at a pizza place the other day i heard a wise man say something true, so true.
he looked about 30, and he was talking with a girl who might have been 17 or 18. they both worked at the place, and were making conversation during a lull in the pizza pie business.
she was talking about her “grandpa” (i haven’t heard that word in a while) and her “grandma” and how they fightt all the time. she didn’t understand why they stayed married so long when all they do is scream at each other.
i wish i could quote his exact words, but the man said something like “the older you get, girl, the more you’re gonna find that people get into relationships so they can fight. they don’t go in to be happy, they go in for conflict.”
true. true. had i known the guy i might have added that to some people anger and drama *are* happiness.
i realize how right he is, moreso lately than at other times, but the past puzzles that comprise my romantic history reveal that most everyone I’ve been with needed that conflict, needed their partner (me) to be a whipping post, needed to have that emotional outlet.
the problem is that i am not an asshole, and i don’t *think* i’m a loser. i have my character flaws but assholery and greed and consummate selfishness are not among them. my ideas of a loving relationships include lots of quiet time, lots of none-conversation, lots of mundane passages of time and torpor. not *too* much of this stuff, of course, but a realistic dosage to inform us both that a relationship is not a continuous experience of infatuation and mutual wonderment.
i’ve had differing feelings about this since youth, now that i think of it. my mother and i were at a place, probably a dining establishment, when she noticed an elderly man and woman dining together in near silence. she saw this and remarked that it was sad. i had not the nerve to disagree with her, but in my mind i thought that those 2 old folks had the serenity and comfort to be together without the needless overlay of conversation.
my father used to make that sort of needless conversation with me. we were at a restaurant one time when, for no reason I could discern, he named someone who was a community board member or maybe a state legislator. this person was *somebody* in the state of Florida, maybe a politico of some stripe, maybe a real estate magnate, maybe a business owner. i don’t remmeber what this person’s distinction was, but my father mentioned his anme and then, as i sat unimpressed and without comment (because i didn’t know what to say) dad sort of stared at the table and in a trailing-off voice said “I know him.” that’s right, dad knew or had some acquaintance with the notable person of local esteem.
was that conversation better than nothing? was i an asshole for not acting more impressed? this was my dad, you know, it’s not like we were trying to become friends or trying to impress each other. and i was a kid, too, never fully sorted-out of the abandonment when dad left us.
but why make excuses for my negative ambivalence? that’s not what i mean. i just don’t understand the assumption that companions existing in conversationless time together is a sad depressing hole of life into which to stare.
i used to know a circle of friends who spent long, long hours in conversation. they would meet at 8pm and talk until the sun came up. one of them was an owner of a bar, the others were customers of his bar who had befriended him. the owner of the bar seemed to have the most to say, seemingly leading the conversation as the others looked on. one of the others had such a sad, doleful look in her eyes s she watched his face, watched his hands accompany his words with accompanying gestures of residual mercy.
i knew each of the individuals in this clique but the combination of them all was impenetrable to me. i never felt qualified to enter the cloister, the walled garden of soulful conversation they seemed to be sharing.
after some weeks a series of contacts among myself and the 4 or 5 members of this circle afforded me an opportunity to enter. with a wave of a hand i was invited in to the inner circle, where i took my much-anticipated seat and prepared to participate in the soul-searching discussions i had observed from across the room.
the conversations were unspeakably mundane. the owner of the pub described the mayonnaise he had purchased that week. he explained why it was a better value ofr the bar than the other mayonnaise. he then explained why certain napkins are a better fit for some bar sthan others. he described what happened after a customer dropped a glass, shattering it on the floor. “Paulo came out with the broom and the bucket to sweep it up, so no one got hurt by the glass.” he explained the decision making process which led him to purchase the shirt he was wearing.
all this bafflingly mundane outlay of conversation met with sympathetic, doleful eyes of his choir. the girls looked almost like they would take their shirts off there at the bar in love and admiration for this man of the world, this seeker of souls.
they were taking about napkins and mayonnaise and i remembered the silence of that elderly couple my mother singled out for dismay. which party had it better?
…..
i was thinking that i should be an asshole. assholes get more attention, hotter girlfriends, and (seriously now) more critical analysis than non-assholes. the words and thoughts and actions of the asshole garner far more scrutiny and consideration than the wishy-washy nice guy. if i could combine my heroic visions of reality and fantasy into an asshole-laced blitzkrieg of detestable dismay then i think i might have a prosperous future.
…..
o, today was a grandiose wander. yesterday, too. 2 great wanders in the old style Sorabji tradition. i still don’t undertsand how i ended up in Forest Hills today, but when i landed on Yellowstone Boulevard I guess I knew i was lost. lost is good when all you have to do is take a straight path to be sure you’ll find yourself somewhere near a subway or bus in the 5 boroughs.
today i learned that NYC has “Crescents”. in Rego Park I found myself walking hte arched roadway of Cromwell Crescent, a bafflingly serene residential neighborhood so quiet i could hear my brain creak. it was like suburban Florida, suburban Tampa, that place of such unbelievable quiet.
