Funny Story

So last Saturday Joe invited me to come with him and his little girl to World of Wonder, a local children's museum/play place. I went. Lauren and I had a great time playing dress-up and chasing each other around.

A weird thing happened though. While Joe and I sat in front of the little stage, eagerly awaiting her performance, he told me a story. Lauren had asked him if he loved me. She's an intuitive little thing, he said. Then he said, "NO!" loudly and laughingly.

I just looked at him. It's a painful topic for me since a couple months ago I told him I loved him and he said he didn't feel that way. So now it's a joke? It's casual conversation? Where does the intuition come in? I could think of nothing to say that wouldn't betray that I was affected so I said nothing and just looked away.

I've thought of things since, of course. "That's a funny story but I'm not really the audience for it" or "It is amusing that anyone might think you felt that way about me" or "She totally missed that call, didn't she?" or "How could she be so wrong?" or simply "Of course not."