Of Chalkboards and Fingernails

There is a place of horrendous emotional agony and self confidence mutilation reserved only for those individuals nice enough to be trapped underneath the sexually suffocating glass ceiling of casual camaraderie. Somewhere whose long forgotten, one-and-done first date populace unwantingly echoes the refrain, "Fifty bones for a platonic a-frame embrace? You’ve got yourself a deal Baby!" Yep, I'm talking about a little place called The Friend Zone. And yours truly, Mr. Nicest of the Nice and Sweetest of the Sweet, am mayor of said local and I rule over my people with a timid fist and a shy demeanor. All those who desire are welcome to walk over me and stab me in the back on their way to citizenship. You will no longer find me in my office at city hall, but in the ICU at the local hospital, prescribed to heavy bed rest because of a chronic case of Big Brother Syndrome, with a hetero gauging thermometer in my mouth and a bed pan near the window that pitches instead of catches.

The Friend Zone has muddy grey streets, brown lifeless parks without a blade of grass or petal of a flower, and the architecture is entirely subterranean ensuring we are all firmly entrenched in the cellar. At night, no man dares wander the streets, nor even lift the hatch to his bomb-shelter-esk abode, because the ghouls of "muffed dates", skeletons of "missed opportunities", and zombies of "bad decisions" drop from the hills with pitchforks of “discouragement” and “burnt out” torches on an all night death march of terror. As dawn approaches, they laugh their way back to wherever they came from, arm in arm, with catcalls over their shoulders of “I’m so glad we’re friends” and “You’re just like my brother”. The pain of their wailings is indescribable.

Occasionally during the daytime, my friends will gather around my sickbed like Dorothy with the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man, as we discuss new strategies and tactics for making it out of this hellish dimension. Just the other day my friend was telling me of a place he reached where small rays of sunshine actually broke through the storm clouds, and I incredulously asked, “So you mean to tell me that the sign by that trail actually said, ‘She touches your leg’”. At that moment a second friend broke in and told me of a similar place he had seen, where a leaf had been growing on the tree, and etched in the truck thereof was the phrase, “Second Date”.

Those urban myths were like a revelation of hope, a glimmer of possibility, a flash of encouragement, and whisper of potential. It was enough that I left the hospital and returned to my home to make plans of escape. Soon, I will clasp on my shimmering armor of apprehension, strap down my helmet of halitosis, clutch onto my shield of virginity, and raise my stammering sword of indecisiveness and venture out into the unknown in daily repeated attempts to break through the friendship quarantine. Wish me luck!

Sincerely,
Mayor of The Friend Zone (Or should it be the First Little Nancy Boy?)

PS - Please, if I am unable to beat back the beasts and make it out alive; give my belongings to Glandless Gilford, who, in spite of his front butt, has been a consummate professional and trusted confidant on my legislative committee.