The Side Effects of Bingo

While IT Pilot and I were messaging on OkCupid, I was still regularly receiving messages from other guys. We'd exchanged numbers and texted, but when the ItPilot got serious about meeting, I didn't log back onto OkC. I was interesting in seeing this work.

On Thursday nights, I usually go to bingo to try my luck at winning some money. It usually fails every time, due to the cheap $6 pitchers of alcohol that we get. By the start of the first game, my eyesight is rather blurry.  I had already gone once with the IT Pilot guy, and since he'd had a great time, he asked if we could go again.We sat near the front so we'd be able the numbers better. I got up to get our pitcher of beer, and when I came back, he told me that we had made "new friends."

"Whose stuff is that?" I asked.

"It's for three people. I'm saving their seats" he answered.

"Who are they?" I wondered.

"Well you try to guess" he pushed.

I looked down at the items that had been left on the table- a blackberry, a red stamper with stickers, and a woman's wallet.

"Ok, well it looks like two girls and one guy?"

A few minutes later, the trio came to sit down, which happened to be two guys and one girl- just friends. The girl's name was Betsy, who was in her mid thirties, the first guy was balding, looked about 40, and resembled Benjamin Franklin, so we can call him Ben, and the third guy reminded me of Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray with his frosted tips. He was also in his mid thirties, but we will call him by his real name. Enter: Joshua.

The IT Pilot and I had a great time with the group. Joshua was very outgoing, extremely chipper and very talkative. He cracked joke after joke, kept the mood afloat with an exceptional witty banter. I admit it, he was fun to hang out with. When Joshua asked my Pilot and I how we'd met and how long we'd been together, we mentioned it was only rounding up to the second week. He mentioned to his friends "Aw, how cute. you can totally tell this is new. They can't kep their hands off each other." After bingo ended, we agreed to go to Cedar Creek bar & Grill a couple of streets over to continue hanging out.

Once there, we had another beer, while my Pilot and the other two guys continued talking. The girl, Betsy, had left shortly thereafter to meet up with a guy, and I was mainly listening in. As they conversed, I found out that Ben had been married for 11 years, 5 of which had been void of sex. Joshua had been married for 7 years, had been divorced for about 9 months, and had a 5 year old son,  I could sense a lot of frustration in regards to his ex-wife, especially when it came time to talk about all the money he'd lost as a result of the dissolution of his marriage.

Nonetheless, we still had a few good laughs, and by the end of the night, I had inserted Ben and Joshua into my list of contacts to meet up to catch a showing of Rocky Horror in a few weeks. My Pilot didn't seem bothered by it at all, and looked to be content with the fact that we now appeared to have a group of friends to go to Bingo with as well. When we got back to his place that night, I had a new text from Joshua: "Hey! Your boyfriend is lucky, he got a witty attractive, fun woman. I can't wait to see the two of you next Saturday."  I responded saying that I hoped that both he and Ben got home alright, and the Pilot and I went to sleep.

The next day, Joshua texted me around 9:00 while I was work.

 

Joshua: Good morning sexy. I will be joining okcupid later today because of you two. I hope to meet a girl like you. Enjoy your day.

Ren: Trial and error. you most definitely will meet your other half.

Joshua: That sounds perfect. Tell IT Pilot I said Hello :)

The sexy remark didn't quite register, and I brushed it off. The IT Pilot was the only guy on my mind, and I'd made that very clear the night before by stating "When I'm with someone, my mind shuts off from looking at other guys or developing feelings for someone else. I've never been tempted to cheat" (This is true.) Joshua looked at my Pilot and said "That's a good woman right there."

Throughout the next few days, Joshua continued texting me, trying to get more information about me about what had drawn me to my Pilot, what I liked about him, and throwing flirtatious comments here and there. Since I didn't think anything more to it, it didn't bother me that he was flirting. At the time, I didn't see it that way.

He asked me if we'd closed out our OkC accounts; Coincidentally enough, my Pilot and I had talked about it the night before, as we were going home after bingo. We talked at great lengths about what he wanted and said that he didn't want to just rush into a relationship or something long term- commitment wise. He said we didn't have to spend every day together, and he had gotten that vibe from me earlier on in the week. He said he needed his space and didn't want to feel suffocated. He went on about how we could hang out on the weekends, and a few times during the week, but that at certain points, he would just feel like being on his own.

He had closed out his account, and he'd noticed that I hadn't logged on since before we met.

.....to be continued.......