The Third Wheel

This past weekend a friend invited me to go to Vegas, where she lives. She said she needed someone to take to a wedding reception and she also wanted to see me/hang out with me. At first I wasn't sure because work was busy and I didn't feel comfortable leaving work early on Friday to get there on time. But in the end I decided what the heck, took some stuff with me from work (to work on later), and jumped in the car and drove out.

We go to the wedding reception. It's interesting. Odd couple. But the food isn't totally unpalatable so I'm happy. Then we go back to her place and meet up with her (male) roommate and decide to go see a movie. So we go see a movie. Two guys and a girl. A little weird for me--but no big deal.

Next day after she gets off work we go to hang out again. This time she tosses her keys to her roommate and has him drive. I get the back seat. Sweet! Now I'm officially the third wheel. They continue their banter from last night about life in Vegas and friends they have and gossip and just talking about their lives in general. I don't know what they're talking about. I feel a bit left out, not sure how to contribute, other than saying "Oh who is so-and-so? Why was that funny? What happened there? Let me in on it all!" (Of course I didn't say any of that. I wasn't raised in a cave.)

I'll be honest: no one has ever invited me to drive 3 1/2 hours to visit them only to make me the third wheel for the weekend while they hung out with their roommate. I was a bit taken aback. Didn't really know what to make of it. Ultimately I decided I wasn't having much fun, so at midnight on Saturday I hopped in my car and drove home.

Am I being hypersensitive? I don't know. I felt like a genuine outsider to everything going on. Personally if I invited someone here to "hang out" with me and I professed wanting to see them, I think I would at least make them feel like they were more than a stranger who is crashing on the couch for a couple days that is tagging along with me and my friends while we do our normal weekend thing.

I had a buddy years ago who always wanted to be the third wheel. I'd invite girls to hang out or whatever and I'd encourage him to get a date or find someone to take along. For some reason he rarely would and often it'd end up being me, my date, and him. Not that I felt intimidated or anything, it was just weird. It's like, if you put two males with an attractive girl, even if one is not "interested" in the girl, it still seems like there's an invisible struggle for attention going on. This seems normal, actually, because when three people are together there's usually only two ways to divide any single person's attention. Anyway, after my buddy kept this up for a while I vowed to never do it again. In the following years living with my old roommate Josh, we would never be a third wheel to each other. It was either you had a date or you went back to your room and played video games or listened to music. No exceptions!

So that was my weekend. How was yours? Oh--highlight of the weekend: While my "friend" was at work, I went to a nearby Ross and bought this dark brown perry ellis polo. It's an amazing fit and super comfortable. And because it was Ross, it was cheap. Score!