Friends who are Boys: The Man. In Love.

Last night was cold. And, as you well know, my car is in working order. So I gave a FwaB a ride home from church choir.

The Man and I are damn fine friends, but since he "doesn't read blogs," I'll just call him The Man. (He'd be pleased at this, I think.) He's from a small town in the Midwest, like me. He's short, like me. He goes to the Cottonwood Cafe for Sam Seasonals with me and the other choir boys on Wednesdays.

For most of last year, he was single and an unlikely cried-on shoulder. We once stopped on the corner of Berkeley and Boylston and dissected online dating histories for an hour. Another time it was Tremont and Boylston, for two hours, and we got into the nasty, dirty, haunted situations of our pasts that few others had ever heard. A third.....we were drunk at Last Drop on Mass Ave....at 2 a.m.....during a blizzard.

Memorably, one Wednesday night after a Lenten service, I was so aggrieved at a thoughtless boy I couldn't make myself get off the pew and go on with my life. The Man, no-nonsense, gave it to me.

"OK. If he's like this to you, you obviously know he is not the one. Obviously. That should make your decision easier."

In any case, The Man met a woman when he least expected it and now has a girlfriend. The Man is love with his girlfriend. In LOVE. He's in love 150 percent, without a molecule of uncertainty. Contrary to how I often feel about gushing romantics and their SOs, I do enjoy watching him talk about her. Last night in my car, he talked a lot about her.

"She's it, man," he proclaimed, shaking his head as if he, too, can't believe it. Exhaled, turned and looked me in the eye, proclaimed again:

"She is IT."

If they are not together forever, I don't know who will be.

Well, I wrote about The Man because of something he said right before he escaped my car. Since we have talked so much together about being single, I think he feels pity for my continued singleness. To his credit, he still lets me talk about it....and then tries to make me feel better :

"You know, when it does happen, you just can't believe that you were ever interested in anyone else. It's like, 'what was I doing?!'

"I know sometimes it feels like you're waiting a long time, but maybe there is a reason that you aren't meeting anyone else. Because you just haven't met that person. And you aren't dating others because you're supposed to be available when you DO meet the person you're supposed to be with."

The Man is in love. I've got to believe he knows what he's talking about.