The Most Neurotic Man in the World

I met Frank for lunch today at the First Hill Diner, just up Madison from the bar. He said he needed to talk about something. His voice sounded urgent. So I told him I’d get my co-owner to cover for me and that I’d meet up with him at 1:00 pm.

I think Frank is the most neurotic man in the world. That isn’t meant to disparage, because I’m rather neurotic myself. I dealt with anxiety problems after I got divorced, and Frank took to me because he seemed to know of what I spoke.

Birds of a feather.

But Frank boils over with anxiety, insecurity, and self-doubt.

He keeps picking at his worries, obsessing over them.

He's like a dog with a bone, except the bone is made of his own trepidations, and he ends up chasing his own tail.

I know I mixed metaphors, but that’s what happens to him, and you needn’t know a lot about him to understand why.

Frank’s parents divorced when he was 10 and his dad maintained only a token presence in his life, sending him money now and again even he didn’t ask for it.

This was how he executed his paternal duties post-divorce because there was money to make, expensive cars to drive, and hot women to fuck, all of which took precedence over the well being of his son.

I come from a broken family, too — my dad ran off with another woman, leaving my mom, my brothers, and I to fend for ourselves.

Mom was a tough lady. She fought him tooth and nail with limited resources for only token amounts of alimony and child support, which he only agreed to pay when his arms couldn’t be twisted anymore after trying to wear her down in the courts.

So we’re both on intimate terms with abandonment, and the neediness and helplessness that go along with it in the extreme - the visceral sense that no one or nothing is ever reliable and trustworthy.

It’s natural that we found each other.

I’ve been better since my divorce. The bar keeps me out of trouble, and Gracie, the lady I’ve been seeing for the past couple of years, “gets it.” She’s been down this road herself and can sense when I’m about to hit the bumps. Frank is the little brother I never had, so I try to pay forward any insights I’ve gained to him when he needs them.

And he’s needed them a lot.

He got involved with a woman named Melanie a few years ago. I can’t judge him because I have a bit of a checkered past with women, but he should have known better.

She talked a good game.

She was funny, irreverent, engaging, and bawdy.

She had an innate sense of his weakest nerves and how to tweet them.

She was very easy on the eyes - bright blue eyes, an athletic frame, a warm smile.

She led him down a primrose path and then curb-stomped his heart over and over again when he was most vulnerable. The relationship was a mistake, but all she needed to do was tell him she needed to end it. Instead, she gaslit him, claiming she had never promised him anything when she had, telling him he was immature and knew nothing of how relationships work, while still feeding hopes she might take him back. It was a master class in manipulation, and Frank was reeled in. Why she did all this is like asking why there’s air. From what he’s said, it sounds like she took a sadistic joy in leading him on and crushing him over and over again.

So she’s a real piece of work, and he’s better off without her, but try telling him that.

He was a wreck for a long time in the aftermath.

He was drinking a lot - he almost lost his job because he showed up late or not at all.

He put on weight, his blood pressure and blood sugar spiked.

He’d sit in his apartment day after day without even the TV or radio on, vegging as he gazed out the window.

I feared he would harm himself.

Thankfully, he didn’t.

He pulled himself together enough to lead a regular life again. He’s trying to date, but he’s having trouble getting out of the starting blocks. He’ll see someone one or two times and then not call them again. He never has a good reason why, other than, “She’s nice and all, but I’m not feeling it.”

My gut feeling is that he still entertains notions that having Melanie back in his life would be a good thing. Something triggers him and he goes down that rabbit hole and is blind to what a wrecking ball she is.

So when he called me, I figured he wanted to talk about dating again, or worse, ways he could win Melanie back.

The owner of the diner poured me a cup of coffee as I took a seat at a booth.

“Hey Justin!” he said with a big smile.

“What’s up man,” I said.

“Lunch today?” he asked.

“Maybe. I’m meeting a friend,” I told him.

He leaned back and extended his arm to the counter to grab a menu and set it down before me.

“Lemme know if you wanna get something,” he said.

“Will do,” I replied.

He walked back into the kitchen.

I perused the menu, trying to decide if I wanted lunch or breakfast when Frank walked in.

I looked up and smiled, and he came over to the booth.

I stood up and we gave each other a back clapping hug..

“Hey bud,” he said.

“Good to see you, man. What’s shakin’?” I asked.

“Plenty!” he said, his eyes lighting up. “I’m gonna ask Emily out.”

“The gal from work?” I asked.

“Formerly from work,” he said. “She got fired about three weeks ago.”

“Really?” I said. “Well I’d advise you to be careful about fishing off the company pier, but I guess that’s moot.”

The owner walked over and poured Frank some coffee. Frank poured in cream and stirred in sugar as he talked.

“Yeah,” he said, “but here’s the deal.”

Whenever Frank begins a sentence with, “But here’s the deal,” a torrent of words that would make Freud himself reach for a stiff drink is sure to follow.

He took off his coat and leaned in, resting his elbows on the table. His eyes burning a hole in me. The whole damn story was gonna come pouring out like a levee breaking.

“So yeah, I asked out Emily yesterday. I thought about doing it all week after I ran into her at the Broadway Market on Monday, and I decided I was gonna wait a few days before I went for it,” he began.

He gesticulated as if he was conducting an orchestra of his anxieties, a symphony of jitters and twitches.

“I thought of it yesterday at 3 and tried calling the cell phone number she’d given me, but I hung up. Then I tried her on my landline, hitting *67 first, so my number would be blocked, so she can’t know it was me calling her, but there was no answer,” he explained.

“Why did you block your number?”

“Because I was afraid she might not answer if she knew it was me,” he answered.

“Really?”

“Justin, this chick’s beautiful. Blonde hair, high cheekbones, sparkling blue eyes. She’s younger than me, and she used to be a model,” he said. “It’s a miracle she gives me the time of day.”

“Stop selling yourself short, man,” I said. “I mean it. You’re a nice guy, and you’re far from ugly. Good-looking guys, who are also nice — meaning not a weirdos or psychos — are golden, you know? Yeah, women her age may go for the ‘bad boy’ because he’s confident and funny, but 99% of the time the bad boy will treat her like shit. My dad was a bad boy. He still is. So’s yours.”

“I just didn’t want to scare her off,” he said. “So anyway, after that, I went on the internet and forgot about it, and then I remembered I had to punch in at work at 4:30, and I realized that if I didn’t call her, I was going to get weird about it, so I just threw caution into the wind and called her. She answered and was surprised to hear from me, and I asked her if she wanted to have a drink or something with me. Those were the exact words I used. I had big time heebee-jeebees as we talked. I was standing there in my apartment and my legs were losing feeling, you know? I got pins and needles like they were falling asleep. It’s a miracle I didn’t fall over! Anyway, she was caught off guard, surprised that I had called, and even more surprised that I had asked her out.

She had told me on Monday that she and her mom are looking for a new house, and are gonna go looking at a few today, and might not be able to get together with me, but that she’d call me if she was free. I took that as a polite rejection, and I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t call me. Maybe she will, I don’t know.”

“Maybe she will,” I said. “Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street, you know? Realistic optimism isn’t a bad thing, buddy boy. You should try it sometime.”

Frank laughed and then continued.

“Now she did say that she was engaged-”

“Engaged?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “but the guy lives out of state, in Idaho, where she’s from, and I think this arrangement has been around for a while.”

“Ahh…the ‘boyfriend back home,”’ I said. “That could be her way of saying ‘thanks, but no thanks.’”

“Yeah,” he continued, “But she’s been out with other guys in the meantime. So they probably have an agreement of some sort. She went out with this guy from work while she was still there, and there was this other guy named Donny she was seeing for a while, and I think she even went out with that dickbag Glenn.”

“The guy with the mullet who only eats at chain restaurants?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding, “So I look at this as any guy my age does: She’s 21. So’s the ‘fiancée.’ He doesn’t live here, and she doesn’t see him in person often. It’s more likely than not that they won’t get married, or if they do, the marriage’ll go tits up. Also, and most importantly, a hottie like her isn’t going to remain celibate for a long-distance boyfriend very long-”

“Nor will he,” I added.

“Right!” he said. “And I’m pretty sure she hasn’t. So I’m not too worried about that. The only question is, some chicks have a whole crew of guys orbiting around them, stuck in the friend zone, you know? Like a celestial body with a bunch of lonely satellites, never getting closer than a distant orbit. Because they’re ‘nice,’ ‘cute,’ and ‘adorable,’ and I think some guys are happy only being friends with them. I wonder if this is her impression of me, and did she just throw out the drink invitation off-hand, not really expecting me to take her up on it?”

“Why would she invite you to have a drink if she didn’t want to go out with you?” I told him.

“Hard to say,” he said. “She was taken aback when I called her, and that could be a negative sign. I don’t know. I don’t really care, either, though. I mean, yeah, I’d like to go out with her, and….well you know. But I’m glad I just did it. I’m past my Terri mourning period and I want to go out with other women now.”

Terri’s someone he’d been seeing off and on for the past couple of years.

At this moment, they’re off.

From what I gather as I piece his verbose accounts together, she was a rebound thing in the wake of Melanie.

“You should,” I told him. “And it’s no big deal if she ends up not wanting to hang out with you. It’s not a reflection on you. It reflects is that she’s not into you. That thing between men and women is either there or it’s not. That’s all.”

“I’ve always wanted to date Emily,” he continued. “I’ve felt some positive vibe from her, so why not act on it? If she thinks I’m some creepy old guy trying to get some young trim, or more likely, if she doesn’t return the attraction and thinks of me only as a friend, then no big deal.”

“There you go!” I said.

“You know, I’ve realized that the more cerebral I get about things, the harder it gets to do them, and the weirder I get. I need to be more decisive. Planning and careful thinking are always important, but I overthink things and make it harder to get to where I need to be. So regardless of what happens, I took a step towards changing that.”

“Good!” I told him. “I’m glad.”

“And if she says yes, and we have a great time and I get laid, so much the better!” he added.

“Correct,” I said. “That’s how you should always approach this.”

“But here’s the deal,” he said once again.

Oh boy!

“There’s Terri to consider. Emily got a new job at Nordstrom’s call center after securing a positive reference from the boss of her old job — where I still work — and you know, the whole thing about why she got fired is kinda weird, but anyway…it’s possible word could get back to Terri that I went out with Emily —“

“But you and Terri broke up,” I said. “You broke up on good terms, right? You’re a free agent and you can do whatever you want. I get that she could be jealous, but that’s not your problem.”

“I know,” he said, “But…it’s a constant thing. It was a thing the first couple of times we broke up, and I don’t want any complications.”

“Pal,” I said, leaning in. “That’s her problem. If she’s jealous, she’ll have to deal with it. Period. End of story. Just as you will when she goes out with someone new.”

“But when I went out with Suzanne after we broke up the second time, she was apoplectic!” he said.

“That’s her problem, Frank! It’s also none of her business,” I told him. “You’ve got to stop acting like this is your responsibility.”

“She just gets so…mad…and negative…and…”

He tried to keep going, but he sank back and sulked.

“I appreciate how she might feel about it — “

“-But. It’s. Her. Problem!” I interrupted.

“But if there’s a reaction along the lines of what happened with Suzanne-”

“It’s. Her. Problem, Frank!” I repeated. “Tell her that it’s none of her business who you go out with.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied as I finished my coffee.

“You take on other people’s problems like they’re your’s. They aren’t and you need to quit doing that,” I admonished. “Set boundaries. Enforce them.”

“It is a bridge I’ll have to cross when I get to it, I know,” he said, “But-”

“But nothing!” I said. “It’s her problem!”

Frank sat there looking at me and then glanced up at Sunny Kobe Cook on the TV over the bar.

“Go out with Emily. Have fun,” I said. “If she says yes, of course.”

His eyes returned to me.

He folded his hands on the table.

He slumped over.

“Remember what I told you when you were talking to me about calling Melanie at the bar?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Take care of yourself first. There’s no crime in that,” he said.

He looked forlorn .

He took a deep breath.

I took a deep breath.

“One more thing, if I may,” I said.

“Yeah?” he said.

“You don’t need to get women to go out with you, and then have sex with them to prove you’re worth,” I said. “I know your dad drummed that notion into your head, but it’s a load of crap."

He listened, and then his eyes narrowed like he was expecting more.

“I think you stake your value on whether women find you attractive, and you need to stop that,” I said, knowing it was none of my business. “You’re the one who needs to believe that you’re attractive. If women agree with you, so much the better, but it all starts with you.”

I’d shut up if he said I was overstepping, but he picked up a spoon and stirred his coffee, even though he had put cream and sugar in it minutes earlier.

When he was done, he looked up at the TV again, where Oprah was now speaking.

“You’re gonna be alright, man,” I told him. “Now let’s get some grub!”

I signaled for the owner, who walked over and took our order.