Look, I get it. We’re friends. That’s all. I don’t entertain flights of fancy about Kayce; I don’t read into her smiles as beckoning hints of a romance-to-be; I don’t hack into the scheduling software of workout classes she frequents and reserve bikes or mats behind hers, then show up and pretend like it was a coincidence; I don’t know the date of her birthday and read her horoscope each morning and say “haha, that’s so Kayce” over my iced oat milk cappuccino. These things don’t happen because I understand that we are friends; no more, no less. For now.

It’s strictly professional, strictly plutonic. She has a boyfriend whom I’ve never met but I feel like I’ve met because I’ve looked at pictures of him while under covers in a sheet-tent that I support with my knees and thought, wow… handsome, boyish, successful. His name is Tom, apparently. Tom. Has there ever been a better name for a boyfriend?

“Dad, I met someone.”

“What’s his name?”

“Tom.”

“Let me know if you need help with your rent.”

Versus…

“Dad, I met someone.”

“What’s his name?”

“Francis.”

“Kayce, do you hate me?”

Dear God, this guy sounds fantastic. He’s the sort of guy you meet in a jousting tournament where the winner gets to marry Lady Guinevere and after he knocks you off your horse, and you clatter to the ground in your stupid armor like a dozen pots and pans, he hops down nimbly and helps you up and you realize he’s learned to move in armor like its yogawear. I don’t know much about Tom, but I know this: when Tom enters a forest, he leaves his pants in the car and calls the creatures to him. Little squirrels hop into his hand and scurry up to his shoulder, doves perch upon his crown of ivy vines, turtles align as stepping-stones for him to cross a creek, and somewhere in the trees, a chorus of hidden elves sings lilting music as his parents, the king and queen, gaze fondly upon their son, even though he’s naked from the waist-down.

The responses saw Kayce’s tweet as a death sentence:

Gentleman, you are correct. Kayce and I are, indeed, in the friend zone– that grey and lifeless purgatory to which spineless, supportive men are relegated, where a crew of white lab-coated technicians confiscates your testicles at the door, the “undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns.” It is a hopeless place, from which there is no escape, surrounded on all sides by late-night crying phone calls where she complains about a man she’ll never leave before thanking you for always being there. You take the calls because you think she’ll wake up and see the light. “Sometimes the thing you were looking for has been right in front of you all along,” you etch into the wall of your cell for the next poor soul to read and recite until he, too, gives up completely.

But who put us there? Let’s go to the tape:

HAAHAHAHAHA! KAYCE OLD PAL OLD BUDDY OLD CHUM. You’re so great, LYLAS! I love that I can come to you with anything, that you’re ALWAYS available to say things like “women are crazy” when I’m down about a girl, that I can take you for granted and ignore you for months but the second I text you “miss ya!” you’ll come running right back to me. Because guess what? I stuffed you in the friendzone on AUGUST 13th, NINE days before you officially friendzoned ME. Suck on my farts, which I’m not afraid to rip in front of you because that’s what friends do!!! Nothing off limits! We could share a hotel room and we’d shit with the door open! I’d meet you for a drink without putting makeup on! Because at the end of the day, we’re friends. No more, no less.

For now.