tiqui

Noen sjonglerer med flere baller i luften, holder rede på dem, og klarer å holde dem adskilt slik at de kun er i nærkontakt med en av dem om gangen. Noen klarer dette utmerket og gjør det også overbevisende innenfor kjærlighetslivet. Jeg oppdaget i går at det like greit at jeg aldri har prøvd meg som sjonglør. Det ville gått riktig ille.

In honour of those who inspired this blogpost the rest is in English, so that both my norwegian and argentinian readers might understand and comment if they like.

The misunderstanding of the year
I was home sick with a cold all weekend. I had to stay home even though I wanted to go to two tangoparties on saturday. I called my tanguero friend to tell him I couldn´t go. Let´s call him Ariel. Sunday I was still sick, so when another tanguero friend called me I had to turn him down as well. Let´s call him Angel.

Monday I was feeling better, and as I was in the neighbourhood of Angel, I sent him an sms and asked if he had time for a coffee. Four minutes later my telephone rang from a number I didn´t know, so assumed it was Angel who returned my call.

First conversation
- Is this Angel? Is this your telephone number at your house?
- No, this is my mom´s number. She has more credit than I you see.
- Ok, I see.
- Look, we are looking for tangoshoes for my mum now, and then we plan to go the matine and later to Villa Malcom. If you would like to come we could meet you at the matine in an hour or so? If you like I can call you when we´re finished looking at shoes?
- So you are going both of you? You and your mum? I would love to come. It isn´t necessary to call me - I have to go home to get my shoes anyway, and I´ll see you at the matine, ok!

Angel´s mum doesn´t live in Buenos Aires, so I thought it was nice that she was visiting him, and that he would take her shoeshopping and dancing. And since I now Ariel and his mum sometimes go to this matine, I though it would be nice to go all of us. I sent a message to Ariel to ask if they were going to dance tonight, too? He didn´t answer. This surprised me, because he normally responds quite fast.


Growing suspicion
I didn´t think more about it, I went home, took a shower, found my shoes, and left for the matine when I received a new message from Angel:

- I just left the faculty, do you still have time for that coffee?

This was strange, shouldn´t he be with his mother at the matine by now? I called him:

Second conversation
- Angel, now I am confused, weren´t you going to the matine?
- Who is this?
- Tiqui!
- I don´t know anything about the matine...
- Oh, now I think I understand, I´ll explain when we meet for coffee.

Explanation
I was quite embarrassed to explain to him that I had made an appointment with someone that I thought was him, and that I carried out the whole conversation without realizing it was someone else. It wasn´t particularly fun to admit to him that I didn´t distinguish his voice from someone else´s, and that I still wasn´t sure with whom I actually made the appointment.

I did however suspect that I owed an apology to my friend Ariel. That must have been the reason he didn´t answer my message - he thought I had sent it before he called, and that we had though of the same at the same time. Just when I realized this, the next message arrived. Ariel and his mother had left the matine to dine and would go directly to Villa Malcolm. A simple sms wouldn´t be enough to explain what had happened, and now I wouldn´t see them before late at night. Angel and I went for food as well, but i couldn´t stop thinking about what a mess I had made by not making sure I was talking to the right person. I sent the last message to Ariel, telling him I owed him an apology and that I would explain when we met later that evening.

Embarrassed
Almost five hours later than the initial appointment I was finally able to explain to him what had happened. Luckily he laughed at the whole thing. The rest of the night we passed dancing, and in the end it all ended well.

I will, however make a note to myself not to even try to juggle more than one ball at the same time. I do not understand how some people are able to lead double lives, having several parallell relations at the same time, when I´m not even able to separate my friends voices from each other, and believing so strongly I was talking the Angel, not even notices all the signs in the conversation that pointed to Ariel.

I´m embarrassed.