.some company.
I wouldn’t mind some company today. Not that I didn’t enjoy my two-hour afternoon walk, blisters and all, to the library. I just don’t know if walking alone is what I want to do with my weekend. Maybe I want to spend it with someone else.
But I spent Saturday with somebody else, a boy and a dog, and I couldn’t help but wish that I were alone. It was beautiful, sunny, warm, green and lush. We climbed a trail in the Columbia Gorge, walked under waterfalls, dipped our feet in a stream. My legs moved effortlessly. My lungs gulped humid air with the ease of somebody who doesn’t chain-smoke cigarettes. My skin sweated and stung under hot air and flying bugs. The setting was ripe for blossoms and nettles and romance.
But we didn’t kiss at the top of the trail. Instead, we worried about the dog swimming too far into the falls. The boy hunted for tobacco in his knapsack and I shivered in the cool shade and moist air of the stream.
Our conversation hovered over the same few topics we’d discussed already on two previous dates. “Have you been to Seattle?” he asked me. I told him, not for the first time, “Yes, I’ve been there. I’m from there.” We talked about tequila shots he’d had the night before, his hangover, my job. It’s a shame to burden a Saturday afternoon with awkward conversation.
I’m not genius. I rely on my computer to check my spelling. Despite my degree in English Literature, I don’t read much. I don’t read hardly at all, unless you count blogs and InStyle Magazine. Every time I sit down with a book, I’m overwhelmed with panic. Why don’t I know all of these words? Why aren’t I engaged in this story, the characters? Why do I still hear the street noise, cars, cans rattling in carts of homeless collectors? I can’t stop listening to the cats snoring. My nails need to be pulled apart– let me get the clippers. I need a haircut and a pedicure. I’m so fat. I wonder if other people think I’m as fat as I do? It’s impossible to concentrate with the din of worry rattling inside and around me.
If I can’t pull it together to finish a book, how can I allow myself to judge someone for his lack of fascinating conversation?
I think wit requires two minds and two tongues. I may be funny and sweet, wicked and insightful around one person, and a stuttering Napoleon Dynamite with another. I don’t think our lack of banter yesterday is a fault of either party. We were just not on par with each other. It’s like playing tennis with a golf club. Both of us are well equipped; we just can’t play a good game together.
It’s a disappointment. And it makes me wonder if I’ll be a flaccid, lazy partner to anyone. Frankly, the funniest and smartest people I’ve ever known have not found me as challenging and interesting as I’ve found them. Maybe I like someone a few steps a head of me, smarter, faster, wittier, who can kick my ass. Maybe it’s the same principle of too-cool bartenders and rude urban waitresses: we crave superiority and unattainability. It makes you that much better if I’m this much worse.
It can’t be that everyone who turns me on, I bore to death. If that’s the case, I’m back at square one, asking bigger and more terrifying questions like, “how long will it take my cats to eat my face after I die alone in my apartment?”
I guess the thing about being twenty-five is that I have unlimited access to hope and optimism, whether I have to get it from Sex and the City dvds or a bottle. I know I can weather a lot of misses until I get a hit. And in the meantime, hiking in the gorge makes for a beautiful afternoon alone or with any character.
But I spent Saturday with somebody else, a boy and a dog, and I couldn’t help but wish that I were alone. It was beautiful, sunny, warm, green and lush. We climbed a trail in the Columbia Gorge, walked under waterfalls, dipped our feet in a stream. My legs moved effortlessly. My lungs gulped humid air with the ease of somebody who doesn’t chain-smoke cigarettes. My skin sweated and stung under hot air and flying bugs. The setting was ripe for blossoms and nettles and romance.
But we didn’t kiss at the top of the trail. Instead, we worried about the dog swimming too far into the falls. The boy hunted for tobacco in his knapsack and I shivered in the cool shade and moist air of the stream.
Our conversation hovered over the same few topics we’d discussed already on two previous dates. “Have you been to Seattle?” he asked me. I told him, not for the first time, “Yes, I’ve been there. I’m from there.” We talked about tequila shots he’d had the night before, his hangover, my job. It’s a shame to burden a Saturday afternoon with awkward conversation.
I’m not genius. I rely on my computer to check my spelling. Despite my degree in English Literature, I don’t read much. I don’t read hardly at all, unless you count blogs and InStyle Magazine. Every time I sit down with a book, I’m overwhelmed with panic. Why don’t I know all of these words? Why aren’t I engaged in this story, the characters? Why do I still hear the street noise, cars, cans rattling in carts of homeless collectors? I can’t stop listening to the cats snoring. My nails need to be pulled apart– let me get the clippers. I need a haircut and a pedicure. I’m so fat. I wonder if other people think I’m as fat as I do? It’s impossible to concentrate with the din of worry rattling inside and around me.
If I can’t pull it together to finish a book, how can I allow myself to judge someone for his lack of fascinating conversation?
I think wit requires two minds and two tongues. I may be funny and sweet, wicked and insightful around one person, and a stuttering Napoleon Dynamite with another. I don’t think our lack of banter yesterday is a fault of either party. We were just not on par with each other. It’s like playing tennis with a golf club. Both of us are well equipped; we just can’t play a good game together.
It’s a disappointment. And it makes me wonder if I’ll be a flaccid, lazy partner to anyone. Frankly, the funniest and smartest people I’ve ever known have not found me as challenging and interesting as I’ve found them. Maybe I like someone a few steps a head of me, smarter, faster, wittier, who can kick my ass. Maybe it’s the same principle of too-cool bartenders and rude urban waitresses: we crave superiority and unattainability. It makes you that much better if I’m this much worse.
It can’t be that everyone who turns me on, I bore to death. If that’s the case, I’m back at square one, asking bigger and more terrifying questions like, “how long will it take my cats to eat my face after I die alone in my apartment?”
I guess the thing about being twenty-five is that I have unlimited access to hope and optimism, whether I have to get it from Sex and the City dvds or a bottle. I know I can weather a lot of misses until I get a hit. And in the meantime, hiking in the gorge makes for a beautiful afternoon alone or with any character.
posted by .i'll never tell. at 9:14 AM
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