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Out of context: Reply #76431
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Coincidences
Story 3This one is complex, and the coincidence might not be as apparent, but it’s about the phone call at the key juncture where two unrelated things converge, by my own hand.
Part a: New Friend
I move to Birmingham and I decide to get some kind of job so that time doesn’t hang heavy. I get a role in brand strategy for a small consultancy. About 5 months in the company takes on a new junior designer. A Brit/Kiwi woman, young. We’re opposites in many ways. She’s young, I’m old. She’s optimism and energy, I’m pessimism and torpor. She’s confident and outspoken, I am outspoken and contemptuous. We become great friends. I’ll call her B.
Around that time I decide that my Birmingham sojourn might also be improved by dating, so I join the usual dating sites.
Discussing this with B and a couple of other colleagues they demand to see my dating profile. I’m an old man and I’ll be shit at dating profiles. They’re young women and they can zeus my profile up for me. Improve my chances. Oh, whatever. So I show them dating profile. They rip me to shreds... from the photos to the text, I learn that it’s all wrong.
But B focusses on one stat and guffaws loudly. That one stat becomes the thing she’s most amused about and a little fixated one.
“Dude” she booms “Why do men ALWAYS lie about their height? hahahahaha”
I don't know what she means.
“You’ve put your height at 5ft 11in LOL LOL dude there’s no point in lying because if somebody meets you they’ll INSTANTLY KNOW! hahahah Why do men do this stupid shit?”
I’m a little taken aback. I haven’t measured myself in years, but I am pretty sure I’m 5’11”. I say so. She roars with laughter
“dude I’M 5’11” and I tower over you. You’re 5’7” at best HAHAHAHA”
All the other women are laughing.
Me: “No, B... you and I are EXACTLY the same height”
B: “HAHAHAH DUDE I LITERALLY LOOK AT THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD WHEN WE TALK. YOU’RE ABOUT 5’7” maximum. Change your profile”
It’s crazy to me. We’re so obviously the same height, and if B is 5’11” then I too am 5’11”.
I insist we compare heights. Everybody concurs.... B and I are the same height.
B: “no fucking waaaaaaaaay”
So then we get a tape measure, take our footwear off and stand against a wall.
We’re both 5’ 10.75” (Apologies for mixing metric with whatever the other one is called.)
So we all agree. I’m the same height as B and B and I are both a quarter inch shy of 5’11”
The Europeans call it a correct height assesment. It stays (< Bit of a throwback QBN reference there, Fouty lovers)
But B... B really struggles to accept it. She can SEE all of the evidence. She cannot challenge any of the evidence, but she remains very much “I don’t know dude. I’m somehow taller even though there’s no evidence of that”. She remains skeptical.
That’s that part done. Different story channel now.
====
Part b: Dating
This is months after the first part of the story. The whole height debate has long since been forgotten but B and I remain really good buddies.
I’m on the dating apps, I’m chatting to a few women, seeing which chats might coalesce into dates.
One comes out a clear match, the others fall away. BUT, there’s a really strange thing. One of the people who responded to my profile has communicated in a curious way, and said some curious things, and whilst I do not think could be a candidate for dating, I have a hunch. This is somebody with social anxiety issues. Somebody struggling to handle the world. Not like a basket case or a walking crisis, but painfully shy and cautious, and that’s been a long term affliction, and she’s clearly trying to makes things better in her 5th decade of life. She declares to me clearly that actually she isn’t looking for a partner so much as she would just really like to have a friend. It tugs on my compassion strings. I can do that for her. I am good with this sort of thing.
So I decide “I’m going to date THIS person here, but I’m going to be a friend to THIS person here, because she clearly needs somebody to help her”
I go on the date with the date... great. Job done.
I keep talking to the social anxiety person. She’s so fragile, cautious, doesn’t quite know how to navigate it. Her communication is so off the bluerprint of normal but she isn’t batshit crazy, just not good at communication and knowing what to say.
We talk a lot. She’s very guarded, is very afraid of revealing anything about herself, but she has fully admitted she has social anxiety.
She seems to maybe be an artist based on her profile pics. Making things, surrounded by craft materials. She also alludes to trying to complete a property deal down in London, or something. But she will not give any details of either thing, and she gets suspicious if I seem to be prying. Okay, very fragile, do this carefully and with kindness and patience.
I’m dating the date by now. Suddenly, unprecedented, I get a call from the fragile woman. She’s panicky, highly animated, she blurts a lot of random data noise at me and then she says “I think it’s time we met”.
I appreciate how much courage it must have took her to do that. I do not have the heart to say to her “hey, I’m dating, so the ship sailed” because I know that if I’m dating woman A I can't be meeting Woman B who I met on a dating site even if my intentions are altruistic and about supportive friendship. My date would NOT like that at all. But equally, I can't crush this woman’s confidence after she bum-rushed me on the phone like that. It took courage. I can’t destroy that for her.
So I decide... okay, I can explain to her that I am interested in meeting her as a friend only.
We agree. She wants to meet me outside the Apple store in Birmingham that Saturday.
====
Part c: Convergence, by my own hand
I get to the Apple store and wait outside. Before too long a woman arrives, very serious face, very pensive, and she comes and stands before me. I forget her name but I’ll call her K. “Oh! K! Hi! how are you?”
Straight away, not missing a beat she says “You said in your profile you’re 5’11””
Me, non-plussed “errr, yeah?”
“Well you’re clearly not. WHY DO MEN LIE LIKE THIS?”
“what?”
“You’re about 5’6” DOES IT NOT OCCUR TO YOU THAT WOMEN WILL NOTICE?”
and she’s irate about this. She’s mad about it.
“MEN ALWAYS LIE ABOUT THEIR HEIGHT. IT’S NO WONDER YOU’RE SINGLE. WHY WOULD A WOMAN TRUST A LIAR?”
She’s heated. Fuming. Infuriated.
It’s in public, on a busy day, and she’s quite loud in her ire.
I try to tell her I am more or less 5’11”
“HA! MORE OR LESS! HA! LIAR!”
oh fuck. Fucking hell. And now I can see her I can see that she’s not just socially anxious. She’s a 50 year old woman that has some degree of independence, but she is kind of congenitally atypical. She looks nice and stuff. She wasn’t like The Thing, but it was also evident that this was more than just social anxiety.
I try to calm her down but she’s incensed.
“LOOK AT YOU! YOUR’RE SHORTER THAN ME AND I’M ONLY 5’7””
“Hey listen, calm down. I can assure you you’re not taller than me and that I’....”
“I AM LITERALLY AT LEAST 6” TALLER THAN YOU! MEN ARE ALL LIARS. YOU’VE WASTED MY TIME!”
I’m getting panicked now. This is alarming. I have no control at all.
Behind us is the glass of the Apple store. I suggest we go and stand in front of it and look at our reflections to see who is taller.
I am so fucking obviously taller it cannot be missed, but she says “I’M MUCH TALLER THAN YOU!”
What the actual fuck? Whaaaaaat?
me “Okay K, listen, why don’t we go and get a coffee, sit and chat, forget about this and find out a little about each other, okay?”
We walk to a coffee shop just round the corner. She’s cold, non-communicative, flashing angry energy.
I buy the coffees, we sit in a booth facing each other.
I try to steer the conversation “So, K, tell me about yourself... tell me about that horse statuette you’re making in the photograph”
“I’M NOT TELLING YOU ANYTHING! HOW CAN I TRUST YOU???”
me “okaaaaay, well then okay maybe you’d like to ask me about myself then. We can talk about that if you prefer”
“I DON’T NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT YOU. YOU LIE. TYPICAL MAN. I COULDN’T TRUST ANYTHING YOU SAY ANYWAY”.
me “okay so what shall we talk about? We’re here in this coffee shop and it’s a chance to talk. We can talk about anything. You decide”
“LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW YOU LIED ABOUT YOUR HEIGHT, AND HOW MAYBE THAT’S WHY YOU ARE SINGLE, BECAUSE NO WOMAN COULD EVER TRUST YOU”
Louder. Louder. And people listening won’t have the context. They’ll only see a distressed woman accusing a man in a coffee shop booth. And it’s loud. She keeps going. Ranting endlessly, almost frothing. Loud.
In desperation, my brain zooms back to the exact same issue about my height with B. B has NO IDEA at all I’m on this date. B and I send each other whatsapp texts or whatsapp audios or videos, but we have never, ever, up to this point, actually phoned each other.
I decide I’ll phone her. I’m in a crisis and I need a friend. She wont know why I’m phoning her but she’s smart and she’s my friend and she’ll know there’s got to be a point to it.
I say to K “okay listen K I’m going to phone my friend and without giving her any context she will answer a simple question about how tall I am, because we measured each other a while ago and she knows how tall I am”
“YOU? HAVE A FRIEND? AND A FEMALE FRIEND? WHY ISN’T SHE YOUR GIRLFRIEND? IS IT BECAUSE YOU LIED TO HER AS WELL?”
whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Fuuuuuuuuuck
I put the phone down, dial B’s number and put it on loudspeaker. B picks up
“hey buddy how’s it going?”
“Erm, not great B but I just want to ask you a question real quick and please just answer honestly and I will explain what’s going on later”
B “okay sure thing”
Me “Okay B, remember months ago when we measured our heights”
B “oh yeah. We’re the same height!”
me “That’s right B, now please just say how tall we both are”
B “ yeah we’re both FIVE FOOT SEVEN INCHES”
Me “B... what? .....what?”
B “yeah, we both figured out we’re the same height and I’d been walking around thinking I was 5’11” and I’m not. So crazy!”
Me “okay Bye B. I’ll call you back later”
====
Part d: outcome
So I was done. Cooked. Sunk. B had misremembered our heights not as 5’11” but as 5’7”
K is now just a horrible casserole of victory, ire, outrage, and unstable emotional zero self control. She EVISCERATES ME. I am totally at a loss now what to do or say. She condemns men. She digs deep into a theoretical notion of my entire life of failure and my corrupted, decaying soul. It’s fucking brutal and I just sit there, absorbing it all. It’s apparent to me by now that all the pictures of her doing art are an art therapy room in an assisted living place. She is an adult, able to make some decision for herself but actually she lives an assisted lifestyle. It all becomes so obvious. She’s very fragile and this is suddenly a VERY scary situation to be in. Not that she could be dangerous directly, but fuck... I’m a total stranger meeting a person dependent on care and she is VERY VERY upset and out of control.
It’s awful. I say to her “Okay K listen, this has gone on too long now and there’s no point in us continuing. So I’m going to wait until you’re a bit more composed and then I’m going to leave. I’m going to ask the staff here in the coffee shop to assist you if you need it, but I’m going to go” and I add “It’s been really interesting meeting you and I do wish you well with your search for friends, but I can’t be that friend you need I’m sorry”
She stops her rabid ranting immediately, looks at me with surprised, sad eyes and says “You’re leaving?”
All of the fire had left her.
“yes K, I think it’s best that we end here and you can get home”
“But... but what about our date?”
“K this hasn’t been a very pleasant experience for either of us, so it’s just time to go”
Her eyes begin to well up, She’s sad. really sad.
“So you’re just going?”
“I am K, yes. Listen you take care and hey, keep going. I am certain you will find a friend”
K, softly, weakly and darkly “ohhhhhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooooooooooo” and she just collapses into a sobbing mess. She collapses like one of those chocolate orbs that they pour hot syrup on in wanabee fancy restaurants at dessert time. It’s a DRAMATIC collapse.
I slide out of the booth, go and tell the staff my best attempt at what had happened. How I think she might be a vulnerable individual but I am a male stranger so I can’t really be the person who takes her out of here and tries to get her home. I offer them the option of sending me a bill for a taxi or something. They agree completely that I should go, and they promise to take care of her. They go over to the booth, about three women from the coffee shop, and I leave.
====
Part e: postscript
me “B, what the actual fuck?”
B “what? what was that about?”
I tell her what it was about. She guffaws loudly
“Oh yeah, I forget we agreed we were 5’11” I thought we agreed we were 5’7”"
- He's back with a vengeance.palimpsest
- propahans_glib
- I think you should do a zine with these or something.webazoot
- That's all I had. I'm done now.Horp
- Jesus that sounds both horrendous and ultimately pointless. Brilliant story though!DaveO
- You are a patient, patient man. And a great writer/storyteller. 5 stars. Would recommend.stoplying
- If anyone seems weird at first, they are 100% batshit crazy.Frosty_spl
- torpor .. learnt a new word todayautoflavour
- wow, ok, just read all of that. legit tho, the minute she kicked off about the height i would have been out. lifes too short of chaos of that sortautoflavour
- Your dating profile should say "Also partial to taking a dump on the bedroom floor". That'll get the chicks.BusterBoy