I've been kinda sick for the last week or so, which was getting me kind of down. But something that happened Saturday brought me up. Very, very up.
A little background, first. Back in high school, there was a girl I had a huge crush on. Kind of gothy, very pretty. I hung out with her from time to time, but not as often as I liked. I got her into tabletop RPGs, specifically D&D and d20 Modern and she would play in games I ran sometimes. After we got out of high school (in '05), we sort of lost touch. In fact, I didn't hear anything from her until last summer, when I found her Myspace. Then we lost touch again. Until Saturday, when she came into the local Quiznos where I was eating dinner with the employees of the local video game store.
A few things about this girl: she's a huge video game nerd (like me), an RPer (ditto) and a WoW addict (I'm not an addict, but I do play). I was glad to see her again, and we ended up hanging out for like 8 hours that night. I had to leave to go back to school the next day (which is where I am now), but we're only about 45 minutes apart, so we're going to start hanging out again (she was in Michigan for awhile, and what with me being in Maryland, even if I had known where she was, I wouldn't have been able to hang out).
Now, why am I posting this here? Well, this girl had always been big on wolves, ever since she was a little kid. Now I, being someone who likes wolves and predatory mammals in general, would often talk with her about animals and such. In fact, back in 11th grade (shortly after I realized I was a furry but long before I would admit it to anyone), I introduced her to the idea of furries.
Jump forward 2 and a half years to the present day. We're hanging out in a coffee shop and I don't remember what prompted it, but we get on the subject of tails, somehow, and how awesome they are. Then she tells me she thinks of herself as a Therian with a wolf spirit. My reaction was, basically "Awesome! I'm a furry, and I have an affinity towards wolves and some big cats."
And so we were off, talking about tails and fursuiting and furry culture and a million other things. Now we're hoping to be able to make it to a con this year.
All that was great, but it got better. As I mentioned, I was pretty into this girl in high school, but never asked her out due to a combination of cowardice and bad timing. I almost asked her to the prom, but chickened out. Turns out she never got invited to a dance and the only reason she had a date for the prom was because she begged a coworker to go with her. Yeah, depressing.
But I asked her out. And she said yes, but nothing very serious. Which is honestly to my preference at this point. Finding a time might be tricky, but I shall persevere.
The last thing I did surprised even me. She was getting ready to go because it was 2 am and I had to get up fairly early, and I had a thought that I just sort of blurted out. I asked her "Want to be packmates?" She seemed surprised I asked (I was surprised I asked) but happily said yes.
So there you are. I met up with an old friend and now she's my packmate. I have no idea what that means, really, but it gives a rather satisfying feeling. And I just like the idea of having packmates, you know?