Vicious Circle

Vicious circle (n): any sort of circumstances where the last person you want to see is the first one name on everyone's lips.

Jenna and I coined the term "vicious circle" our junior year of high school in response to some uncanny and upsetting situations that occurred.  Exclusively used for the situational irony that occurs when that bitch who's ruining your life or that boy who's toying with your heart either appears in the flesh or in every other conversation you seem to have.

Take Mr. J, for instance.  Half-way through Junior Homecoming Mr. J had lost his date and I had lost sight of my friends.  We had been introduced earlier that night through the mutual friend of a mutual friend, and after running into each other at the bar we decided to make the most of it by heading out onto the dance floor.


Two things: Firstly, Mr. J was British--his mother had married an American and he had come to California earlier that year, so his accent was damn sexy; secondly, after deciding to dance, he grabbed my hand and led me through the dance floor.  And I think we've been over this before: the only two things you have to do to get me into bed with you is hold my hand and take me out onto the dance floor*.  We had incredible chemistry and I was hooked for the next six months.  Admittedly not my best.

Per usual, I made a stand-up (read: desperate) attempt at making a move (I've always been very...eager...about what I want).  And while I did eventually figured out I didn't have a chance in hell, I wasn't allowed to really move on.  Suddenly everyone seemed to have a class with him.  He was in every hallway I passed through.  At the bike racks.  At my favorite downtown store.  He was everywhere.  All day.  Err day.

Jenna and I began to catalogue the number of times Mr. J would appear in my daily life and it was staggering how someone I had never known was suddenly all up in all my business.

So skip ahead a year after we met.  I was finally over Mr. J.  In fact, that summer had finally allowed me to escape his omnipresence.  Senior Homecoming rolls around.  In the throngs of the festivities I made my way to the bar to recuperate; and who else is standing there but Mr. J himself.  He had lost his date and I had lost sight of my friends, and after running into each other at the bar we decided to make the most of it by heading out into the dance floor.

Life has a funny way of repeating itself.  I like to think it's offering you a Mulligan, saying, "Now, I know you've fucked this one up before, but here's a chance to reclaim an iota of your dignity.  Not that you'll hold onto it for long."  And after Mr. J summed up his summer in an anecdote of the time he visited his brother in York and took so much ketamine he sat on a couch and thought he was dead for seven hours, I smiled, and nodded my head.  I took him back to the dance floor to enjoy the last few songs of the night and never really had the desire to talk to him again.

*I'm not that easy.  But sometimes I worry that I'm close to it.