choice

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.

—Sherman Alexie

Yesterday I spent a few hours with Brian, in the Mission. We spent a good while at Gracias Madre, a vegan Mexican place, talking and eating (very good food). I got up to go to the bathroom, and while I was gone Brian got to chatting with a couple at the other end of our communal table -- Alice and Jim, visiting from southern New Jersey. Alice is vegan and apparently it's not easy to be vegan in southern New Jersey. It was a sweet and amusing interaction -- Alice is beautiful in a "real housewives" kind of way (I hope that doesn't seem mean! I don't mean it that way), and Jim is a fairly well-preserved 50-something suburban guy, neither conservative nor liberal. He had a kind of sense of authority but he also talked about liking the Dead -- perhaps because he was talking to people who were not suburban or conservative. He was clearly very proud to be with Alice, in a way that I kinda liked. 

Anyway, at some point Alice asked us how we know each other, and after he deadpanned that I was his sister (and I interjected, wow, that's not a good sign), Brian told her the truth, and she made a show of being surprised that we barely knew each other. So, of course, I asked how long she and Jim had been together and she said four months -- which surprised me a little. And then Jim, a bit of an oversharer, told us how they met -- she was a nurse who took care of his mother (for god's sake), and at first he thought she was too young for him (yeah, right) but then he realized that she was older than she looks (actually, she looked right around 50 to me). She kept returning to the fact that we were on our second date and they were keeping us from it, so eventually we took our leave. After we were out on the street, Brian and I speculated about how long they'd last. He thought maybe another six months -- he did not have positive feelings about Jim -- but I was more optimistic. That may well have been the highlight of our afternoon. That and the fact that Brian came very close to buying a rug from Peace Industry. 

Of course, I am full of doubt about whether I'll see him again. Our interaction was uneven -- partly because this is a very weird way to get to know someone. And partly because I do like him, I think, and that makes me nervous (or shy?). And partly because he's a bit of an odd bird. I often feel like I'm not telling the truth, even though I'm trying to be honest. The trouble is that I don't feel like I know what is going on -- and really, how could I? I don't know if we are making an investment in one another. A lot of the time, this doesn't matter -- we're just having a conversation. But sometimes I get tangled up in the strangeness of our situation. I don't have good dating skills. 

So I'm going to be grateful that I had an interesting afternoon. I could probably write a short story about the encounter with the couple from New Jersey.