Shelby and Jimmy are both my best friends; Shelby my high school clique and Jimmy my college buddy.
The third year I was dating Sean I introduced them on a double date. It was in a train station where we met one another. Shelby showed up in a summer dress and Jimmy casual polo. Sean and I were madly in love then, and most of the time he didn't really care or mind what i wore, but my nudity.
It was a good start and almost like a love-at-first-sight for Shelby. I said "almost" because Jimmy had good impression on her but he was then still quite carried away with all the philosophical question of "who am I" and "what am I to do for my future." Besides, he was yet over his first love Terry, at least that's what I thought. A good fine but a bit of geeky and goody-goody guy he was, Jimmy's love life started late in the second semester of Freshman year. The puppy love ended when we graduated from college and when reality bit on us - the fresh meat, the babe in the woods. Terry considered herself way too good for Jimmy and flew away the month after the commencement, left Jimmy behind her, heart-broken.
After two-year mendatory military service, Jimmy threw himself into the market and became a stock broker, where he maintained a simple life and stayed out of any possible romantic relationship.
"When are you going to stop segregating yourself from the world and get a real life?" I asked him.
"Living a simple life doesn't mean I am going to be devine or I am content with this celibate life, you know," he frowned and stared right back at me.
"I am saying that you should get laid to get a real life. I am saying that you don't seem to be over Terry, and with the way you live, you'll possibly never get over her and start your love life all over. And that, pal, is going to be a big problem, because if you don't get someone to love you, to really care about you, chances are, you might lose the drive to live...as I know you are not that type of power-is-everything person! You know what we learnt about the love-hate flip flop of psychoanalysis, and for me, you are fear of love because you are afraid it will be taken away; that's why you remain a chaste life to avoid being hurt and experiencing loss! You can live a life by evading the essance of it..."
And that's when he paused for a long time and silently agreed to be manipulated by me, in terms of setting him up with Shelby.