Post-Matis-Fireside Stalking

The lighter side of the firesides (which are not, contrary to rumors and to the tone of this post, complete meat markets):

So, one often meets new acquaintances at the Matises' firesides, and one may even exchange a phone number or two, on a friendly level of course, not for booty calls (not even cuddle-booty calls, as one acquaintance discovered *wink*). One may forget his phone and give his phone number to someone who asked for it, and that person may not call one's phone, so now that person has his phone number, but he doesn't have theirs. Totally not kosher. I mean, one needs to be able to screen one's calls or gladly answer, depending on the caller. I mean, not necessarily me, but someone.

And one may notice someone looking at him from across the room and whispering to his friend, and one may wonder what they're talking about or whether one should be flattered or mildly disconcerted or suspicious, or all of the above. Then said person may come up and talk when opportunity arises, and may or may not be stifling their grin, which is still somewhat hard to read: are they hiding amusement? attraction? obsession? mockery? Shoot, well, they seemed nice enough. I mean, hypothetically speaking.

Then of course there are the crushables. The ones one talks to and is torn about getting to know because there's some crush potential and one doesn't want that in one's life right now, either crusher or crushee. But the crushable seems like such a nice guy you can't help but want to get to know him better. Then you find out he's way younger than he looks, and you're thrown for a loop and feel mildly pedophilic for even thinking he was crushable, and the crushability goes right out the nearest open window. I mean, I can imagine this happening and how awkward it could potentially be.

Then there's the conversation with another acquaintance in front of others about how you've seen each other naked and how there's really nothing left to hide between you after that and you look at their faces and know they're really unsure of what to make of all of it, but you offer no further explanation and leave it at that. ...and you're not sure what to talk about after that, so you say, "Mmm...these are good cookies. Excuse me, I need some water." I mean, that could happen.

And as you're talking about the nakedness, Sister Matis walks by and pats your shoulder as she passes. I mean, I've heard of that happening to someone.

Of course there's the post-fireside Facebook search where one looks up the people one met at the fireside to see if their profile is semi-public or they have pictures available to give one a better idea of their personality, and one pays attention to who the mutual friends are to know what kind of "crowd" they're running in and one shakes one's head when they have all the "wrong" friends in common and one thinks, "you're a BYU student? Really? Better watch your back..." And then one waits patiently by one's computer wondering when the new acquaintances will add him and refusing to add them because one generally doesn't add people until they've hung out a couple of times and have some kind of real connection, but one still feels mildly disappointed when no adds show up and the self-flattery is over, and one realizes how silly one has been and shrugs it off and decides one didn't really want new "we just met and barely talked" Facebook friends anyway but still enjoys the "personal research" aspect of looking such people up on Facebook and wondering if they'll ever meet again...

I mean, what if, right?