The idea is to avoid the word relationship. I don't want to label myself, fall into a set box or conform to the norm. I want to be everything but normal independent of how much I may or may not appreciate the mathematical symmetry of normality.
A professor once told me about his days in college, drinking boxed wine and talking late into the night about O'Brien and guns. The image? A couple of sleeper nerds both wanting to be cool and get to the crux of Foster Wallace's argument. Hidden in a trellis of obscure references, savvy story telling and drugs was the ultimate answer.
No, it wasn't 42.
I think about pop culture a lot but not in an analytical, introspective sort of way but in a cloud my judgement and perception of reality sort of way. In it, there is a "talk" that every girl and guy both look forward to however unknowingly. One night, their eyes will meet across the room (strangers in the dark/lovers at first sight), they will strike up a conversation and find the other person entirely too charming. They'll walk out of the bar together shoulder-to-shoulder indicating that while they wish they had the intimacy level to hold hands, this will do for now. He'll walk her back to her place all the while making her laugh at the appropriate time with a slightly self-deprecating comment or on the weather. At the door step there isn't an awkward moment. They walk in and sit down on a comfortable couch, a solitary relic of the good old days (college). A peck here and there, cuddling, embrace and conversation. CONVERSATION - all night in a desperately hungry attempt to know the other person.
The truth is, they're hard to have. They're often unwanted monsters looking to make us face what we are trying to avoid.
Try writing an post-mortem eulegy.
In a domino game we don’t control the pieces we get. We do however control the distribution and the strategy of the game. This is the attitude I have when dealing with this little thing called life.
The existential talks are not only for the meta-physical breakfast clubs of our generations. Tea usually helps, or a healthy serving of aged Shiraz. It's not just for the heart. Trust me.
Given the chance, I want to be a good listener. An empath who knows just what to say and do. I'd like to know when to hold the person's eyes with a supportive gaze, and when to look at my shoes and untied laces and shake my head softly as if to say - Why? It makes me wonder what they say in those muted scenes in movie when the guy says just the right things to the girl and by the time the volume comes back on she's wiping away her tears and giving a half-hearted smile. The director probably made a stylistic call, it's definitely written somewhere, the choice words. The chosen words.
And they lead to introspection. To feel the internal tourist explore from within commenting on the warm, vivid colors of our warm insides. Oohing and aahing at the gamut of emotions and thoughts weaving and dodging through my brain.
It's a scary place - the self.
You don't want to say hello and hear nothing but an echo.
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