Friday, Apr. 01, 2005
Big Nimble
I can�t believe that I forgot about this. The other day, as I was walking home from the gym, I looked across the street and saw a guy in sunglasses walking in the opposite direction. I didn�t really pay much attention to him until my mind said, �hey, is that him? I think that�s him.� Him being Big Nimble (don�t ask me where that nickname came from, but that�s his nickname), my first love, or at least I think I was in love with him. I don�t know; I�ll get back to that later.
So, here I am walking down the street staring this guy down and he looks across the street and catches me staring. At first he doesn�t recognize me, but then he does a double take. Me, being the mature person I am, pretend like I don�t see him looking at me and continue walking like nothing happened.
Here�s the back story:
Big Nimble is a bartender at my favorite bar. Since my Senior Year in college, my friends and I frequent this bar anywhere from 4 to 6 times a week (recently, it�s only been once a week since most of my friends have moved away) because I live about 2 blocks from it and we can walk there, get drunk, and then drunkenly walk home. Because we were there all the time, we got to know the bartenders very well.
It�s a tiny place. It�s a bar, 6 booths, a jukebox, a pool table, a foosball table, and a Ms. Pacman machine. There are only ever 2 bartenders working at a time and they only have about 5 bartenders. Needless to say, we became friends with all 5. Is there anything better than befriending bartenders? I mean, hello free beer.
We ended up becoming really good friends with Big Nimble and his roommate (another bartender, and their 3rd roommate happened to be the manager of the bar) because they worked the nights that we were always there: Wednesdays (Ladies Night), Thursdays (College Night), Fridays (End of the Week Night), and Saturdays (just plain old Saturday Night). I think a major part of the reason we went to the bar all the time was so we could look at and talk to Big Nimble. He�s a 6�2� Italian boy, maybe about 190 lbs, with a nice ass for a white boy, which I called his ghetto booty. And he�s hot.
One night, Big Nimble came in when he wasn�t working and decided to sit in our booth. He was pretty drunk. We started talking, and sometime later, because I�m slow, I realized that he was flirting with me. He talked in that low voice guys get when they�re trying to get a girls attention, and then when he would talk to his friends, his hand would brush up against my leg. Then, before he left to go to another bar with his friends, he leaned over and whispered in my ear that he�s going to call me �his sexual chocolate.�
I told my friends and they were all like, �ooooohhh, he likes you.� And of course I was in total denial because I couldn�t understand why he would be into me. Especially since the entire time, we were trying to hook him up with another friend of ours.
Plus, my friends wouldn�t stop calling me sexual chocolate.
After that incident, every time I would go to the bar, I would sit right at the front and we�d talk for the entire time I was there. I really started to like him because when we talked, he would really listen to the things I was saying, and he had interesting things to say, and I found out that he was a lot smarter than he seemed. He even told me that he lets people think he�s dumb to just get by with no problems. This went on for a couple weeks and then he finally asked for my number. We kissed for the first time probably a week later, and I swear there were fireworks. I was really falling for him.
Eventually we went out, had a good time. And some time after that, we spent the night together. Things were good for about 2 more weeks after that, then all of a sudden, it was all blown to hell.
One night I walked into the bar, and he pretended not to see me and didn�t say hi. At first I thought that maybe he really just didn�t see me since it was kinda busy, but after about 10 minutes, when he didn�t come over to say hi, I knew something was wrong. I walked up to the bar and called him over and said hi. We chit chatted for maybe 2 minutes, but all his responses were one to two words, then he said that he had to take care of something. I waited for him to come back but he was basically ignoring me. I called him back over when I saw he was free and I asked, �Did I do something to upset you?� He looked at me and said, �what could you have done to upset me?� and went back to pretending he was busy.
I was confused. I went back to the booth my friends were at and just tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I noticed that at one point, the bouncer came in, and he and the bouncer were obviously talking about me because they kept glancing over their shoulders at me. Before I left, I asked him again if everything was okay, and he kept insisting that things were fine.
That was the last time he ever said more than 4 words to me that weren�t related to his job.
As it turns out he heard something about me that wasn�t true and he never bothered to ask me about it or to hear my side.
The bouncer is one of his best friends. The bouncer also happens to be one of Zane�s best friends. This same bouncer also had a thing for me but I just wasn�t interested. Once he found out that Big Nimble and I were together, he took it upon himself to tell Big Nimble that I was fucking Zane. Now, at the time when Big Nimble and I had kissed for the first time, I hadn�t spoken to or seen Zane in about 2 1/2 months. And before that, we weren�t even together. Yeah, we�d slept together twice, but as far as I was concerned, it was over, and I was pretty sure he felt the same way, too, because he hadn�t called me or return any of my calls. I had moved on.
Now this fucking asshole tells Big Nimble this stuff that�s ancient history, but makes it seem that I was still with Zane when he knew that I wasn�t. And Big Nimble has no reason to question him since they�re good friends. Needless to say, I got screwed in more ways than one.
Before I found out any of this, I was still hoping that maybe Big Nimble was just having a bad day that night and we�d just pick up where we left off. During the next week, I called him once to find out how he was doing and he never called back. That Saturday, Morgan and I went to the bar, and Big Nimble was sitting near the door talking with some chick. I smiled at him and he just looked at me and then looked away. Then, he started a full on make-out session with the chick at the bar. It was all I could do to not break down in tears in our booth. Morgan and I finished our 2 pitchers and walked home. And when she left, I cried myself to sleep. I was devastated.
A bit after that, I found out from someone what had happened. And I so badly wanted to talk to him, but he would ignore me whenever I came. After a while I gave up and ignored him back. Two can play that game.
The point of this story: I�m still not over him. And I think even after all that, he wasn�t over me either. My friends always catch him staring at me whenever we�re in the same place, and I�ll admit that I do the same thing. I try not to let him know that I�m looking, but I am.
Even though I�m with Gus now and I�m completely into him, I still always think of Big Nimble. I�m pretty sure that we would still be together now. We really, really liked each other, equally. It�s just sad that a jealous asswipe had to fuck it up.
I think I was in love with him. I say think because before him, I�d never felt that way about a guy. And I remember saying to myself several times when we were together, �Is this what it�s supposed to feel like?� So maybe it was love. But we never had a chance to let it develop. And I think that�s what pisses me off the most.
summerroll at 2:59 p.m.