If I met you in real life, do you think we’d get along? Do you think we’d have anything to say to each other, or would we sit across the table (I imagine us having lunch at a bistro somewhere, surrounded by people full of joie de vivre) and glare at each other over the tops of our huge fruity drinks, each of us secretly hoping the other would poke his or her eye out with the little paper umbrella?
Would we be part of the aforementioned joie de vivre? Or would we be the pair with the menacing dark cloud hanging over our table, glowering down at us as we glowered across the table at each other?
Would we get along? Would we talk? Would we laugh? Would we be having such an absolute blast that we would want to order dessert (one for each of us — we can split, but I won’t share mine if you don’t order one — and please, I don’t want to hear that you don’t want dessert … because that will just answer the question for me instantly, right here and now!)? Would we linger over coffee? Or would we just order cold appetizers and leave it at that?
Or maybe one of us would get to the jaunty little bistro first and sit at the table waiting in nail-biting anticipation for the other, glancing at our watch every two minutes, not even really checking the time at all but doing it out of sheer nervousness, the time not even registering but the feeling that we’ve been waiting way too long registering deep in our soon-to-be broken heart? Because the other chickened out somewhere along the way to the fun little bistro and decided it wasn’t worth it, after all, to finally meet the other person who hitherto was only known via the comfortable anonymity of the internet?
Or would we meet and have a yabbadabbadoo time, a dabbadoo time, we’d have a gay old time?
P.S. Would we split the check? If so, would we argue over who had the extra shrimp on his or her plate and insist that that person pay the pro rated amount? Or would one of us graciously offer to pick up the tab for both of us?