“Alice, you find Luke attractive, don’t you?”
An innocuous enough question on the face of it, but for a few crucial factors;
Firstly, Luke was an incredibly handsome guy. Irritatingly so. If you were to draw ‘chiseled’, you’d draw Luke. This rendered it something of a rhetorical question. Of course I found Luke attractive. There couldn’t be many who wouldn’t. Which meant it was obviously a question leading somewhere.
Secondly, Luke was not a single man. Indeed, he was in a relationship of several years. Not that there’s any harm in finding a partnered up man attractive – but it did frame the question in a slightly loaded fashion.
Thirdly and perhaps most significantly; the question was being asked to me *by* his girlfriend. The very same girlfriend whom I’d been close friends with myself for longer than the pair of them had been an item. A dear friend who I knew didn’t pose highly loaded and leading questions purely for the sake of being hypothetical.
Little did I know at the time – though I do feel I immediately did suspect on some innate level – that it would ultimately lead to one of the most arse-clenchingly awkward encounters in my short but colourful life thus far.