Our eyes had met when we were scanning thru the crowd and glanced back at each other instinctively. Your look said it all. For that one moment, there was a window that had opened up within you. You were at a bar, with people you wouldn't normally meet. The judgments of strangers didn't count or gash at you as much as the ones from friends did. The fact that your life didn't end up the bed of roses that you'd proclaimed it would. Theirs didn't either, but you were always better than them. You had never said that to them, but they knew it by the way you walked with your head held high and your chin up. While they slowly tumbled like bowling pins to rules and compromises, you told them about how you were still having an amazing time. And how that day would never arrive when your life ceased to be spectacular.
Exaggeration was your antidote to the truth. Your mornings started with it and the day wore you down until you couldn't get yourself to, anymore. Creating drama out of nothing led you to keep yourself engaged, anything to keep those dark thoughts from creeping into your mind. The complicated ones, which mocked you and told you it wasn't only about today but 5, 10 and 20 years from now. The future that you hadn't planned for, the one that you had no clue about. You lived, instead, for the moment. And your priorities were far hedonistic than they once were. Wait, weren't you supposed to be growing older with age?
You wore your prized accessory around your arm. He wasn't half as bad as what people around you ended up with. He was always there, interested in you and seemed like a decent person that would keep you happy. Yet there you were, in that bar, making conversation with people in the hope that you could live vicariously thru someone else's life. Or even meet someone who was out of the ordinary. You did meet a couple of them that seemed like they could be that, but you shrugged them off and hoped they wouldn't give up that easy. They did. They'd seen the ring on your finger and weren't interested in wasting time. They moved on, to the next girl in the bar who was available. That was the game; you were in that market not too long ago and had loved the attention. Not that you didn't get it anymore, but it wasn't the same. It never would be.
You would never be able to meet someone who could blow your mind away. You could never start a great conversation and enjoy a few drinks. If you did, you'd never want to exchange contacts and take him up on his suggestion to go to the next dive bar to continue the riveting conversation you were having. And if you did cross those barriers with the feeling of guilt eating away at you, you would definitely not want to dance the night away at the club that was playing those songs you listened to in college and knew the words for. And end the night with the best meal at the food cart with that spicy food.
That was the past. You tell yourself that you've graduated from that phase, but you know you haven't. It's a rush that you've missed for a while. The kind that you've apparently signed out of, for the rest of eternity. And now, you're supposed to live with the TV that has sports playing for more hours than you care for. And conversation comes but at a price. And so does everything else.
And as our eyes met, we acknowledge one another and introduce ourselves. We talk casually, size each other up about what we do and where we live. We've both met those that work at a pharmacy and pretend to be all high and mighty. And those that work at investment banks carrying coffee but act like they own a part of town. We didn't want to spend any time with either of those ends of the spectrum. We wanted to have a good conversation. Not about the Nets or the Jets, or the Mets. And definitely not about the weather or the city or the restaurants. We were looking for something more meaningful. The kind of conversation one felt passionate about and almost never ends up having, because those that weren't included often intrude with a lame comment about something half-funny that everyone else is forced to fake laugh to and acknowledge. Like how the DJ is so bad or the song they are playing is their favorite song of all time - even if they've said that twice already and it's probably Justin Beiber's track.
So we end up conversing for a while about travel and sharing our views on a part of the world that we've both visited. And I'm glad we agree travel doesn't mean Western Europe because everyone growing up in the US had a school trip that took them there. And we are starting to have a nice time, until that friend of yours comes up and whispers something into your ear. And being polite, I excuse myself out of that conversation as our eyes meet one last time. I know what you're wishing for. And perhaps, I'm wishing for something similar. But we'll never find out where that conversation could've taken us. Because, we're both on our own paths and there isn't a point where those intersect. We just hadn't met at the right time and the right place.
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