Well, it wasn’t a date exactly. Nurse Betty wanted to have someone accompany her to a stag and doe party being hosted by some of her boyfriend’s friends and colleagues. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure what prompted her to go. He’s in
She chose me because I happened to live more or less on the way to this place, which was about a half hour’s drive south of the city. It was a fun drive though. She was glad for the company, and I was glad to actually be doing something with my Saturday night. I learned a bit more about her. I can’t remember exactly how we got onto the topic, but she made a remark about someone hanging himself in his closet, and somehow I felt it was necessary to make as many jokes as I could out of this.
“How many times have I found a body hanging in a closet? It makes me sick. What is that like the cool place to go and hang yourself?”
“Really?” She responded.
I laughed maniacally, trying but failing to compose myself to finish my mean-spirited joke. “Yeah, you know it can be hard to find something to wear when there’s people hanging in your closet. I had to shift aside like four or five of the motherfuckers just to find a decent shirt.”
“I found two people who shot themselves in my home,” she said.
“Why would they shoot themselves in your home? Couldn’t they use their own?”
“My father shot himself one day and I came home and found him. Then later my cousin also shot himself.”
“So your father started a fad.”
This made her crack-up. I got this feeling immediately that maybe I shouldn’t have said that, Somehow she liked that I made a joke rather than responding with hollow sympathies, as is the normal response.
I didn’t say this to her, but I am really sorry. I can only imagine angst, and the sorrow, and most of all, I suppose the loneliness of coming home to find not only your dead father, but the reality that he actually chose it. And finding the cousin is scarier still, because then it starts to look like something genetic is going on. She’s a beautiful person, and she should not have had to deal with that so young. Then again, I suppose no one does. I’m beginning to see why she grew up so fast.
We got to the party, and she made her appearance. She introduced me to her bf’s friends jokingly as his “replacement” for the night. She confided shortly later that she didn’t really want to be there.
“I don’t like half of these people,” she said.
“Then I don’t like them either,” I said. “You know what I don’t like about these people?”
“What?”
“The fact that you don’t like them.”
She laughed.
“What don’t you like about them?” I asked her.
“They’re all just so… I don’t know. They’re cliquey. There’s a whole engineer’s girlfriend’s club that I don’t feel like I’m part of. They’re high society.”
“I dunno, about high society. I mean, look at them. They’re playing beer pong. And they suck at it.”
“They come from money. That’s what I mean.”
And I could relate to that. I suppose most of us can, because most of us don’t. And when you don’t come from money, it can seem like everybody has more. Strangely, I bet people who come from money feel the same way about people who come from more money. I’m also fairly certain there are people who might feel that way about me, though the truth is, I’m poor. I just have very tolerant middle-class parents. Ugh… who haven’t shot themselves.
“Well, I suppose it isn’t about you, is it. It’s about her.” I pointed to the bride-to-be. “It’s all about making that little appearance so she can feel like people give a shit. And we all do it because he fantasize that when our turn comes around, people will show up for our weddings.”
“I’m never getting married,” she said.
“Yeah, it seems like a funny sort of formality, doesn’t it? I mean, why bother?” I said.
“Too many damn people.” It was like I was looking in a mirror.
Somehow, we had fun sitting there in corner, not socializing with the people we really didn’t care for, content to commiserate our distaste for social interactions.
She really is quite captivating, fun and beautiful, and I still have quite the crush on her, but alas, I cannot have her. And really, that’s not a big deal to me. At this point I’ve become accustomed to admiring beautiful women at a distance. It’s like my unemployment issue – you’re unemployed or single long enough, you start to believe it’ll never happen, and you become comfortable with it.
1 comment:
I don't know about the getting used to it part but I do know alot about being unemployed and single and on having crushes on people you can/will never have. Sometimes just being with them is enough because it is really nice being around them, but maybe that is just me. Sounds like a good evening in a bitter sweet sort of way. Boy that woman has been through a lot.
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