Then he asked me about the rest of lyricafest, and I launched into a rather lengthy explanation of the drama & dilemmas faced by my group and the rehearsal process. At this point his attention seemed to wander and he would occaisionally glance back at the bar where his bandmates were. I asked him if what I had gone through at lyricafest (in terms of group drama) was normal and he answered quickly that he thought it was.
I also confided in him that I had tried to be really kind to everyone at the festival, but that people seemed to relate to each other primarily by complaining, and because I didn't participate in that a lot, by the end of the festival I had wondered if I had actually distanced myself from everyone by trying to be kind. He pointed out that even though it usually comes out as just complaining, what people are really trying to figure out in those situations is, "Why is this other person in my group keeping me from doing what I want?" Which is a deeper question than just b!tching and moaning about your colleagues. I also brought up some of my latest thoughts on longy school but it quickly became apparent that he was totally not up for getting into an intense personal conversation on that or perhaps any other topic so I dropped it.
He asked me where I was staying and I told him, my friend G's house. G is actually a formal romantic rival to B, and I haven't stayed with him before. B asked how G was doing and I told him about G's plans (omitting telling B that G has an awesome girlfriend).
I asked him how he was doing and he said he felt totally exhausted. He had gotten back from Maine yesterday and spent the entire day running around taking care of things and running errands, and was completely tired.
At this point it seemed like we were actually running out of things to talk about for the first time since the bombs. It was also just inherently awkward because another musical act was playing and we sort of had to shout to hear each other. A friend of mine pointed out to me that after playing a show all you want to do is talk about the show and random crap, not about anything deep or personal, but I totally forgot about this in the moment. I could sense that I shouldn't get into anything particularly meaningful because he wasn't really up for it but I forgot about how I would have probably felt the same way.
