I don’t know why you’d want to drive that far just to do some unpaid work, but then again, I’m the lazy type. Michael randomly came up from a dive shop at the beach for a little down time. Honestly, I think he just wanted to check out all the college girls on Franklin Street. Now, I’m not mad that Michael decided to come visit at the last second, I’m mad that he didn’t bring his incredibly attractive older sister with him.

Luckily I have a few extra keys to the apartment, so the guys could come and go as they pleased without bothering me to let them in all the time. And for the most part, the week went by pretty smoothly. Needless to say, we played a lot of Guitar Hero. And honestly, at this point I’ve run out of words to describe how awesome that game is. Both guys were immediately taken by the game and we all spent many hours playing it. Of course, I showed off my considerable skill and outplayed the both of them, doing my best to squash any hopes they might have of ever being as good as me. I’m just a nice guy like that.

The week wasn’t all taken up by video games. We did manage to make our way out to the bars one night. It was nice to throw back a good beer and reminisce about old times. The musings bring back warm and fuzzy memories: like getting slapped by three sorority girls at 2:30 in the morning while I was trying to leave a bar (Ah, good times!). But alcohol and the passage of time tend to loosen people tongues, and I learned a few things that I was not entirely aware of back in college.

Apparently, every guy I knew had a crush on a female friend of mine. Not that I can blame then, she was a very attract and very sweet girl. I’m just glad none of the guys acted on it. Well, to be honest, one guy did, and I ended up having to deal with both my guy friend and my female friend as I wound up in the middle of whatever the heck was going on between them. I guess it could have been worse, but still, if I wasn’t the one to have fun with a girl, why should I have to deal with all the backlash? It just doesn’t seem fair to me.

It really is interesting to learn about all of this stuff. I had three fairly good female friends that I hung out with back in college: Ashley, Alison, and Amy. Yes I know, their names all start with the letter A. Try keeping track of them after about your fourth beer. Let me assure you, it’s not easy. Luckily, names have never really been that important to me. After awhile, I gave up trying to keep track of who was who and just start pointing and saying “Hey you, grab me another beer.” Simple and effective, just the way I like it, although I can’t say the same for the three girls. For some strange reason, girls expect you to know their names and always get it right. What’s up with that?

Now I know I may sound cruel to you, but stay with me here, because there’s a method to my madness. The two guys that visited me last week were both single, which is cool because we did the single guy thing. Mainly, that involves drinking and playing video games, and we threw in some Monday Night Football for good measure. But it’s the guys who have girlfriends who really like to keep me around. See, I have a really bad habit of saying things that girls find distasteful. And for me, that’s ok, I’ve come to terms with it. Luckily, I’m able to rein myself in enough in these situations so that I don’t cause any relationship problems for my friends. Let’s be honest, I cause enough problems for myself, I don’t need to create any for others. This does have an interesting side effect though. My natural abhorrence of civility makes me look pretty bad in front of girls. However, a guy sitting right next to me who isn’t being nearly as bad as I am tends to look like a pretty upstanding guy by contrast.

In fact, when one of my old housemates would get into a fight with his girlfriend, she would usually come downstairs and complain to the rest of us about her relationship issues. Normally, I would kindly suggest in the most statesman-like manner that if she did his laundry more often, she wouldn’t have these problems. After that, she would get so mad and me that by the time her boyfriend made it downstairs she would have forgotten all about being distraught with him, and they would go off happily ever after. I have been party to several scenarios very similar to the above, and just about every outcome is the same. That’s me, Jeff Privette: making you look better by comparison since 2001.

Speaking of girls, when I got back home from my hockey game on Wednesday night, I expected Michael to have a few girls waiting for me at my apartment. Unfortunately, he didn’t come through for me, which was somewhat upsetting. Girls have always flocked to Michael, I don’t know why; it’s just some sort of special ability he has. I’ve tried to copy it, but for some reason when girls herd around Michael, it does absolutely nothing for my own romantic life. It’s funny how that works out. Luckily there’s an upside to that. Like when that creepy girl was hitting on the three of us Tuesday night at the bar, I just pointed her towards Michael, and then made my swift escape to the downstairs portion of the bar. I could have left the place entirely, but then I couldn’t have gotten myself another beer. And that would have been a travesty.

But now I’m home all alone again. There’s no one snoring on my sofa or using my beard trimmer and neglecting to clean it off. It’s nice to have some peace and quiet again. For one thing, it’s hard for me to write and be creative when there are a couple of goobers playing Guitar Hero and totally messing up I Love Rock and Roll. Seriously, what rock and roll fan messes up a classic like that? However, they’re out of my hair now, and I can get back to writing again. Specifically, I can write an entire article making fun of them. Thanks guys.