At Do Yourself In, I ran into E., who was back here for a short break. Though I was there with T., a friend of mine told me that she thought E. and I should have gotten together. After all, we're compatible, we get on well and we look good together. "How?" I said. "Yes, I had a major crush on him last year, but he didn't feel the same way." That's not true, she countered. "He told me how much he enjoyed talking to you last time when you guys first met. And he probably didn't admit to liking you because he was going off to the U.S.." In a strange way, that both saddened and gratified me; saddened because I wonder how things could have been like, gratified because I now know I hadn't read him wrongly.

Not that that helps either one of us now. He's in a complicated relationship, he said, and I? The same. "Don't break his heart," E. told me, referring to T.. "He's far more likely to break my heart than I, his," laughed I, with some bitterness shading my attempt at a flippant reply.

If only we had met under different circumstances. Perhaps neither one of us would be experiencing the pain that we're now going through with our respective relationships.