Social Sapping

Off and about, the days shoot by, taking and manipulating energies with it. For me, social energy is a mysterious cycle of joy and strain. I seek the positive balance and have never figured out how. It’s entirely person-dependent. With some, there’s no issue of balance at all. That’s rare, though. For just about everyone else, even close friends, my tank hits E, for escape, after a few hours, depending on other things. But enough. Here’s how it’s been.

Friday during the day, while I worked, while I had my time away from The German, her friend from Italy, a skinny chick with big sunglasses and gold buckles on her handbag, arrived from her current city, Toronto, to visit. They knew each other from Bangladesh days when they were both doing import/export about 5 years ago. Since the German would be up east on the continent, they decided to rendezvous at my place. I said it was OK, unsure of what was to come.

I instructed The German to take her friend to meet me at Dinosaur BBQ around 6p that night, Friday night, and that I’d go there straight from work. During the day I had enticed three curious coworkers enough to join.

When we (my coworkers and I) arrived, the German and Skinny Italy were at the bar area sipping pina coladas, happily. I ordered a pitcher of beer and the first round of sampler platters, and thus began a long evening of consumption.

It was fun and fine and we drank and chatted and shared and laughed. After a couple hours and reaching and overreaching our capacities as eaters and drinkers we headed out to the water. The sun had already set, but the sky was beautiful, a rosy pink behind crisp clouds swirling below a deep, darkening blue sky. We stood and chatted, leaning over metal railings made for elbows and looked at the water and the bridge and the lights as they appeared in the high-rises on the opposite shore, over in Jersey and all agreed it was a great night.

We walked north and east, back towards bway and to the subway, and along the way lost two people to the best grocery store in the city. OK later, guys.

That left four of us heading up that road under the old gorgeous bridge, the one with Riverside Drive on top, the one with the diamond shapes in the struts and ties. We walked up past a nightclub called Phuket. Suggestive?  We continued to the Scary Stairs, a giant staircase that heads up and into a gigantic wall, 30 meters high of solid granite.

The scary stairs smell like piss. The scary stairs have one big turn that you can’t see around. The scary stairs usually have mysterious bags left on them. The scary stairs induce sweat, even in winter. We got to the top and the three girls were chatting away. Before I knew it, the four of us were headed up to my place.

We walked in and people made themselves comfortable very quickly, thankfully, the chairs and couch and table. I had beer and Conchasa from Brazil and everyone wanted to try it. I put on soft proto punk rock from the late 60s, The Modern Lovers. The Seeds. The Kinks. Doctors of Madness. The Monks. They were into it all, or at least pretended to be.

Time went on and I knew we’d end up having a foursome.

Riiiiiight.

Skinny Italy began to become sincerely irritating to me.  She had a habit of repeating back everything I said immediately after I said it, and then making comments that didn’t mean anything, or need to be said at all. This happened many times over the next few days. An example that comes to mind:

Me: “So, these cobble stones are the originals, it turns out that they don’t move at all once they’re in place. The only reason they were covered up in NYC was for the skinny car wheels when the Model T came out.”   

Skinny Italy: “Oh I love cobble stones. They’re so flat, you know? They have these edges, like, with corners. My grandmother really liked cobble stones. I’ve always liked them very much. Some people hate them, and I never understood why. I never got that. Why don’t people like cobble stones. I love them.” 

It sounds innocuous, but over time…

Me: “That building, the one with the gold statue on top,  is the Municipal Building.” 

Skinny Italy: “Oh, I love those. They’re so big. Toronto has one. I like Municipal building doors. A guy I dated, Mikail, he liked them. We used to see them. Some people hate them and I’m like, why? I love them? I don’t believe in criticizing them. We have them too. They’re so great.”

No hatred. Just exhaustion.

It was my first time having three girls over at once. It seems like we should at least have had a naked pillow fight or something. But Skinny Italy wrecked the mood constantly. “Oh I like guitar music. Some people hate it but I like it. It sounds so good, why do people hate it. I never understood that. I’m against it because I really like guitars and their music, it’s so nice. A guy I dated liked guitars too so we both did at that time. We used to say how much we liked it.”

The next day we did SoHo and Meatpacking and shopped. I got a new shirt that I’m wearing right now from a store called The Earnest Sewn.

(I’ve learned that when you find a collar shit that fits nicely, you should just get it. Now I have five collar shirts, so no repeats within a week at work. That’s nice).

Then we went to East Village and the German got a cool jacket on St. Marks place. I kept wanting to run into my ex, who lives near there, so she could see that I’m not just staying home alone all the time. I wonder if she’d be happy about that, or unhappy about that. Whenever I start to wonder about those kinds of things I have to make myself stop because it still hurts sometimes.

We next walked north until we reached Curry Hill and had a huge vegetarian Indian feast at a favorite restaurant of mine called Vatan. We left and walked over to K-town to have a look, up through Bryant Park and past Macy’s and then west to the 1 train and headed home. I was exhausted and peopled out. When we got home they wanted drinks and stories but I was spent. I said I needed to do some things and went in my room and closed the door, took a shower and was in bed by 12a. Whew.

Sunday: Chinatown, walk to Brooklyn Bridge and over to the Dumbo area for cafes and galleries and to sit in a park. Much sun. Much chitchat. Much tuning out.

I mean, I really was having a fine time, not especially fun but it was bearable. But I was getting really worn down by exposure– to people, and specifically to the same people for so long. I really had a bad inner attitude by about lunch and I had to try hard to hide it. People shouldn’t spend too much time around me because I’ll get increasingly distant in interaction. Eventually, whenever the Skinny Italian would say something, I just wouldn’t respond. Sometimes she’d ask a question and I wouldn’t even answer. I felt like such a shithead but I couldn’t control it. I’m just not able to spend day after day after day socializing. In a platoon, it’s fine. You’re doing stuff that doesn’t involve chitchat. Everyone equally does not wish to make small talk. But in a group of people chatting for the sake of it, the energy that it takes me to fake enjoyment eventually runs out and I get pissy. Very few people don’t cause this within me, it’s been that way always.  I knew it would be hard to explain if either of them had asked about my mood. Eventually I said I needed to go do some work and please keep exploring Dumbo and I’ll catch them before bed later.

I made my escape up on the Jay St. stop and took an F to Broadway Lafayette and…

once off the train and over on Prince St, I had a strange experience. I need to describe it. But I can’t right now because I’m out of time. Continued tomorrow!

Tomorrow I’m a free man.

Have a great Monday.