Look away, Dixie Cafe

You know how you can tell someone's a great friend? You can go for long periods of time without talking to him/her and it's like no time has lapsed at all. The conversation flows. The closeness is still there. There are no awkward pauses. And sometimes you spend all night at the IHOP waiting for the diet coke truck... but that's another story for a different day.

However, when said friend is a member of the opposite sex with whom you've had "the talk," it often doesn't work out that way, despite your best intentions.

Today's lunch with LB had all the makings of the 50 great lunches in the past. The e-mails back and forth to make plans. The phone call in the parking lot to see if I'm there yet. The Dixie Cafe (his choice, not mine) and sweet talking the waitress with his southern accent.

But man, was it awkward. I felt like I was on a (bad) blind date. The strained small talk. The long and awkward pauses in conversation. How is it possible to know someone so well and know so much about them and not be able to figure out something to discuss that's safe?

It was a 30 minute lunch which, even for Mr. Billable Hours, is totally pathetic. We parted ways with me thanking him for buying lunch and him saying "yeah, we should do it again sometime" in the insincere way I do after a bad date when I really mean "we will never, ever do this again."

I got back to the office in record time where Jennifer said, "Wow, that was quick." I replied, "Yeah, not if you were there."

I'm at a loss. How did it come to this? We did manage two or three sentences that would suggest we have a history together. One or two snippets into his thoughts that he misses our friendship but doesn't want me to go psycho on him again. I sat across from him for the first time in six months and missed him, even while he was still right there.

And now I'm just sad. Sad that we want different things. Sad that we don't know how to just hang out anymore. Last summer we sat on his couch and talked for five solid hours about nothing. Today we couldn't talk about anything.

So now I'm left to figure out what, if anything, I'm going to do about it. I really, really don't know.