So Many Things

I have so many things to write about: The REM concert, the license plates I saw on Friday, my Birthday. But I think I'll discuss, while I wait for my laundry to dry, my ponderous ability to avoid human contact.

Yesterday, being my birthday, I saw lots of people, many of whom said happy birthday. This is a huggy group, but I somehow managed to only get 2 and a half hugs. 1 from my friend Yasmin, 1 from Matt, a friend but definitely someone I know much less well, and the half hug was from Matt's boyfriend, whom I've only met 3 or 4 times. It was one of those complicated-handshake-becomes-a-hug hugs. I was sort of expecting 2 or 3 more hugs.

I'm pretty sure it's something I'm doing to kill the hug. I like hugs, but I suck at initiating them. In fact, there were several times when I could see a hug about to happen, and then the moment passed. I'm not sure what I'm doing to sully the huggosity of the situation, but I'm certainly doing something. Belching before a kiss, announcing an obvious and bold-faced lie before telling someone you love them, kicking a kitten before holding trying to hold someone's hand - these are all ways to ruin a moment. I know this. I think I'm doing something much more subtle, but I can't be sure. I'm bad at reading situations.

As an illustration of this point, I give you one of my first blind dates. It was a double date with my friend David, his girlfriend Sara (I can't actually remember her name), and her friend Anne (her name escapes me as well.) Being in middle school and a hopeless romantics, we went to the mall. David and Sara were holding hands as we walked through Meyer and Frank, and I was walking next to Anne, furthering my lack of human contact, when her hand bumped mine. I muttered an apology and moved over 6 inches. Again, a hand bump. I started to worry about my ability to walk in a straight line. Another hand bump. Good lord I'm clumsy. Hang on. Could it be ... does she maybe want to hold ... my ... hand? If she bumps it again, I'll try to hold it. Bump. Hold. Ah ha.

That was in middle school, and over the years I've honed my obliviousness to a bluntness previously unimaginable. Hence my ability to kill hugs and to have no idea how a date went unless it ends in making out. I am neither Casanova nor Ms. Cleo. I am Man, hear me shrug.