Teddy Returns

My friend Teddy finally got in touch with me last week. He text-messaged me on my birthday to say:

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

I text-messaged him on his birthday two days later to say:

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

He called me twenty minutes later and left a message in my voicemail (it was almost two in the morning):

"Hey, why you not answering? OK, whatever, just gimme a call sometime so we can get together and catch up!"

Ah, yes, to catch up. We only see each other roughly every six months. Sometimes not even that. I think we've gone a year at least without speaking once--and yet we live only ten minutes apart. But it isn't because we have a particularly volatile relationship; we just have a... weird... relationship.

Teddy is my oldest friend. We met when we were fifteen, and the pattern we've found ourselves reliving over and over started at that moment in the theatre room. Teddy had a crush on me; I was madly in love with his friend Matt; and Matt liked my friend Jenny. (Ah, high school.) We had a big falling out when he asked me to homecoming and I went with someone else. And then we mended our friendship, and after we graduated, Teddy became my every-six-months friend.

This is what we do when we get together: drink. Teddy works for a big-time, fancy-dancy restaurant, and what he loves more than anything is to show off his connections with the various restauraunts and bars around town. So inevitably, he picks me up in whatever hot car he's happened to fall in love with, we hit a myriad of bars, he pays for everything (and I really, truly try to buy a round or several, but he tells the bartenders right off that they are not to take my credit card, under pain of death), we talk about our love lives (he, much like my brother, attracts the crazies, and I-- um, am boring) and about how we're just going to marry each other when we turn thirty, because it's not like we don't know and like each other.

Once we got so drunk that Teddy couldn't drive home, so he parked his car in the parking lot of the community pool, opened the sunroof, and turned on my favorite classical music... And I don't remember how it began or ended, but we had an intense, two-hour makeout session under the stars.

Afterward, it was cool. We laughed about it and went out drinking the next weekend, too, after which he tried to teach me to drive stick. (ETA: No, I mean that literally! His car has a stick shift. Much thanks to Jess and Steve for pointing out the double entendre and not laughing at me... too much.)

Then he disappeared until my birthday weekend.

See? Weird.

So anyway, I called him back on Wednesday night, and now we're supposed to get together for a movie on Sunday. I'm hoping I can convince him to go see Snakes on a Plane with me, because (1) no one else will and (2) there is nothing better than seeing a schlocky horror flick with Teddy. We're those terrible people who sit in the back and giggle throughout. Mostly because we drink copiously beforehand.

In the end, Teddy is a terrible influence and really not very dependable, but I do love him dearly. Even if it's only twice a year.