Thinking in stories
It really sucks, sometimes, experiencing a story in a moment.
I met a man last night who broke my heart in 15 minutes.
He was a young surgical resident, and he was very, very drunk. He was sitting at the bar all alone, drinking his beer and trying to engage the people around him in conversation. I sat next to him, but promptly pulled out my phone and set to ignoring him so I could drink my single beer in peace.
He boozily leaned in too close, tapped me on the arm, and said "I'm sorry for interrupting, but if you could go ANYWHERE to eat right now, where would it be?"
I replied with "You're totally NOT sorry to be interrupting, and I don't know. It depends on things. Like, anywhere in the world, or anywhere around here? Are you looking for a recommendation, or starting a conversation about things we love?"
"NO NO NO NO!!! I mean, yes, you're right. I'm not sorry for interrupting. But c'mon. FOOD. No excuses. Where would you go??"
One would think, at this point, that this man was rude. And one would be right. But I got a whiff of East Coast off him, and I was charmed in spite of myself. He made me laugh. We proceeded to have a conversation about food in the area, and the conversation managed to work itself around to how he was from San Diego, living in Manhattan, and how much he hated Boston. And Jersey. And Dallas, TX. He hated a lot of things, honestly. Very judgmental guy.
And then a young couple came in and sat on the other side of him. The young woman was beautiful in a very specific way, corn silk hair, big blue eyes, giant teeth, blemished skin hidden by lots of makeup. Her boyfriend was a big, goofy looking dude wearing a cool hat that he was very not comfortable in. They looked like recent transplants from the middle of America, and indeed, they were.
The guy I was talking to zoomed in on the woman, and it took him a little bit to realize that the looming, rather hulking presence next to her was her boyfriend. Upon being ignored by the woman, he turned back to me and started a conversation about hipsters, and how freaking annoying they were, and how they were fucking everywhere in Brooklyn. "A fucking virus, they are" he said, rolling back a bit in his stool and very, very obviously pointing at the couple next to him and rolling his eyes at me.
How did this obnoxious man break my heart? By talking, very honestly and openly, about death. About how he would want to die, about how he thinks everyone should die, about managed health care in the US, and what it means to be elderly in this world. We talked about what it was like to be a surgeon, and to have to make a decision about operating on a perfectly healthy 80yr old woman whom you would get a 30% reduction on your pay for treating because she was a higher risk to the hospital than the 50yr old morbidly obese man with gallstones.
We talked about natural selection, and what it means in the this world. He started off by saying that it was no longer a facet in our world, that natural selection had been supplanted by antibiotics and modern medicine. I argued that it had simply become a larger scale, society wide phenomenon, and for every person we saved with modern medicine, we killed another 3 with modern technology and modern lack of giving a shit. He talked about how horrible extended death was, for everyone. I talked about my friends who had made that extended time beautiful, who'd done wonderful things for their families in the time before they died, who'd taken the knowledge of imminent death and used it to spur them on to blazes of short lived glory that benefited the world around them.
He talked about how he never wanted to become old, and dependent, and sad. How he'd rather die first, quickly and in his sleep. He talked about how the world should kill of it's elderly people, because they were useless and they knew it. And I told him that I would never, ever want someone like him making decisions about whether I lived or died, because life could be beautiful right up to the end, and I intended to prove it. That just because we live in a society that makes its elders useless doesn't mean they are, and that it was our responsibility to create families and communities that wouldn't let us die alone and miserable.
And I could feel him sinking into my softness. I could feel him latching onto my sense of beauty and rolling himself up in it. There's no other way to put it. The more we talked, the softer his eyes became, and the more he literally reached out to me, grabbing my hands and my arm, leaning in and breathing my air. He so desperately wanted to be HAPPY. To lose his cynicism and to love what he does again. He wanted to see medicine, to see surgery, as a noble life again. It had been beaten out of him, and all he could think about medicine now was how much it had cost him, and how it had become a trap that he could never leave. So, the more we talked, the more idealistic I found myself becoming. I can be a dark, dark person. I can be incredibly cynical, and I can look at the world as a horrible place. But around this man, I was freaking Ghandi, because that is what he desperately wanted.
So, I loved who I became around him. I bloomed into this person who makes ME happy, and he fed that and watered it and we sat there in a bubble for a good 2hrs, with our souls swirling around us.
And the whole time this was happening, this wonderful, silly connection was forming, I watched his face. He had sharp features, with deep set, incredibly intense eyes, and cheekbones like the scalpels he worked with. His hands were long and thin, constantly moving, incredibly expressive. He was drunk, and rather stupid with it. But even through the haze of alcohol his brain sang with a sharp, brazen tone. He was handsome, but when I first sat down next to him I wasn't remotely attracted to him. And he wasn't remotely attracted to me. We were so not each others types. The more we talked, though, the more attracted and attractive to me he became, to the point where, when he grabbed my hand there was actual chemistry. Our bodies started producing pheromones based on nothing more than our conversation. I watched his eyes dilate when he touched me, and I felt my body respond to that.
But, in the end, I got up and walked away. I went to the bathroom, after rather abruptly saying goodbye, and when I came back he had left.
And I did it because I saw our story roll out ahead of us, and it scared me. He loved me for a night, while he fed on my goodness and light. And then he'd wake up and realize that the real world doesn't work that way. That he doesn't want the real world to work that way, because that would mean standing up for what he believes in while shouldering the burden of $300,000 of debt and no way to pay it off without sacrificing a LOT. He'd look at me and see a body he couldn't show off, a brain he couldn't be better than, and morals that would make him feel bad about himself.
And I'd love who I was around him for those hours, and when he walked away I'd have a harder time distinguishing what I truly believed, how much of who I was around him was real and how much crafted from need. I'd look at him and see another failed attempt at validating my sense of beauty in the world, another man unworthy of anything but a moment of my time.
He'd walk away a little more tightly encased in his shell, his cynicism clutched even closer as a shield against disappointment. And I'd walk away a little less real, my boundaries and sense of self just a little fuzzier.
We wouldn't have had a grand love story. He wouldn't have quit his residency in Manhattan and started working with Doctors Without Borders, taking me along with him. And even for that one night, that one moment, he'd have done his damndest to prove my view of the world wrong. He'd have tried to tear my down, just to show himself that the world really was as dark as he'd taught himself to believe it was. And I'd have let him, because his need would have driven our encounter.
I KNEW that, knew it the way you know that last beer is going to hurt later, that last bite of a perfect meal is going to be too much. And I was able to walk away this time. I don't know if it was an expanding sense of self control, or simply a stronger sense of self preservation.
It was a beautiful story in the beginning, and a sad one at the end. I drove home more than a little heartbroken, a tiny little tempest in a teapot, and I cursed my inability to not follow a story through to the end before the end actually happens. I know that, by doing that, I create the end myself. I may very well have been wrong, I may have lost a thread of happiness in the tapestry of my life.
But I don't think so. I'm pretty glad I didn't follow up on that particular possible reality. I think it would have hurt, and I don't think I would have learned anything truly useful from it.
I met a man last night who broke my heart in 15 minutes.
He was a young surgical resident, and he was very, very drunk. He was sitting at the bar all alone, drinking his beer and trying to engage the people around him in conversation. I sat next to him, but promptly pulled out my phone and set to ignoring him so I could drink my single beer in peace.
He boozily leaned in too close, tapped me on the arm, and said "I'm sorry for interrupting, but if you could go ANYWHERE to eat right now, where would it be?"
I replied with "You're totally NOT sorry to be interrupting, and I don't know. It depends on things. Like, anywhere in the world, or anywhere around here? Are you looking for a recommendation, or starting a conversation about things we love?"
"NO NO NO NO!!! I mean, yes, you're right. I'm not sorry for interrupting. But c'mon. FOOD. No excuses. Where would you go??"
One would think, at this point, that this man was rude. And one would be right. But I got a whiff of East Coast off him, and I was charmed in spite of myself. He made me laugh. We proceeded to have a conversation about food in the area, and the conversation managed to work itself around to how he was from San Diego, living in Manhattan, and how much he hated Boston. And Jersey. And Dallas, TX. He hated a lot of things, honestly. Very judgmental guy.
And then a young couple came in and sat on the other side of him. The young woman was beautiful in a very specific way, corn silk hair, big blue eyes, giant teeth, blemished skin hidden by lots of makeup. Her boyfriend was a big, goofy looking dude wearing a cool hat that he was very not comfortable in. They looked like recent transplants from the middle of America, and indeed, they were.
The guy I was talking to zoomed in on the woman, and it took him a little bit to realize that the looming, rather hulking presence next to her was her boyfriend. Upon being ignored by the woman, he turned back to me and started a conversation about hipsters, and how freaking annoying they were, and how they were fucking everywhere in Brooklyn. "A fucking virus, they are" he said, rolling back a bit in his stool and very, very obviously pointing at the couple next to him and rolling his eyes at me.
How did this obnoxious man break my heart? By talking, very honestly and openly, about death. About how he would want to die, about how he thinks everyone should die, about managed health care in the US, and what it means to be elderly in this world. We talked about what it was like to be a surgeon, and to have to make a decision about operating on a perfectly healthy 80yr old woman whom you would get a 30% reduction on your pay for treating because she was a higher risk to the hospital than the 50yr old morbidly obese man with gallstones.
We talked about natural selection, and what it means in the this world. He started off by saying that it was no longer a facet in our world, that natural selection had been supplanted by antibiotics and modern medicine. I argued that it had simply become a larger scale, society wide phenomenon, and for every person we saved with modern medicine, we killed another 3 with modern technology and modern lack of giving a shit. He talked about how horrible extended death was, for everyone. I talked about my friends who had made that extended time beautiful, who'd done wonderful things for their families in the time before they died, who'd taken the knowledge of imminent death and used it to spur them on to blazes of short lived glory that benefited the world around them.
He talked about how he never wanted to become old, and dependent, and sad. How he'd rather die first, quickly and in his sleep. He talked about how the world should kill of it's elderly people, because they were useless and they knew it. And I told him that I would never, ever want someone like him making decisions about whether I lived or died, because life could be beautiful right up to the end, and I intended to prove it. That just because we live in a society that makes its elders useless doesn't mean they are, and that it was our responsibility to create families and communities that wouldn't let us die alone and miserable.
And I could feel him sinking into my softness. I could feel him latching onto my sense of beauty and rolling himself up in it. There's no other way to put it. The more we talked, the softer his eyes became, and the more he literally reached out to me, grabbing my hands and my arm, leaning in and breathing my air. He so desperately wanted to be HAPPY. To lose his cynicism and to love what he does again. He wanted to see medicine, to see surgery, as a noble life again. It had been beaten out of him, and all he could think about medicine now was how much it had cost him, and how it had become a trap that he could never leave. So, the more we talked, the more idealistic I found myself becoming. I can be a dark, dark person. I can be incredibly cynical, and I can look at the world as a horrible place. But around this man, I was freaking Ghandi, because that is what he desperately wanted.
So, I loved who I became around him. I bloomed into this person who makes ME happy, and he fed that and watered it and we sat there in a bubble for a good 2hrs, with our souls swirling around us.
And the whole time this was happening, this wonderful, silly connection was forming, I watched his face. He had sharp features, with deep set, incredibly intense eyes, and cheekbones like the scalpels he worked with. His hands were long and thin, constantly moving, incredibly expressive. He was drunk, and rather stupid with it. But even through the haze of alcohol his brain sang with a sharp, brazen tone. He was handsome, but when I first sat down next to him I wasn't remotely attracted to him. And he wasn't remotely attracted to me. We were so not each others types. The more we talked, though, the more attracted and attractive to me he became, to the point where, when he grabbed my hand there was actual chemistry. Our bodies started producing pheromones based on nothing more than our conversation. I watched his eyes dilate when he touched me, and I felt my body respond to that.
But, in the end, I got up and walked away. I went to the bathroom, after rather abruptly saying goodbye, and when I came back he had left.
And I did it because I saw our story roll out ahead of us, and it scared me. He loved me for a night, while he fed on my goodness and light. And then he'd wake up and realize that the real world doesn't work that way. That he doesn't want the real world to work that way, because that would mean standing up for what he believes in while shouldering the burden of $300,000 of debt and no way to pay it off without sacrificing a LOT. He'd look at me and see a body he couldn't show off, a brain he couldn't be better than, and morals that would make him feel bad about himself.
And I'd love who I was around him for those hours, and when he walked away I'd have a harder time distinguishing what I truly believed, how much of who I was around him was real and how much crafted from need. I'd look at him and see another failed attempt at validating my sense of beauty in the world, another man unworthy of anything but a moment of my time.
He'd walk away a little more tightly encased in his shell, his cynicism clutched even closer as a shield against disappointment. And I'd walk away a little less real, my boundaries and sense of self just a little fuzzier.
We wouldn't have had a grand love story. He wouldn't have quit his residency in Manhattan and started working with Doctors Without Borders, taking me along with him. And even for that one night, that one moment, he'd have done his damndest to prove my view of the world wrong. He'd have tried to tear my down, just to show himself that the world really was as dark as he'd taught himself to believe it was. And I'd have let him, because his need would have driven our encounter.
I KNEW that, knew it the way you know that last beer is going to hurt later, that last bite of a perfect meal is going to be too much. And I was able to walk away this time. I don't know if it was an expanding sense of self control, or simply a stronger sense of self preservation.
It was a beautiful story in the beginning, and a sad one at the end. I drove home more than a little heartbroken, a tiny little tempest in a teapot, and I cursed my inability to not follow a story through to the end before the end actually happens. I know that, by doing that, I create the end myself. I may very well have been wrong, I may have lost a thread of happiness in the tapestry of my life.
But I don't think so. I'm pretty glad I didn't follow up on that particular possible reality. I think it would have hurt, and I don't think I would have learned anything truly useful from it.
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