I wonder what it’s like to meet your husband’s old crush. Someone who you know he was quite obsessed with back in the day, when he did all sorts of crazy things because his crush was hardly materialising, in honour of whose stillborn love he wrote short stories (something he has never ever done for you), and someone who he is still good friends with even a decade after his crush ended.
I wonder what it’s like to be in a new city, where you’ve only been for four days, and then venturing out to an unknown part of town to meet someone who you’ve never met before, who you’ve never even spoken to, and about whom you know only because of reading your husband’s blogs about her, and because of what your husband has told you about her.
I wonder if it feels weird, or if it is just a part of the game, that you are going to travel two hours to meet someone whose only connection to you is your husband, who is not going to be there with you when you meet her. He has made that introduction, told both of you perhaps more than you need to know about each other, but now he’s throwing both of you into the deep end, asking you to meet, to hang out, to make conversation. Is he asking too much of both of you?
What are you even going to talk about? Your husband, who both of you know very well, is one obvious topic, but what about that signboard in Bishop Cottons Boys’ School (that your husband told you about) that said “great mind discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people” (or some variation of that)? There is the professional stuff that you guys can talk about, which you perhaps would even prefer, but would you want to spend most of your time on your first meeting with someone you are likely to get along with, just talking about work? Then again, it helps immensely that both of you are outgoing and extroverted and generally good conversationalists, people who are inherently good at putting the counterparty at ease. But with two of you being of the same “type”, will there be a clash?
If not anything else, one good thing that will come out of this meeting is that your husband (evil guy he is) is going to call up both of you after you’re done with each other, and find out “how it went”. If not anything else, there will be value added in terms of some entertainment for him, as he will speak to the two of you and try and elicit gossip after you’re done meeting. As far as the universe is concerned, the cost that the two of you will have to pay in terms of possible discomfort and awkwardness will be offset by the value that your husband will gain by means of “entertainment value”. And then there is the option value of the two of you actually getting along and having a good time together!
So for the universe, it works out. For you and for your husband’s old crush, it may lead to negative value. But then such deals are precisely the kind of stuff that your evil ex-banker husband is good at structuring!