Whitney & Bobby

Roger tried to set me up with his friend John. John's not much to look at due to his poor, British dental work (think of those crazy, large choppers in There's Something About Mary). However, he is nice, smart, funny, a huge fan of hip-hop music & the two of us get along well. All of those things are pluses for him, yet there are several down sides.
The first of which being that the two of us met back in August when I first got here. We spent a day together having lunch, chilling on Primrose Hill, shopping, cooking dinner & watching the Color Purple. It was kind of like a group date, but I was the 5th wheel since John was with his girlfriend (a fake breasted, red weave wearing, hoochie mama, stripper) at the time. They fought the entire time and drove Roger, Quentin & I crazy in general. Needless to say, he didn't make a good first impression.
Our second encounter was in November, the weekend of Thanksgiving. Mos Def was in town, so Roger suggested that John & I go together since both of us were fans & Roger was too poor to afford tickets. When I contacted John, he said, "Great idea! I have tickets to see Amy Winehouse the next night. Wanna go?" I agreed and plans were set. Then he decided to host a Thanksgiving pot luck at his house on Sunday because apparently they'd all done it the year before. So all of the sudden, one concert/date night turns into a crazy weekend marathon date.
Mos Def went well. The girls came with me to act as a bit of a buffer because I was suspicious that he'd be trying to put the moves on me since he & the stripper had recently split. He didn't try anything, although he did offer me a crash pad at his place since it was getting late. The next night, other friends were there to buffer, but at the end of it all he offered me the crash pad again and I accepted knowing that I'd spend the next day cooking my part of the Thanksgiving meal at his place anyway.
It went well; I slept downstairs on the couch. He didn't try anything. We spent all day together cooking & watching tv. He's a great cook! We never fought like he & the stripper. Our guests were happy and well fed. After dinner we went to a nearby jazz pub. He paid the band to play "I've got you under my skin" for me. The vocalist took his money & told him to fuck off. (Loss of cool points.). We danced to what they did play and had a generally merry time. He bought me a couple of drinks & I went home no worse for the wear.
Fast forward to last weekend when Erin attempts to set me up with Franck (a chubby, French speaking, Madagascan, with amazing blue eyes). I know Franck from Thanksgiving as he & John are friends, but neither of us realizes who the other is until Franck speaks to Erin about me and he mentions we've met. Upon realizing who he is, I'm over the setup immediately. Thankfully he is too! He's nice & we have good interactions, but we're both mutually disinterested. He invites two friends along for Kristin & I; resulting in a massive triple date. I sit next to his friend Elroy (yes, like in the Jetsons) and flirt shamelessly. Elroy is cute, funny, smart, and has a cool vibe. We have a fabulous dinner! Then we head to a club to dance the night away. Franck invites John (and some of his other friends including a little hottie named Francois). The girls give me crap straight away because it is widely know that a) Roger tried to set us up; b)John is somewhat interested; and c) I'm trying to avoid John like the plague so as not to encourage his budding infatuation. Shortly after he arrives, he's glued to me. We talked for at least two hours before the girls were ready to call it a night & head home. It was still early, so I decided to stay out a while longer. We were having fun! John offered the crash pad again, so I thought I'd roll with them a while longer & see how the night could go.
I ended up leaving with John around 3am. He made me stay up until 6am watching a documentary on Biggie & Tupac (my eyes were about to bleed!). There was much head bobbing and snoring on my part before he finally said, "Do you wanna go to sleep?" My exhaustion took over & I collapsed on his bed. When we woke up in the morning, there was some awkwardness. He made me breakfast & we spent the rest of the day watching tv & chatting. I left his place at 5pm on Sunday afternoon.
Didn't hear from him again until Saturday when he invited me to hang out again. I declined after being such a rockstar the previous weekend. He went out anyway and ended his night here because he said that he desperately wanted to see me this weekend. There was contact. He left Sunday afternoon. I had plans to go ice skating later with some friends. He met us afterwards for dinner & drinks. Neither of us is willing to go public with our liasons yet. It was so awkward. We sat across the dinner table from one another & barely said 10 words to each other. After dinner, we went home. He insisted on walking me to the tube, despite the others wanting to split a cab with him. It began to get obvious when the cab came and everyone else hopped in except for him. He was forced to give me a friendly kiss on the cheek and say his goodbyes.
Sounds like the beginnings of a relationship perhaps? No, not really. John's a bit crackish. Primrose Hill- drunk. Mos Def- drunk and high on E. Amy Winehouse- drunk and high again. Thanksgiving- drunk again. Club- drunk & high again. My place- drunk. Granted, I was also drunk on at least three of the aforementioned occasions, but not high. He told me he smoked crack. Until now, I loosely used the term crackhead because it never truthfully applied to anyone I knew. Now it does! I've never actually seen him use crack and don't know the extent of it all. But I don't understand why Roger would intentionally set me up with a crackhead, so I hope his confession was just his misguided attempt at bravado. I fear it could become a Bobby bringing Whitney down with his crackishness situation. What a horrible turn that would be for my life to take...
I find solace in the fact that he holds down a steady, well paying job, that required a couple of degrees (one of which is from Oxford)to get, so he can't have smoked up all his brain cells yet. He also said he's trying to cut back on his substance use in '08. We'll see where it goes...