Always an Outsider

Most people spend New Year’s Eve drinking champagne with friends, watching the ball drop and stealing midnight kisses, but I sit on the sidelines. My friends apartment buzzes with activity and a drink I don’t plan on drinking sits vacantly in my hand. 

People come and go, sitting in the seat next to me and making futile attempts at small talk, but one person feels different, familiar, per-say.

“Not one to join the fun?” He asks. His eyes dance over the crowd as ones eyes would watch a flickering flame. 

“This is not my kind of fun,” I place my drink on the counter. The stranger looks at me and smiles, simply. 

“Perhaps it’s that you haven’t tried,” He suggests, as most everyone else does.

“Or perhaps it’s that I wouldn’t like to,” He chuckles and shrugs.

“Fair enough,” But the idea still sticks in my mind. Not that I haven’t thought about it before, talking to people, joining the party, it just doesn’t seem right. 

“Maybe I am supposed to be an outsider,” I let the thought slip. Amusement catches in the strangers eyes. 

“I don’t believe anyone is meant for anything, especially not something as silly as that,” I look at him this time. Putting effort into remembering the details. His features seem sharp at first glance, but it’s all thrown off by the implacable softness in his eyes. On his head, sits a fedora, covering mussy brown hair. 

“And why aren’t you out there enjoying yourself?” I tease. 

“Who says I’m not enjoying myself right here?”  

Looking back out at the people, but this time I take my time to look at them individually. Instead of seeing the partying, outgoing, no-worry-in-the-world people I remember, I see the girl with mousy brown hair, looking alone on the dance floor, the man talking uncomfortably with a woman who had too much to drink, wishing he were talking to the mousy-haired girl instead. I see a couple, the man with what appears to be a ring in his pocket, and the woman pretending not to notice with glee. Looking over all the faces, I see them as people. A hearty laugh brings me back to reality.

“You seem to have had a change of heart,” The stranger muses. 

“Perhaps I did,” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, “But, I do not know if I will go to these people, or let them continue on, without a break in cycle,” The stranger takes off his fedora, holding it to his chest before returning it to the place it once sat on his head. 

“No cycle can go forever without being interrupted,” He says matter-of-factly. Still, I wait, watching the situations change. The mousy haired girl talks to the man who had been so eager to talk to her, the woman who had had too much to drink  stands with another glass of champagne in her hand, conversing with the soon to be engaged couple. A few others watch television, sensing nothing better to do, and yet I sit at a counter, with a stranger, watching the people as if they are a different species. 

“Maybe I will always be an outsider,” I don’t mind the idea.

“You will always be an outsider if you always view yourself as an outsider,” 

“What is your name, stranger?” I ask.

“Introductions are for conversationalists, and I fear that describes neither of us,” He jokes. So we don’t share names, nothing known between us, nothing left to remember after the party is done with. 

The party feels dream-like. A moment with everything and nothing. A noise so loud it leaves you deaf. Something so stimulating it leaves you unable to be stimulated at all. I don’t mind. 

The people who mingle are unfamiliar. Though I know their faces, I know nothing about them. I don’t know if the mousy haired girl likes pineapple on her pizza, or how long the soon to be engaged couple have been together. I even know nothing about the stranger who has been next to me almost this entire time. 

I will never know these people, never learn their dreams, what pushes them to get out of bed each morning, and that will be my fault. The time is ticking down, the clock says 11:30. I will never learn what I want to know from these people in thirty minutes, or the time I stay after. Even if I had talked to them the entire party I would still be left unsatisfied. 

“You look conflicted,” The stranger observes. I nod my head, too deep in thought to speak. “I suggest you go out there, I don’t think you’ll regret it,” 

“I believe I will,” I decide. Who cares about cycles, impressions or even what I learn about these people. Going to this party will all be for nothing if I stay an outsider the entire time. 

I stand up, wobbly on the thin-heeled shoes I chose to wear, walking with purpose. I try to ignore the slight trembling in my hands. Starting the conversation is difficult, the introduction, but once I’m through that it comes more naturally. As I found out, the mousy brown haired girl’s name is Daphne. People come and go, leaving and joining our conversation. I look for the stranger and find him just where he was before. He smiles, a simple smile before vanishing like he was never there. It doesn’t surprise me, because I know he was never there in the first place. 

I watch the ball drop, exchange numbers with Daphne and a few others I hit it off with and head home, proud of what I managed to accomplish. In my head I thank the stranger, for all he pushed me to do, through the few words we spoke throughout the night. Though I know doing this once will not be the end of it, I hope it will be the start of something better than being an outsider.