No more Nicks.

I have a longstanding problem with guys with 4-letter names. Whether it's their given name (Paul, Seth) or a nickname (Mike, Jeff), it's just not going to be a good story in most instances.

Now, amongst all these various 4-letter names, the worse one is Nick. I have the most complications with Nicks. Let's give some examples.

1. Nick #1. I met him my freshman year in college, he was the best friend of one of the guys in the dorm. He did not go to my fine university, but rather a wretched one an hour away, which was close enough so that he was down in my neck of the woods fairly often. It was one of those so rare instances of a semi coup de foudre. Translated literally, it means lightning bolt, I think. But really, it's that charge you get when you set eyes on another, and just know that something is going to happen. And yes, it did. We hooked up, off and on, for over 2 years before I decided that I was tired of it, that I was no longer attracted to him. He was a great guy, one of my favourites in the world, but I just wasn't into it anymore. That's okay, that didn't stop me from still hooking up with him when I was drunk enough to be in the mood. He came to visit me in Paris, he offered to break up with his girlfriend for me, he ended up breaking up with her after we slept together for the first time our senior year. (Note: I was really stinking drunk and wanted to see if he'd actually really cheat on her. Their relationship was on its last legs, anyway.) He's brought up the idea of marriage jokingly, yet with a certain underlying hint of a true proposal.
   
   6 years later, he is still in love with me. When I went down to New York for his birthday party, for some stupid reason I was delegated with the duty of getting his drunken ass home, and he tried propositioning me yet again ("I have an inflatable queen-sized air mattress." To be fair, he had just moved to NY the week before.) It's become a long-standing joke between me and my friends. I was his first love and he will love me forever. It's rather heart-warming to know, but still. It just makes things a teensy bit weird when we hang out together.
   
   
2. Nick #2. He was actually Nick #1's best friend in college. We met in Paris, when we were both studying abroad. Nick #1 did introduce us, and when he left, said, "Be nice to Nicky. He needs friends here." (Nicky, to distinguish him from Nick. It gets confusing, after awhile.) Little did he know that Nicky and I would become fast friends. He had a little bit of a metrosexual vibe going on, and would drag me on my lunch breaks over to vintage designer consignment stores. He would sleep over, platonically, after late nights out on the town. We talked for hours at a time about relationships, dreams, life. He was, seriously, the Harry to my Sally. Then senior year, actually a couple of weeks after I slept with Nick #1, both Nicks were in town visiting. I had a small very drunken party, and after we ran out of alcohol in my apartment (a very hard task, believe me), we decided to walk (okay, stumble) down the street to another bar. Along the way, we had a conversation that sort of went like this:
   
   Me: "You know, I always thought you were really cute."
   Him: "The same here. Too bad nothing happened in Paris."
   Me: "Yeah, it really is. But you propositioned me the day after Nick left. It was just bad timing."
   Him: "Yeah, that wasn't too smooth, was it."
   Me: "Ah well. Missed opportunities.."
   Him: "Well, there's no time like the present.."
   
   And that was the end of that conversation. But that doesn't mean it was over! No sirree. We went to a bar with everyone else. We drank lots. We closed out the bar. We walked home. Nick #1 offered to walk someone home, and said that he'd call us after to see where we were. Nicky and I walked back to my place. We lay down in my bed. Dum de dum dum. After about 15 minutes of just talking, Nicky was like, "You think he stayed over at her place?" "But he was going to sleep over here, I thought." We both paused. Then nearly simultaneously, we put our cell phones on silent, and perhaps got naked and rumpled the sheets somewhat. Breakfast, the next morning with everyone else, was perhaps a bit awkward, although nobody asked us what happened. After all, he used to sleep over at my place all the time and nothing ever happened. What would've made this any different?
   
   Surprisingly, this didn't hurt our friendship too much. We never talked about it afterwards. He left to play soccer in Budapest, and we still talk as often as we can. I don't know if Nick #1 ever found out about that night, because we swore that we weren't going to tell him as it'd just hurt him. But nevertheless, there is still some hint of an underlying sexual tension there (did I mention he played soccer? His body is amazing), which is only vaguely uncomfortable in certain instances, such as when we were having dinner with his family and he described, in rather great detail, how great I would look in this Charlie's Angels-esque flight suit he and another friend bought for me.
   
   
3. Nick #3. Now, this one came out of the blue. He was my successor at the newspaper, and I thought that was the end of our relationship. But of course my life is not that boring. Last night, I was out with a friend at a law school party. We ran into the former roommate of Nick #3, who had also worked on the newspaper. He was like, oh, yeah, you were Nick's boss. You know, he was in love with you. You could have thrown me for a loop. My jaw dropped, I was just.. utterly stunned. The friend continued: Yeah, he had certain issues, that go back to his family, about women in authority positions and really, if he said bad things about you to me, it was only because he didn't know how to handle his feelings for you. Seriously, I had no idea what to say. I didn't even lead this guy on! Doubtful I'll see this Nick again, but yet, it was still slightly disconcerting.

Moral of the story: I am apparently irresistable to Nicks. That's 3 out of 3. If your name is Nick, and you want to maintain your sanity, and help me maintain mine, stay far, far, far away.