Bleeding Fiction

Foreign students at The Wash have tons of opportunities to get to know each other, the school and Seattle before classes start. Yesterday's came in the form of a boat cruise. I tagged along because the cruise (like most of these activities) was run by my friends at FIUTS (Foundation for International Understanding Through Students), who I got to know through my awesome job (which I keep meaning to talk more about).

The cruise itself was nothing special; a three-hour jaunt around Elliott Bay and out into Puget Sound, dinner included. But it made me feel like a kid again. I used to ride the Circle Line around Manhattan, out to the Statue of Liberty and back, with my summer camp or my folks. I loved that trip: the view of the city skyline, looking up at the Statue as you got close, the motion of the boat and the watery breeze, without that discomfitting sense of being too far from land. That all came back to me yesterday, and I spent the cruise chatting about it and a bunch of other things with friends from FIUTS and international students I met.

This afternoon, a friend of mine from work, Bill, came up to me and said "Can I ask you a personal question?" I agreed, and Bill said "how long have you been dating Alicia?"

I blinked. I said "Buh?" I explained to Bill that the first time I'd met Alicia was yesterday, on the cruise. Then I turned an interesting shade of pink. Here's the story: Bill is friends with one of the FIUTS people, who saw me and Alicia (also a FIUTS person) talking yesterday, jumped to a conclusion and related the whole thing to Bill. No clue where the idea came from; it's not like we were spooning on the foredeck or anything.

Don't get me wrong, Alicia's cool; fun, smart, very cute and with superb (though not quite perfect) taste in music. I wouldn't right now, as I expressed to Bill, mind dating Alicia. I also expressed that I didn't do much towards any sort of dating; I didn't get the girl's number, for example. It simply didn't occur to me to do so. Bill, for his part, expressed that Alicia may or may not be dating someone right now. Helpful, that.