Ugly Cowards Syndrome: When Love Comes Suddenly
Text: Sonya Margulis
Having splashed in different directions, life flows into the mainstream. Kindergarten, work, dinner, dirty dishes, sleep, and again everything is the same. Somewhere in a month you will start to go crazy. A bad mood turns on with an alarm clock: no, really, why get up if it's better in a dream? And the weather. At best, outside the window is a cold, wet gray. At best, because even the grayness is not always easy to discern in the surrounding gloom. On such days, the hope of good dies, and the whole city is plunged into depression.
That day was just that - gray and cold. It seems it was snowing, and the wipers sprinkled the asphalt with some sort of filth that ate at the boots. The fridge is empty, you had to stock up on weekends, and I dragged myself to the market. Already finishing my purchases, with a packet of vegetables in one hand and cat litter in the other, I met a friend — a famous photographer who called me to the opening of her exhibition.
There are days that do not bode well. People say about them: everything will happen when you stop thinking about it. And there are days when you wake up with a feeling: today something is sure to happen. The first one is worse: you don’t necessarily make the epilation and put on the most comfortable and most awful pink dog pants (the story of Bridget Jones and her pants are much more plausible than the story that Colin Firth liked a very fat and very stupid woman - "such as there is").
In general, it was the first time. I put on pants with dogs, not to mention everything else, and dragged to the party.
How do good parties differ from bad parties? At good parties (besides just nice people) there must be someone you like or like, or at least someone who likes you. Otherwise, a little boring. Bad parties are very boring. Piles of people treading water, not knowing what to do next. Someone secularly bypasses friends. Someone shyly presses his leg and intimidated looks around, clutching a glass and a cigarette. I, unfortunately, belong to the second kind of people: I can’t come to the party alone (they won’t think), I’m afraid to come too early (like an idiot I sit in the kitchen for an hour looking at my watch). In addition, a monstrous attack of social phobia encompasses me, which passes only after two glasses, and then, drunkenly and awkwardly, I begin my first small talk.
Good parties should have someone you like or like, or at least someone who likes you.
That party was a must. Good wine, nice people. A few nice flirting men, one of whom did it especially clearly. N., with whom we were somehow briefly acquainted, came about two hours after me. In essence, it was all a kind of randomness: of these few, I chose him only because we got into one taxi. I was lonely, but there are times when you can leave the party more or less with the first pleasant person: just because it is impossible to have. According to all the laws of such evenings, the one that first came across was supposed to be the one who flirted unequivocally. He, however, got drunk and fell in a corner, and N. went to see me off.
When you suddenly understand - it is a misfortune. Because the paths are cut off somewhere forever (well, for a year or two). When suddenly, by chance and unexpectedly, you realize that this is exactly what you need. What, in principle, you can stop here and do not go anywhere else. That here and so is silly to joke, lying in bed, it is possible all life. This is a misfortune, because now you don’t look at everything around you with your own eyes and only think about what someone else would have thought of. All this rather strongly interferes with living and adequately perceiving reality.
Everything he says is admirable. Everything that in someone else would seem ridiculous, pathetic and repulsive, causes a retarded affection in him: a piece of parsley stuck between the teeth, squishing when eating, or this silly hair sticking out of the neck. Superfluous emoticons, silly jokes, ridiculous sweater - everything that would have seemed terrible in the past, now has no meaning. Now all other people seem not smart enough, witty, beautiful, pleasant in communication and in all respects. A look equally indifferently slips on fashionable bearded men in tight-fitting trousers, on intelligent glasses, on muscular beauties (well, I came up with them: I haven’t met this type of men at parties yet) and lights up only from sticking the phone in my pocket.
N. left early in the morning. Of course, it turned out that he has someone, although everything is difficult, but nevertheless he is not free; that he does not want pain: no, this is not for you, it is better to stop everything at once, because I will only ruin your life (well, you heard this text) and make you unhappy. I closed the door and fell asleep. And woke up from the sound of the message.
How do you?
To tell you the truth, it was the first day after the divorce, when I did not feel unhappy.