Old Friends and Bad Dates

I sat near a fireplace in the Portland Public Market for nearly three hours yesterday, with two old friends.  We all went to middle school and high school together; one of them was in elementary school with me.  Our conversation roamed around -- work, happiness, unhappiness, family -- but pretty soon fell into a loose collection of gossip about people we all knew back in the day, reminiscences of silly things we did in middle school and high school, and a comparison of the worst dates we've been on.  G told us about how she goes to the restroom to pass the time when a date gets bad.  I told about the California boy who picked me up in a Mustang with a busted muffler, asked me what I wanted to do, then brought me to the mall, where we roamed aimlessly.  A. told about the guy who told her he gets so angry at his mother that he hopes the brakes on her car will fail.  We laughed and swapped these stories -- long, stringy hair with lots of product in it, the gay man in denial, the guy who aspired to do a line of cocaine off his date's body, a man so nervous he was sweating.  Occasionally someone would walk by and we would lean in -- "was that ---?" "I didn't recognize him.  Oh, wait, what was his name?"  And we'd start up the gossip and reminiscing again.