Shhhhh Don’t Tell

I know my hordes of loyal readers (I’ve discussed my delusional tendencies before!) can keep a secret. If you pass on this information, I will deny ever having said it. Kurt, dance instructor extraordinaire, is … a really nice guy.

He is one of my closest friends. Initially I thought that was simply the byproduct of dancing together for five years and spending all that time together, but the one doesn’t always lead to the other. Often it is the opposite. I got lucky.

A lot of it has to do with our personalities meshing so well. Kurt is the first one to admit that he lacks tact (I blame his German-ness). I think that is why we get along so well. I’ve never seen the need for small talk, so when Kurt calls me up, starts the conversation with his question, and then hangs up after receiving the answer it is a dream come true. I do the same with him. No one is offended, and we get the information we need much quicker!

When Kurt first started dancing, he was trained by the then current world champions. Because of that, his definition of “good” in terms of dance is skewed. With my need for external validation, I had to think of a way to still get enough of what I needed. I came up with an expression that worked for Kurt: “That sucked less”. While the people in the studio thought it a bit cruel, they didn’t realize it was my own invention and made me so happy! Then one day Kurt out did himself, “That is coming closer to sucking less.” We had to take a break because I was laughing too hard to catch my breath!

In my description of Hillary (Hillary and Kurt get along splendidly by the way), I described her as a 2 am friend. Kurt definitely falls into that category, and it works both ways. When my smoke detector wouldn’t shut off in the middle of the night, he was the one I contacted for advice. When I needed to see a friendly face when my plane flying me back from saying goodbye to my grandma arrived after midnight, Kurt was there. Sleepy, but there. Trips to the mechanic, we’ve both done that. Short(ish) term loans in an emergency. Ditto. Recently a situation happened where he could have called me but didn’t. When I heard about it, I slugged him and said, “I would have been there. No questions asked!” He looked at me. “Oh, all right, you would have had to dish all the dirt, but I would have been there.”

When I had to give up dance, the hardest part was it felt like my closest friend was slipping away. It was hard going cold turkey: In training, we saw each other at least 5 days a week. Fortunately for me (and hopefully him!), after some time had lapsed, we discovered that we both missed each other and would get together. I love our afternoon meetings at “our” Starbucks. It’s been a rough adjustment for me.

But before this gets all mushy, remember, all of this is a secret! I don’t want to ruin our relationship by expressing my feelings of affection!