Steve claims he is not capable of love. We're never sure if he's serious given his half-crazy attitude and outlook on life (a cultured sense of difference that by now could be reflexive) but tonight as always he was at least adamant. And impervious to opinion and analysis outside himself. I am not sure why I delight so much in conversation with this gadfly although after two hours of intense back and forth nonsense I finally understood his essential argument and all of its delightful generalizations and flaws. I am not sure if he could ever say the same for me - we can know so little of what truly exists in anyone's head and his stubbornness of observation suggests that I, by comparison, plausibly hold some of the same characteristics. Maybe that's what I see in Steve - a more liberated (from social strictures and control) version of myself, for better or worse, spouting nonsense in a momentary attempt to gain some kind of grasp on a world that always seems to slip one step ahead, into the breech, twisting up craggy caves and through whispered silences looking for the comfort of an accepting voice.
I had a strange moment this afternoon talking my almost-a-citizen office mate who is apparently being pursued by two men, one of whom has only sent a lackey to check out the situation and one who is a student in her class. Neither, I believe, she finds worth the attention of even writing these few sentences but we got to talking (as we often do) over Mr. Goodbars and Krakels melting on our tongues and I was drawn back into the surreal moment of my last year in college which I remember so vividly and yet indistinctly - like a vibrant glimmering haze of image and emotion and speech that exists too intensely to be properly remembered. I have had few such experiences in my life that are simultaneously manifest and clouded but this is one where the murky recollection protects me and I am happier for it. I should have seen it coming - I thought it was just a game like it was for so many other residents, a casual comment, a flirtatious glance - I never stopped to wonder at the intent or the gleam in his eyes. I reached out like a good RA to the quiet, less social student in him and we would eat and talk and laugh and learn about each other and I felt good, doing my job. And apparently he liked it too. But I was not prepared for the evening he came in through my open door towards me at my desk and with the utmost sincerity confided his knowledge of our mutual entrapment in other relationships and the rightness of our connection. That we were somehow meant for each other but could never attain any union. I remember turning red, fumbling for words, stammering out some question of what or how or why. I don't remember what I ended up saying or how he left, though it was soon after, but I knew the turmoil in me for what it was - the flattery, the curiosity, the feeling of violation. I hadn't wanted the approach, I am still not sure what prompted it that day or, more frighteningly, what convinced him to speak so boldly without any knowing encouragement on my side. The intensity of his stare and speech frightened me in a way that I have almost never been emotionally overwhelmed and I wanted to apologize for the misunderstanding, beg his forgiveness although for what I am not sure. And some part of me, low and quiet, wondered if there was any truth in his words but that I cast aside quickly because my curiosity of relationships never seems to end. There are infinite possibilities in life and I sit here, silent, thinking of too many to write. But I was happy in my position and I clung to that with the surety of a lifeboat watching this unexpected and unwanted possibility sink into the depths to be forever lost. I haven't thought of this moment, or the weeks until the end of the year that followed, stilted and embarrassed on both our sides until today, with my almost-citizen, and I wonder what happened to him and I wonder if I shall ever be caught so off my guard with such a frenzy of panic again. I am not sure if the living of it has an exhilaration that I lack in my concrete block, silent room, staring at the dark night through the open blinds.
