Fortune Favors The Bold

Think Small

natashavc:

The most difficult thing, the most deafening thing, in conversations with strangers is what they don’t say. Especially attractive strangers. But the mood I often take on is chartiable, there are morsels to savor if you ask the right questions (right?). 

We had spotted him in the first row and decided he was just too attractive and put together to be anything but gay or stupid. I watched for signs throughout the performance. How he positioned his legs, how he politely clapped. What would I say? I started thinking of a cold open but in truth, I’m losing my nerve for it. The minor rejections feel pointless and often chip away at something inside of me. I have told myself that if any one is warm to me when they talk I will be warm back otherwise I will keep to myself. This is a newer quality I’ve developed that I dislike. It points to something hardened and cynical me. A withering of enthusiasm; a quality I dislike in other people. Until recently, I always found myself to be fearless with other people, admittedly, at times to a fault. I don’t like when I have to be stiff and guarded. And every time I am, out of fear of being rejected, I feel as though I am losing a sense of myself I will never get back. When and why did this happen to me? I don’t like to think about it, even though I do think about it, and I flinch every time. 

My friend Raphael was friends with some one who the man in the first row was chatting with at the bar. Here we go. I take a breath and smile. We are introduced. I get an indifferent but just polite enough glance from him.

 I start talking. I ask, “What do you do?”

“I work in advertising,” he replies.

“What company?” I say, smiling.

“Ogilvy and Mather.”

Excitedly I say, “I wrote a book about Ogilvy! I researched him for months. I’m obsessed with him! I wrote about him and Leo Burnett.” I think this will give us something to say to each other. 

“Cool.” He nods.

And I knead my hands. Pressing my knuckles into my palm, I try to figure out what other way I can get a volley back and forth. The non-conversation between the four of us continues for 30 more seconds.

Then Raphael interrupts, “Wait, did you hear her? She said she wrote a book about the company you work for! You don’t have anything else to say? That’s amazing that you have nothing to say to that!” Raphael starts laughing. 

The advertising man, with the expensive haircut, and symmetrical features does not know how to respond. Now I am laughing and I feel a huge tension leave my chest. My cheek twitches and I realize I want to cry from absurdity, loneliness, and for having a really amazing friend. 

The ad man, I think to match us, gets down on one knee and says some purposefully insincere compliment about me and my book. It makes us laugh even harder at him. The lights start to dim. The second act is starting. Raphael and I walk off shaking our heads. I squeeze his shoulder and thank him. He says, “it was nothing.”

It was everything.