across my last good nerve

I'm curious about the idea of connection with people. I went to see Across the Universe tonight; I picked up P1* on the way. There were a dozen or so people I know from the dance community there (I had gotten an invite through one of them). When I met these people -- Easter Weekend 2006 -- I felt so connected with them immediately, and felt connected with them until the beginning of this year, but then the connection started fading, and once it started it went quicker and quicker, to the point of feeling like I really don't have much in common with them anymore.

When the movie started, P1 was halfway into my seat with her folded legs, and I didn't really feel like cuddling with her during the length of the movie, so I squeezed into the right two-thirds of my seat. During the movie, a musical, a couple of times she felt the need to keep the beat to a particular song on me, with her leg or hand. It was distracting, so I moved away from her, trying to do so delicately. After the movie, when most of the other dancers had gone to the front of the theater to dance while the credits music played, P1 said, "We have to have that talk that we haven't had yet." She told me that I needn't worry about our relationship being anything more than just a friendship. My interior reaction was, "But I thought we might perhaps have a couple shots of tequila one day and give it a go," but I didn't say that, because I wasn't sure how she would respond, either by expecting such a thing from that moment on or by taking my comment as crudeness. I had told her before the movie that I would read to her my next chapter which I'm presenting to the critiquing group this Wednesday, but the movie was long and L2 half-sang every song in the movie (they were all Beatles songs) in my right ear and all around me were dance community people overreacting to the onscreen events and whispering to each other and passing around the snacks that they'd brought with them, and I just was ready to go home and be alone.

And I wonder why I'm lonely.