So Allen and I ask Bateman if he wants to go to Coachella with us—Allen has decided he really likes music, apparently, and is especially fond of some group called 30 Seconds to Mars—but Bateman … well, he just looks at us as if we may be actual Martians.

“What in the world is Coachella?” he asks, drawing out the last word painfully slowly and pulling a face like he’s just gotten a particularly distasteful mouthful of bad sea urchin ceviche.

“It’s a music festival in California, dummy,” I tell him. “This is the second weekend.”

“Weekend?” he says, confused, then asks, “Well, where are you staying?”

“We’re not staying anywhere per se,” I tell him. “We’re camping,”

He bursts out laughing, then stares at me blankly. “No,” he says.

“Oh, come on, Bateman, there are going to be lots of good bands there,” I say.

“Are Huey Lewis and the News going to be there?” he asks me.

“Well, no,” I say.

“Is Phil Collins going to be there?” he asks.

“Well … no,” I say again.

He makes a disgusted noise. “Will there be hipsters there?” he asks.

Allen and I look at each other and burst out laughing.

Finally, Allen asks, “So does that mean you want to go?”

Bateman just pauses dramatically, then brightly yells, “NO, ALLEN,” and smiles in that goofy-yet-condescending way only Bateman can. “But have fun at your dirty, stinky hipster fest.”

So it looks like Allen and I are going to Coachella alone.

Oh, well. Worse things have happened.

TGIF!

So I interrupt Bateman in the middle of his workout routine-slash-Texas Chainsaw Massacre viewing. I know Bateman fancies himself a socially aware guy, and I so ask him if he wants to go to a DOMA protest with me.

“What? No,” he says, and keeps doing crunches. He can do a thousand a day, he tells me.

“Bateman,” I tell him, “You can’t call yourself socially responsible and be a homophobe.”

“I’m not a homophobe,” he says, still crunching. “It’s just I’m not into marriage or that whole Yale thing.”

“Oh, my God, Bateman, there is no ‘Yale thing.’ The entire second half of that statement is homophobic,” I say.

“I’m not a homophobe,” Bateman says in that condescending drawl of his. “For example, if I were into guys, or marriage, I would totally marry Bryce,” he says, then adds, “But not Carruthers. I would never, ever marry Carruthers.”

“Duly noted,” I say. “So do you want to come with me or not?”

“All right,” he says. “But there better not be any hipsters there. Hipsters creep me out.”

Someone creeps Bateman out? You have got to be kidding me.

Stranger things have happened, I guess.

TGIF!

So I find out from my friend Kate that when Bateman was in school at Phillips Exeter, he was—get this (!)—the lead in some sort of musical about newsboys in Manhattan around the turn of the century.

This, of course, is something Bateman has never told me, so thank God for videotape. (That would be Bateman, by the way, front and center in the red bandana, earnestly pelvic-thrusting his adolescent heart out—as much as one can thrust one’s adolescent pelvis in earnest, obvs.)

Oh, I’m sure Mr. Cranky Pants is probably going to want to just kill me when he finds out I have this, but even he has to realize it’s totally in good fun, right?

… Right?!

Well, anyway.

TGIF!

So I stop by Pierce & Pierce to see if Bateman wants to swing by Harry’s for drinks after work, and he’s in a pair of Ray Bans, on his couch, in the middle of the day, reading a Walking Dead comic and twirling his hair like a little girl. Which might seem strange for anyone else, but it’s Bateman, so it isn’t surprising, really.

“Bateman, I didn’t know you were into The Walking Dead,” I say. “I guess that means you’re pretty amped for Sunday night, huh?”

“What’s Sunday night?” he asks in that drawn-out “I-don’t-understand-you” Bateman voice of his, and he still doesn’t look up from the book.

“Uh … Sunday night is the return of The Walking Dead on AMC,” I say.

“I didn’t know that was a thing,” he says. “I only bought this comic because it looked hilarious, although in fact, it’s really kind of stupid.”

“How so?” I ask.

He laughs. “Well, everybody knows the dead can’t walk … if you do it right.”

I laugh, but I immediately call Bryce and McDermott and ask them to join us as soon as I’m out of Bateman’s earshot.

I mean, I like the guy and all, but Jesus.

TGIF!

Apparently, Bateman is easily excited by snow—so much so that he puts on his raincoat in anticipation, cranks Huey Lewis and the News, and does his weird little ’80s retro Bateman happy dance.

While most people get excited by the prospect of taking a snow day, I know Bateman never misses a day at Pierce & Pierce, so when I ask him why he’s so amped about a snow day, he says, “Snow day? Who said anything about a snow day? Tonight is a snow night.” And then he starts to laugh in that condescending, snarky way only Bateman can.

Now that I think about it, I’m not entirely sure Bateman was talking about the weather.

Whatever. I have to return some videotapes.

TGIF!

So I meet Bateman for lunch today at Crayons. I walk in listening to my iPod, which causes him to scoff at me immediately because he prefers his old-school Walkman.

“What on Earth are you listening to?” he asks me in that condescending-yet-charming way that only Bateman can.

“Macklemore & Ryan Lewis,” I say. “The name of this track is ‘Thrift Shop’.”

As soon as the words “Thrift Shop” are out of my mouth, he looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. He takes the iPod from me anyway.

He only gets partially into the song, though, before hands it back to me, and I can tell he’s disgusted.

“Fifty dollars for a Gucci t-shirt is a bargain,” he says. “This song is an affront to humanity.”

We go ahead and eat, but when we’re done, he looks me up and down, and slips me a business card on which I see he’s written the number of his therapist.

“I swear, sometimes I don’t understand your personality,” he tells me, and leaves.

I think Bateman may have just called me ugly.

TGIF!

So I run into Bateman tonight at Evelyn’s Christmas party. It’s funny because someone put reindeer antlers on him, and trying to make Bateman wear anything that doesn’t come with a designer label is like trying to put a costume on a cat—he just keeps trying to wiggle out of it.

And then Evelyn has all these little people running around dressed up like elves, serving hors d’oeuvres, and I think it’s really, really weird … until something even weirder happens: Bateman walks up to me, looking hilariously uncomfortable in his antlers, and straight-up asks me if he can do the Friday post a day early.

As you might imagine, I’m a little surprised and a lot skeptical.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why not?” he says, cheerfully. ”After all, everyone might die tonight.”

“Wow, Bateman. I didn’t know you believed in that whole Mayan thing,” I say, and I’m ready to tease him mercilessly about being superstitious, until I realize he seems suddenly and legitimately serious and confused.

“What Mayan thing?” he asks, and furrows his brow. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Uh, never mind,” I tell him. “It’s not important.” 

Then he hands me a USB card and I leave.

So here you go, I guess.

Oh, and TGIF … ?

So Bateman’s a day late in getting me the Friday gif. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, really, but by this point he’s starting to insult my intelligence. When I ask him why he’s so late this time, he goes, “I guess I … was … busy returning videotapes.”

“Heard that one already,” I say. “Try again.”

“Actually, I had to meet Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons,” he lies, when he knows I know there’s no Four Seasons on this side of town.

In his defense, he did seem to be kind of distracted. It was weird—I had just given him one of my new business cards, and I swear the dude was starting to sweat.

Oh, well. Better late than never, I guess.

TGIF!