2. I have a tendency to come to incorrect conclusions about stuff that doesn’t matter to provide everyone with false closure and shut them the hell up.
3. I have the ability to, for whatever reasons, get people to open up and go into long-winded conversations about weird aspects of their lives for no better reason than the fact that they had to tell “somebody” and hey, I’m somebody.
"Sebastian was stuck in a place I’ve never been, in a place it must really suck to be in."
Number one won’t become a column until all the lawyers are done, and you could easily argue that 90% of my columns are proof of number two, but number three... well number three hit me in the face like a ton of brick shithouses wrapped in a bitch slap a few days ago when I decided (surprise) to head on up to a bar and get my drink on.
While up at said bar, I got to talking with some people. I made some jokes and some people laughed and we got to talking about all kinds of random topics. Everything from internet porn, the upcoming baseball season, foot fetishes, chicks who liked giving foot jobs, alcoholism, March Madness… it was a good bull session.
Later, because time is not as finite as my bladder, I went to the bathroom and did what people do in bathrooms when not doing cocaine. When I came out, one of the gentlemen from that bull session grabbed me by the shirt.
“You’re Nate DeGraaf, right?”
“Why?” I asked.
I don’t like people knowing my last name.
“Calm down, dude. My name’s Sebastian. I just moved here from California and I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.”
Like I’m Dr. Phil or some shit, right?
“Sure,” I said. Then added, “You’re buying.”
He then told me a story, which weirded me the fuck out. Here it goes, in a paraphrased manner of course (see thing 2 up above).
“Dude,” he said. “I love your column.”
Now I like this guy. I mean, now Sebastian is my friend.
“You probably get that a lot, though,” he added.
I don’t, at least not in person, but I still nodded (my ego is large).
As Sebastian settled into his story, I found my mind wondering. Blah blah blah, girlfriend. Blah blah blah, not sure about love. Blah blah blah, arguments. Blah blah blah, thinking about breaking up with her. Blah blah blah, car accident kills her…
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah man, she died in a car accident after five months of dating her. Which sucked because I wasn’t sure if I really loved her.”
Then Sebastian, that poor bastard, started telling me stories about how he wasn’t 100% on the girl but had already met her parents, how he was kind of setting up some side ass in anticipation of the inevitable break up, how he had stolen his apartment key back from her because he just didn’t see the relationship progressing, and then bam! She up and dies on him.
So now this poor bastard’s had to attend funerals, had to host vigils and spend time with all of his dead girlfriend’s friends all the while keeping to himself little things like how their last talk had been an argument, taking back the aforementioned key, looking for new chicks, starting to hate her laugh, and thinking that the sex was getting stale.
“It’s like,” he said, “everyone is telling me that I have to get in touch with my feelings, that it’s okay to cry and express my pain, except… and this hurts to say because it makes me sound like an asshole, I didn’t want her anymore and I guess God did, but I couldn’t like stand up and declare to everyone she knew that though I was sorry she died, I was glad she was out of my life. I’d have looked like an asshole.”
Sebastian was stuck in a place I’ve never been, in a place it must really suck to be in. Sebastian had lost a liked-one. He’d had one of many failed relationships, of which we can all attest, and his ended tragically and trapped him into months of pseudo-mourning. The truth wouldn’t help him any more than the lies would.
“Wow man, that is a hard situation.”
As I had no advice, I paid for our tab.
In case you were looking for it, this story has no moral.
