Another Origami Nothing

Maybe I’m trying to see shape, structure, where there is none. Good morning. Glass of ginger tea. Paper tag mangled: a little origami nothing. Now let’s unscrunch last Thursday. Wow, has it been a week already?

I didn’t see him, not at first, even though he was right in front of me, approaching. I scanned the tables outside, unfamiliar faces, and made to go inside – and that’s when I saw him. Quite small, very thin, dressed in dull blues and greys, a windbreaker. He’d almost camouflaged into the pavement, the drab greens and browns of the street trees, the grey of the evening sky. He took up so little space that I genuinely hadn’t seen him.

I kissed both his cheeks – very almost kissed him on the lips, internally scolded myself. Don’t know why it happened. A little unhinged? A sense of familiarity?

But I’d already decided I wasn’t attracted to him. Often the case with online dating. We took a seat outside, laying our things—phones, wallet, cigarettes—around a wet lump of bird shit on the table which he (attractively, in hindsight) didn’t fuss over. Laid his smoked cigarettes right beside it, actually. Hand-rolled, no filters, brown, sad and soggy, twisted at the end like those tiny explosives that kids toss at the pavement – pop!

Three cigarettes and two pints later, I was seeing him differently, fascinated by the shift in perspective. My internal dialogue observed the transformation as he spoke about code as a language, as something beautiful. At this proximity, he came into focus like the Snellen chart and I could point out all his tumbling E’s. We struggle to see the fine details at a distance, I suppose – visually, emotionally.

And as he spoke about authors I’ve never read, a bunch of someone-vsky’s, his mind started to take up all the space his body didn’t, and by the end of the night he was quite tall. Long and lanky, smoking a cigarette by the terrace. Half inside, half out.

He’d just convinced me not to leave after telling me I looked like Keira Knightley (I don’t) and a girl he’d had a crush on growing up. And, by the way, the girl we ran into downstairs was quite pretty, wasn’t she? It was mean, he’d confessed, and he’d said it defensively to create distance. Interesting confession. Honest. So, I’d taken off my shoes again and dived right back under the covers. Clean sheets. A book on the nightstand. Happy again, hands flapping, foot thumping against the mattress like a dog’s tail.

“You’re crazy,” he said, “but cute.” Thick, black-brown eyebrows. A toke of his cigarette.

And he was right – I am kind of crazy, but the acknowledgement of it felt liberating. I felt seen, accepted. Sure, it’s reasonable to be upset about blowing somebody and having them, a moment later, say the neighbour’s pretty. I mean, it’s basic self-respect. Staring up at the ceiling and crying, however, was not the appropriate response. Leaving would have been, but I didn’t mind the apology, the holding of my hand, the transparency. It was kind of like yes, you’re a crying lunatic and I’m rude, but please stay. Unless you want to go, of course, but I’d rather you not. Come on, he’d said, we spent 12 amazing hours together. Sweet, his voice. Delicate.

Unhealthy behaviour, right? I’m leaving. Don’t. I’m leaving. Don’t. Toxic, even. Maladaptive. Defensive. Refreshing, though, to be accepted.

And his bedroom felt like home, whatever that is. I felt welcome. Haven’t felt like that since I was a teenager. My then-boyfriend and I’d spend entire weekends in his bedroom, eating cheese on toast and playing Guitar Hero, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

Anyway, I was overly affectionate as though I already knew him, and no, I won’t blame it on the oxytocin or the dopamine rush of novelty. OK, maybe the latter played a role, but only because I was excited to feel something for somebody, to appreciate both their mind and body. And he was quite pretty, really. Prettier than I am. In an odd way. In a clumsily elegant kind of way as though he’d fallen into elegance or stumbled onto it as though onto a stage. I can still see him hunched over a mug of cereal, standing by a moka pot on the stove top. It’s strange the mental images we store of others, of trivial but tender moments. Banal. I’m an octopus collecting souvenirs like shells and stones, a suit of armour, camouflage. Do I fit in now? Moments of normalcy, of affection, of belonging. I didn’t mean to wrap my tentacles around you. Suffocating, I’ve been called. By a psychologist (I’d call her a bitch but it’d make you question my sanity).

Anyway, I felt alive again. Hopeful. It wasn’t limerence nor lust, just an appreciation of someone’s mind. Comfort. It’s not often that I get to live in the present. Never want to. Underwhelming. Disenchanting. Still, I won’t fill the void with just anybody. I won’t fill this space with an arbitrary yes. I need to save it, keep it open for somebody who fits. This connection, however, was one I was willing to pursue. Unrequited, though. How is a connection unrequited? His smile reached his eyes. Caught him looking at me as I did my hair. He laughed, truly, when I kissed him or burrowed my nose in his armpit – don’t ask. He felt like cup noodles in winter, pizza and pyjamas in bed, pages beneath a bedside lamp, a Bible in the drawer of a nightstand. And it was nice to actually meet someone beneath the surface, to imbue the external with new connotations determined by their depths. A pleasant reminder that people are beautiful just as they are, beyond beauty standards and gender roles. To rediscover that beauty again was an Indian burn, painful but lovely – it stung but the aching naïveté can’t help but make me smile still.

Such an interesting person. Such interesting features: a dance of strength and delicacy. An aquiline nose, imperial. Graceful, he was, hip bones protruding as he stretched, T-shirt revealing a shy snail trail over his mocha skin, belly button yawning. His torso so long, so pretty. Effeminate, the kind I’d usually shy away from as though they were embarrassing to be seen with. I suppose genuinely liking somebody removes the shame, though, and inspires us to just be. I was comfortable with my body, with my hair. Didn’t think twice. He just was, and now I think we belong to an earlier generation, to the days of yellow crooked teeth, of bare skin and vulgar accessories. Can’t we all just be grotesquely pretty or charmingly ugly, like a young Kate Moss or just like him: an alien beauty in a T-shirt tucking his hair behind his ear. He’d just given me his hair tie as I’d forgotten mine.

I could have spent days in his bed, if I’m being honest. Could have had a tea party on his bedroom floor, played dress-up. There’s a juvenile faith to all these rituals, a verdant exuberance for life. But sometimes I misattribute this magic, my magic, to others. Though the present is often disenchanting, as I’ve mentioned, I can be very good at being present. When I am, people question the authenticity of it. Fickle, they think, for feeling so intensely. Though the moment’s all there is, really. And when you’ve got a good one (or a handful), you seize it. I wonder how much of it was my magic and how much of it was his.

Sometimes, I think I’m a wind instrument, hollow, and something sings through me. I’m a doorframe, empty, a portal into another world. People see it, and I know they do. But they also fear it. Question it. He saw it, felt it. Smile reaching his eyes. Tender brushing of my arm. Contemplating me. But when the moment’s over, reality resumes. I’m sorry I made you feel something, I’d like to say, and I’m sorry that scared you. Open relationship, he’s in. It slipped out in an anecdote. Swept under the rug like a pin, popcorn in couch cushions. Other emotional commitments, he has. Indecisive. Overwhelmed in his own words. Sweet. Well-intentioned. Confused.

Sometimes, I wish people would just tell me the desmaquillada truth. Hey, I have a girlfriend whom I love and I’m only looking for something casual. Then I could say: OK, well I’m not sure where my life is taking me anyway, but I’d like to be present with you again just like this. How’s Saturday at six? Nobody ever tells me, though. They underestimate my understanding and magnify my madness.

Wasn’t limerence, was it? I said it wasn’t. Maybe it was. But it was nice to rediscover beauty in a windbreaker, a pair of jeans, bulging eyes and bony knees. Like turning over a rock and finding, amongst the grubs, a treasure map.

Second cup. Ginger tea to soothe the (strep!) throat. Blew a stranger the other night out of pity and people pleasing. Almost vomited on the way home out of disgust and self-loathing. I’m a seesaw. My lows launch me into highs, my highs plummet me into lows. I’d just wanted another dopamine rush, just wanted to get drunk. Called in sick the next day. And here it is all on paper, yet another origami nothing. Fold it into a shapeless clump, tousle the edges, hand roll it like a cigarette – brown, sad and soggy. Say there’s meaning where there isn’t any.