I went to a friend's birthday dinner

I went to a friend's birthday dinner at The Argonaut on a Monday night. I didn’t recognize anyone at first, but ended up sitting next to a guy I had met before. Sitting on the other side of him was a gorgeous, glass-eyed beauty. She had ivory skin, a septum ring and an antique costume-jeweled hairpiece buried in her black curls. I greeted everyone; shy, coming off of the workday. The beauty smiled at me, open and genuine. We locked eyes for an instant, the instant passed, unnoticed and unremarkable. Everyone returned to their previous conversations. I resolved to not look at the beautiful girl too much; no more eye moments. I fell into the flow of a night at a table of strangers. Through the course of dinner I learned that the beauty was with the guy I was sitting next to. He was an oddball who was doing well for himself to be with such a gorgeous creature.

DC is a place where normal dudes often end up with hot girlfriends because there are so many more girls than there are guys. I was happy for him, but also understood that she must not be all that if she was with this guy. They didn’t seem to be having much fun anyway.

When ordering she asked what was on the black bean soup and asked to hold the sour cream. To this he said, "good job man.” Later on he made a big deal about how full he was after eating “only one and a half tacos.”

It seemed like a put on. I wondered if he was giving her a hard time about her weight. He was a skinny guy. I saw that she was larger, which didn’t match her face. Maybe she had put on some weight. If so, I figured it was because of their relationship.

These two probably become boyfriend and girlfriend one or two years ago, live in the suburbs, and don’t get much exercise. They probably got relaxed and indulgent like most couples do. He stayed skinny and she put on some weight.

They enjoyed their situation for a while but eventually it wore on them. Now they had turned to nagging, and love had turned to routine. Somewhere something was lost.