Ramblings on New Year’s Eve

Log date: 1/1/20

Log written: 5:00 a.m 

Log #27

As I’ve stated before in previous logs I try to not give my number out anymore. I don’t take any numbers either. It occurred to me, sometime during college that people are unavoidably disappointing. 

You either come across someone interesting who’s appeal dies out over time. 

OR 

You meet an uninteresting person who you’re stuck with because you were too afraid to disappoint them. 

A friendship will last forever if you’re willing to close your eyes tight enough. But at that point, it isn’t a friendship its an obligation. I was just at a party out of obligation. My best friend since high school, Jaime Randall, invites me to everything. I always dread that surprise text message or phone call, but I expect it on holidays. 

This is my longest running friendship with anyone. I enjoyed Jaime at first until sporadic hangouts weren't optional. Missing one took on a greater meaning, but that wasn’t just with Jaime. My other friends also took offense. Well, I wasn’t always in the mood. I’m already spreading myself rather thin, but of course, I had to reserve a part of myself for them. It was demanded. 

You can’t pause a friendship. It’s an investment. I would argue breaking up with a friend is nastier than breaking up with a lover. Each romantic participant usually knows what they’re signing up for, usually. Friendships are so vague and mysterious, they can go any which way. What you look for in one person you don’t look for in another. 

I was at Jaime’s boyfriend’s apartment with their friends, my friends, strangers, two dogs, cheese cubes I bought, and balloons; somewhere in Brooklyn. I sat on the couch with the large blank TV facing me. I could see my dim reflection in it. I wanted to turn it on, but its noise would clash with the music. 

Dusty, a large golden retriever and Bear a small black Pomeranian came to me as if I beaconed them. For a moment I didn't hear stupid phrases like “I’m going to get shit faced.” These smiling dogs felt pure and removed from the absurdity of everything else. I could pet them all night and they wouldn’t want anything from me tomorrow. Not a phone call or a text message. Unconditional comfort. 

People began to crowd around me for the attention of Dusty and Bear. At some point they ran off with my relief, nothing lasts. A woman looked behind the couch for the dogs. She had brown hair that came to her chin, it was a shade darker than mine. She gave up her search for the dogs and sat down next to me.

I don’t know her name. If she mentioned it, I forgot it. I will name her Margaret. On her sweater, I saw a reindeer flying over a decorated Christmas tree. The star on the tree was large and full of glitter. 

“Christmas was a week ago,” I said bluntly to her opaque reflection in the TV. 

“I know,” she said back to my reflection. 

Speaking in this way, through our reflections put distance between us and the others. It was as if the people we were responding to wasn't us at all. I’m not a shy person, you have to understand it isn’t shyness that keeps me from engaging. Margaret knew what I meant without me explaining it. I think. 

“I want to offend as many people as I can,” she said speaking to my reflection again. 

“I’m offended.” 

“Great! That makes one.”

Our shadowy reflections on the television both let out a chuckle, though I couldn’t see the amusement in my own face. Normally, I find people like this obnoxious, but there was something there. Something deliberate and full of wit. I was curious, but not curious enough to want to commit to more than a few hours. That’s an investment. 

Let me be clear when I say that I didn’t want to make a friend of Margaret. I didn’t want to make a lover of Margaret. I just wanted to enjoy her as she was. In the moment, under these multicolored lights that hung above us. 

She said she was in college too but she didn’t say what her major was; I didn’t ask. I imagined she was a psychology major like myself. She told me had a job. Again, I didn’t ask for any details. We may not have been talking at each other directly but the conversation still flowed along. 

As we got closer to midnight Jaime came and turned the television on.

“You’re not using this are you?” he said, rhetorically. 

I’m not sure if the question was meant to be rhetorical or not but the TV came on anyway. The reflections of Margaret and I were lost in the light of the screen. So, now we had to communicate face to face. There was some silence for a bit.

“He’s a graduate student at Columbia,” Jaime said, trying to move things along for me.

“I covered that,” I said. 

“He’s getting his Ph.D.,” Jaime continued.  

“I covered that too.” 

I don’t think he understood that the point was for me to not get too attached. Eventually he disappeared again, just like the dogs. Margaret and I were left alone again. Not much was being said anymore. Jaime didn't bother to turn off the music either so the sounds were overlapping. It felt chaotic, like a bad dream. 

“I don’t understand why people would spend their whole day out in the cold,” I said casually observing the awaiting crowds on the TV. “People travel from all over the country to watch this ball drop thing, it happens and then it's over.” 

“It’s an experience,” she said looking at the people on the TV. 

“Nothing changes.” 

“Nothing literally changes.” 

“Then why all the excitement? Moving from one year into a next doesn't change or erase anything. It’s meaningless,” I said firmly. “Everyone makes these resolutions that they will be better. That the year will be better and the world will be better. They’re empty meaningless promises.” 

Margaret stopped and thought for a moment, a long moment. It was as if I revealed some large secret to her about myself, but what I said was no secret.

“Are you a Nihilist?” she said, without warning. She definitely had to be some sort of major in my realm. 

I can’t express the anger I felt towards being asked this question. She is not the first to ask me. No one seems to understand what this word means. Nihilism is the belief that life is meaningless. It is believing in nothing. 

I WANT to believe in something. I want to believe in something more than anything. I need something worth believing in. I refuse to invest my time and my emotions in something meaningless. If anything I’m an existentialist, but even that I’m not too sure about. Maybe I’m a plain old skeptic or a pessimist? No, not a pessimist. Never. 

“I like to live in the moment. I don’t cry about the past and I don’t anticipate the future,” I finally said.

“That’s good,” Margaret said, though I’m not sure if she meant it or not. A lot of people say things they don't mean. I decided I wouldn't be one of those people. What I said, I meant. I did it without any apology, why should honesty get an apology?

Soon the awaited hour came as the guests crowded around the TV. “10, 9, 8, 7..” They all chanted together as if they weren’t all off doing their own thing a moment ago. “5,4, 3, 2, 1.” The new year came, and like I said, nothing changed. People were overjoyed, cheering and rejoicing something I couldn’t see. 

Right on cue, Jaime kissed his boyfriend, just like tradition would have it. Other couples kissed too, even some strangers. I felt something that felt like… Jealously fill me for a moment. It still wasn’t enough to make me want to do something so stupid. I looked at Margaret for a moment to just see what she would do. Without looking at me she got up and approached her friends who had been drinking. 

Her leaving the couch so suddenly gave me the same empty feeling from the fleeing dogs, only worse. It felt empty and unfinished.

Margaret came back with her friends and explained she was their designated driver. With the ball drop done she decided it was time to bring them home before they over drank. I commended her for being a good friend to them yet I felt… annoyed? No, there was no reason for me to be annoyed. We did what we came to do. We made light conversation and now it was over. 

I won’t know what could have been if I was more engaged maybe..? Or just gave my number away. It was better this way. Though I have to wonder… Why she felt the need to give me a reason for leaving. Was it just an excuse? Maybe I was the boring one she was trying to escape. She humored me for this long, I have to give her credit for that. 

At some point, my “friends” came to get me, Jaime included. I hadn’t been drinking either so I was able to drive on my own. At the right hour, when the party thinned out more I decided to drive home. 

I poured a drink for myself and no one else. Now in the familiar emptiness of my own apartment, I reflected on the previous events. I thought about Margaret and our conversations. I thought about our body language or lack-there-of.

I’ve decided to write these thoughts down because they might be useful for a future paper on human behavior. I’m not sure what to make of my actions and the actions of others. This might become useful to me later.