at the end of the day I couldn’t wait to see how life played out.
At least I experienced happiness in life at one point. That’s what I keep telling myself every time I drink by myself at an airport bar or on the airplane. At least life was unpredictable and exciting at one point.
The day Kyla and I met in September 2006 is something that still hangs over my mind like a dream I just woke up from. If I could have died that night, I think I would have lived a complete life. I was just beginning my junior year of college.
It all happened on what seemed to be a standard Friday night. In the past year, Paul and I had used Facebook to crash parties where we knew a lot of the girls we were interested in rendezvousing with were going to be at.
A little background information, Facebook was still a pretty crazy place when I was a freshman and sophomore in college. I thought one of the coolest untapped features of Facebook were Events. It was the first time that party invites were being sent online for the public to see. A little known thing about Facebook events were that many people made their party’s public. Since then, these privacy issues have been addressed. I would spend the first half of a week finding out what parties people I wanted to randomly meet up with had confirmed reservations to. Then, in passing, I would talk to these people saying “hey I heard about this party on Friday, you going to be there?” The girl I was trying to get to know better would then say, “oh yea, you heard about that party?” I can’t believe more people didn’t do this to meet people.
Paul coined the term, “calculated spontaneity.” That’s what we were. Paul and I would go to parties with the intention of meeting up with girls that we wanted to get to know better. I was Paul’s wingman whenever he wanted to get to know a girl better. He did the same for me.
It was a rare night when Paul and I didn’t have an agenda for the night. One night we just went to a party for the hell of it, because one of our friends lived off campus and was throwing a massive kegger. It was nice to not use Facebook to try and meet somebody else. We were just hanging out with the guys.
Paul and I were smoking cigarettes while drinking whisky outside trying to look cool on this normal September night. We were talking to each other like we usually did about things that we thought were deep and emotional.
“Jake, you know what makes us a great match?” he said.
“Oh I feel like you’re about to get philosophical Paul,” I said.
“We hang out in groups of two. Anything more than two people is a crowd. Anything less than two people is lonely,” he said.
“You’re more coherent this time than the last time you mentioned something like this. Want another cigarette?” I said.
“Jake. Seriously, think about it. We have met so many women in the past year. It’s because we hang out at the side of a party smoking cigarettes. I know it sounds strange, hear me out. If you were by yourself at a party drinking and smoking by yourself would anybody come out and talk to you? Conversely, if a group of people were drinking and smoking amongst themselves would anybody else come and talk to them unless they wanted a cigarette?” he said.
“I feel a theory coming on Paul. I’ll answer no to both of your pseudo-questions,” I said.
“We make it easy for other people to approach us. We exhibit the optimal group size. We are different types of people. A foil if you will. Have you heard of the Nash Equilibrium?” he said.
“Oh here goes. John Nash. Yes, I’ve seen the movie A Beautiful Mind and yes I’ve taken a few economics classes. I think you used the Nash Equilibrium wrong Paul, as we communicate with each other. I think you meant to say that our friendship and the way we hang out encourages us to meet people of the opposite sex without competition?” I said.
“You always get me on technicalities. I’ll keep it simple. You like the