Mistakes Were Made

The thing is, I always thought I liked Dweez. Well, I thought he liked me, too, which made it easier to like him, even though he was from SoCal and mostly ate steak. Well done. At least he was preferable to the daughter-in-law who wouldn't eat things with faces. Or was it mothers? She would cheerfully have eaten her own mother, I think, given half an excuse, except she'd probably have had to cook her and that was never an option. Early in our acquaintance, I watched my son cut up her chicken for her. At that point, she would still ingest animal protein, as long as she didn't have to prepare or dissect it. But that's another chapter in the Bad Mother-in-law handbook.
I liked Dweez because. . . well, he could converse intelligently. He read. He watched reality shows and MTV and just about any movie ever released, especially if it had a downbeat, noir sort of twist to it. We all saw 'What Do Women Want?', while we waited impatiently for Pippa to get around to being born. We all felt ripped off by its superficiality. Stuff like that. Dweez would talk about moving us all into a duplex or triplex as we aged, so taking care of us in our dotage would be more tenable. I found that endearing.
I didn't want to do it, though. I didn't want to move all the way across the country, into some brownstone with endless staircases and do all my shopping by subway. Now that I think about it, I didn't want Dweez in charge of my financial or physical life. So, even though he almost always had his good face on and exhibited something resembling patience when a visit was occurring, I must have glimpsed the feral disdain under the surface.
You know how when someone seems to like you, seems interested, you kind of perk up and tell them things about yourself that you mostly don't talk about? Personal things, slightly embarassing things? Because you're opening a door inside yourself so the new friend can come in and visit. How many times is that really a good idea?
Thespia says that Dweez basically always found me and the mate kind of ho-hum. Having heard him savage several one-time friends (or did Thespia like them more than Dweez did?) I can only imagine what he had to say about us in our absence. Oh, yeah, I can - and do - imagine it, even though I don't much want to.