Recursion

“So, what’s your number?” he asked me with innocent eyes, contemplating a number low enough to render me virtuous but high enough to guarantee some skill. In other words, n - 1. 

I sighed and looked at ceiling. The scene was all too familiar. This time however, I wasn’t with a graduate student. Or an engineer. I was with a DJ. 

“One time, I wrote a C program to remove the voice from a sound file,” I said shyly as he leaned in and grazed my earlobe. 

Suddenly, he pulled back with disappointment. 

“I’m really sorry, but I have to go to my show,” he said as he stuffed his headphones into his backpack. “I’ll see you later.” 

The door slammed in the distance.

I sighed and hung my head in shame. For I was embarking on the same destructive behavior, watching helplessly as my actions iterated miserably in a never-ending loop. Like recursion, a new romance temps with the promise of a memory address, such as the $user = “girlfriend” string assignment embodied by the updated Facebook relationship status. But sadly, I iterate again and again only to discover a stack overflow of failed relationships. 

Will he be the base case?

At work, the SQL code was verbose and full of left joins. What the hell did NVL mean? Did we cover CASE in my database class? But it didn’t matter. His show was tonight. 

I arrive at the club. The normie was strong, and I’m obviously out of place in my jeans and t-shirt. Then, I see him by the bouncer. He smiles, and I approach. 

“But let’s just be friends,” he says. With his turntable in hand, he unhooked the red velvet rope and disappeared into the darkness. 

Maximum recursion depth exceeded.