Cooked meat is sterile, right?

Aaron sent a message saying that Amanda and he had become comfortable enough to want to see people. Amber and I, remarkably, on top of the list, though he says his parents would be visiting the day afterward. They suggested a backyard barbecue, which is an offer hard to decline even in this, our Pandemic Year.

Amber and I arrive at their backyard. We are at first tentative, wearing our masks and staying as far as we can while still being audible without shouting. We are unlikely to be infectious, despite how lax some of my coworkers have been in properly wearing masks. The masks are soon put to the side so that we can eat. There is no other way to do this without an unnecessary mess.

There must be some level of trust and hope. None of us are going to proper parties soon--short of a vaccine, I doubt indoor parties will exist come October--but I need to be social to survive. These last few months have felt as though I were holding my breath on the promise that there would be air soon.

Aaron has shaved his beard since last I saw him but left his mustache, which makes him look different from the picture of him I have in my head, younger maybe.

In a literal sense, I have known Aaron and Amanda for months. In practice, this will be the fourth time I have seen them in person. If it had not been for coronavirus, we would have had more frequent and significant encounters under our belts by this point, having done things to cement this as a genuine friendship. With Aaron, I have had one meaningful conversation about the restrictions of modern American masculinity, which I suspect might be the reason he is partial to me. By his reporting, it is not a conversation he can have with many. Like me, Aaron does not have an abundance of exemplars in his vicinity. He, like I, works with men who do not always typify the best of what it is to be a man.

As he makes us burgers, he says that he is just getting into the masculine things that he avoided when he was younger. He did not want to be lumped in with the sort of people for whom these things constituted a personality. But now, he has a grill that he enjoys using, a mustache, and a playful dog. There are things in the traditional masculine experience that are not necessarily bad, even if also enjoyed by people who are crude misogynists. It has taken him a while to come to this realization. I cannot blame him, as I come to it by degrees myself.

It may be premature to say that Aaron likes me better because we had this conversation. I've been in a position where I needed male friends, understanding that there is something that my gaggle of female friends could not provide. It is why I met Daniel, that I reached out to a few men and he was the one who reached back. In our culture, it is difficult to form male friendships.

(This is, by the way, not to imply that Amanda does not seem to like me. I believe we like one another just fine and, absent Aaron, I am sure I would have tried equally to befriend her. She speaks with us about how she watched anime all the time in Brazil growing up, a topic on which Amber has much to share.)

There is potato salad on the table, something that I have never had a good experience with. But I am here, and they have made it, so I give it a try. This is my firs t first with them: they are the people who made me like potato salad, at least theirs. It is a tiny thing, but I am aware of it. In this minute way, they have made a mark on my life.

I expect we will shoot for grander things than a palatable side dish, but one must start somewhere.

They have a dog named Robot--a fine name for the beast--who is uncertain of Amber and me for most of our time in their backyard. She warms up to us by the end and allows us to pet her with continued hesitation in case we turn out still to be villains.

Aaron and Amanda have a softer constitution when it comes to cinematic violence. Amber talks about Hannibal's aesthetics, including how lovely the cinematographers made the food. Aaron thinks that we're joking. I know that we will never show it to him. Pushing Daisies sounds as though it was too much for Aaron because it dealt conspicuously, if whimsically, with death. I don't wish to push people into things that will unsettle them.

Though I may feel comfortable with them in a way I have not with new people in a long while, they are still new. That Amber and I are the first people whom they chose to see flatters me. I liked them quickly, and they reached out to me, so that must count for something.

I've made no secret of my desire for friends and feel fortunate to have found two in one stroke. I wonder what I provide them, but I assume it is comparable to what they provide me. Someone to be around, someone with whom I can share what it is to be alive now in this corner of the crumbling world.

There is some small concern that I will say or do something around them that will make them want a different sort of social distance. But, my worry about this is subdued. They are good people and could be compatible with my life going forward. I have hopes for them. I've had hopes for other people who did not pan out in the long term but whose company I enjoyed for half a year. I don't begrudge much that these people fell mostly out of my life. I still see them on social media, but we don't have a connection. What we had was a product of that time in our lives before the world pulled us in other directions.

Aaron asks if I think there is alien life. I am not positive how I steered the conversation toward this, but I assume that I must have. I look to Amber in a mild panic because this is such a broad topic that it is hard to figure out the right place to begin. I said offhandedly that have I literally written books on this topic, but I don't think he takes me seriously. (In general, while I might in mixed company mention that I am an author, I do not harp on it. To do so would make me feel like a self-promoting braggart, having cringed at fellow authors who make a practice of this. People I know don't read what I write, and I've stopped pressing the issue.)

In my embarrassment, I try not to be too scattershot. I can detail Drake's Equation, the Fermi Paradox, the unlikelihood of bilaterally symmetrical humanoids, and the theories of Jacques Vallee and Dr. John E. Mack. The explanations for what we call aliens are a subject on which I am legitimately an expert, but I worry what would happen if I get out the rhetorical chalkboard and start a lecture.

Most of what I have to offer in social situations is my stories, of which I have too many only because I am practiced in the telling; what I have experienced is otherwise mundane. (We can make an exception for visits to a haunted murder house and prepping for a talk with Bigfooters. That these are unusual enough to embroider underscore how everyday the rest is.)

Since I've had ample opportunity to rehearse the beats, I can recite my go-to stories and topics effortlessly. Amber later calls me on having mentioned sex toys. It is a well that I draw from without thinking because I think these stories are funny. I'm uneasy at the notion I could make people uncomfortable with this topic or any that are not for mixed company. I feel the edge of criticism, but I will be more mindful of it, especially with new people I hope to like me going forward. Amber suggests that this may give people the wrong idea of my intentions. I may assume that everyone immediately groks that I have been described as "aggressively non-threatening" and "the personification of a Labrador puppy." My stories are almost something outside of myself, something that I'm offering for public delectation, but not who I am per se.

My obscure knowledge about the paranormal and preternatural says more about me. How much I know about these things suggests how important they are to me. This could make me sound unhinged. I have tried to escape the conversational clutches of people wanting to detail how they can control lightbulbs with their minds or the Reptilian war with the Pleiadians. I must portion out Gef the Talking Mongoose and the Hudson Valley UFO Flap to avoid overwhelming the palate. I do not wish new friends to suspect I'm more peculiar than I must.

This evening was being with friends as though this is something I do regularly. This day satisfied something in me, but I need more contact with people for whom I care. It has been months of absence I need still to fill. Most, if not all, summer activities have been canceled. My logical brain thinks it is prudent to remain cautious, but I'm mourning the summer of 2020 before it even arrives. I will do all I can to arrest losing more of my life to COVID-19.

Soon in Xenology: Probably more about COVID-19, since, you know, the world is ending and everything.

last watched: Travelers
reading: The Future of Us