amicable

\AM-ih-kuh-bul\

adjective

: characterized by friendly goodwill : peaceable

there is something about the word AMICABLE that suggests a sort of forced niceness. nice for the sake of keeping peace rather than nice just for the sake of being nice. as if no one naturally possesses this trait; it is, rather, conditional.

while i was in college, i dated a man for some time who had several ex-girlfriends. now, this is by no means abnormal, but many of the girls were still in his life; he had maintained friendships with them, on an AMICABLE spectrum, and therefore i had to interact with them as well.

he saw one of the girls with regular frequency, and i was subject to her company quite often. she didn't seem as much like an ex-girlfriend as an over-protective friend. she kept an eye on him. she also still expected him to do boyfriendly things, like be her date for weddings if she was single and give her rides to the gynecologist if her car broke down.

one night, while he and i were living together, she drunk-called around 3 am saying that her purse and cell phone were stolen from her car. she had called her cell phone number and found out that the thief had already pawned it to some random guy. she stupidly arranged a pre-dawn meeting with said unknown man in order to retrieve her phone, and wanted my boyfriend to accompany her. he relayed this to me in the dim light of the cell phone key pad.

"she's freaked out and she wants me to go with her to meet this guy."

"no fucking way dude. it's 3 am. tell her to call her own boyfriend." and she did have a boyfriend.

he stared at me for a second, as if i was the one out of line.

other than that, i was always fairly AMICABLE with this girl. i even let her borrow a book that i really enjoyed, Colors Insulting to Nature, which she never returned. funny enough, that is really the only thing i truly don't like about her.