The Boy who intimidates me

About a year ago, I met an interesting person. In this last year, I’ve seen him a handful of times, maybe on six or seven different occasions. When we do see one another, we don’t talk much because he’s not the overly social sort.

There’s something odd about the situation, though, and to be quite honest, I don’t know if this oddity is him or if it’s me.

I’ve never rattled easily. In fact, I can name the number of times that someone’s intimidated me or around whom I’ve become introverted and shy. When that has happened in the past, I’ve gotten over it relatively quickly and it became a non-issue.

It’s also not in my nature to be quiet, and it’s definitely not in my nature to feel as though – were I to open my mouth and speak – I were less intelligent than I know myself to be.

But. When around this individual, I become someone I don’t recognize. And in my 31 years, he’s the only one who’s managed to have this effect on me.

Like I said, he’s not the overly social sort and so my impression is that if I don’t have something intelligent or relevant to say, I should just keep my mouth shut. I dig comfortable silences because they’re rare and the people with whom they occur are rare; it usually means that between two people there exists an honest sense of comfort and ease. In this instance, it’s not a comfortable silence…I mean, it may very well be for him, but not for me. He may be thinking of the next big thing while I stand there wondering when someone we both know will intervene so that my focus can shift from my discomfort to that third party.

And the thing is, he seems like a genuinely nice boy. I just seem to react quite oddly to him, is all. It’s like some sort of chemical reaction that takes place and I have no control over it and it's really frustrated me.

A prime example just occurred. Surprisingly, and for the first time ever, he greeted me as friends do, by kissing me on both cheeks. Surprising for two reasons, the first obvious one because he’d never done it before and the second because I’d anticipated nothing more than a smile as he just walked past. But he greeted me hello in this way and then stood and chatted with me. And worse still, he was standing close enough for me to see his eye color, which I’d never thought about and I guess sort of assumed was brown. But his eyes are blue. And not just any shade of blue, they’re that weird crystal-like opaque shade of blue. I wanted to poke him in an eye to see if it was glass.

I was so thrown by the greeting, the small talk and the eyes that rather than being an engaging conversationalist, I instead kept staring at his shoes. They were a nice brown leather square toe that looked quite soft to the touch.

It was so bad that at one point I enquired “what are you doing here” when what I wanted to say was “I’m really happy to see you here”.

And he doesn't laugh. And laughs are my ammunition; it's how I get to people, it's how I break the ice and create warmth and comfort and ease. But I don't think I've ever gotten a laugh out of him. Maybe a grin or a smirk, but he's no Pillsbury dough boy, that's for sure.

And it gets even worse. Out of timidity, I sort of ignore him and for whatever reason, he makes no effort to engage me and instead offers one or two word responses. I’ll give you an example of this as well. The time following the above mentioned spastic response from me to his greeting and stopping, we saw one another a few days later. We were standing next to one another and he neither looked at me nor said hello (he doesn't have to, I know...). So, although I hesitated at first, I finally offered a simple "hey", and he then he shook my hand and again kissed me hello. And it was sort of funny, because when he let go of my hand, he pushed it (& me) away. Look: I'm a big believer in body language.

What ensued was so awkward…

One word answers…

Not much eye contact…

& me trying to shift positions quietly and away from him because I really felt as though I was bothering him or he was being bothered or I was in his space or something…

Then these two old men came over who, I think, he knew. He knew at least one of them, because the other one called him by the wrong first name. He chattered with them like he’d swallowed some sort of a radio. When they were gone, more silence and one word answers. JEESUS!

And so then I became hyper self-conscious and slowly kept trying to edge away inconspicuously because I felt as though I were imposing and thought to myself that if he’s not speaking with me then it means he doesn’t want to speak with me. It’s that simple and there’s no need to complicate matters. I should just get out of his space.

We saw one another the following day and neither one of us said hello. I couldn’t even look at him, to be quite honest. His colleague, who may be a friend outside of work - was present and I had absolutely no problem chatting with him and being myself and he came into the same room as me and sat with me and he’s so different than the other one…

And you know what? This guy who makes me feel really awkward and tense, he’s a political guy and so once in a while I’ll send him some information about an event I think he’d enjoy or be interested in, and I have no problem doing that. I don’t even hesitate or think about it and am quite comfortable writing to him something I would never actually say. And I don’t even know if he checks the emails, he’s probably much too busy to read them until weeks later…if at all, but that’s fine. There’s no immediate awkwardness with email. You hit the Send button and it’s done. When you’re facing someone and you receive one word answers without eye contact, there’s a level of tightness there that can’t be matched by technology.

I don’t know why this is bothering me as much as it is. I don’t understand it and I don’t know if I’ve offended him or what the hell. AND this is someone I have come to respect and admire ten times more in the last year, which makes it that much worse; his mind is fierce and astute, and yet there’s this weird gentle quality about him that’s hard to pinpoint, but I think it’s in the way he treats people. He seems a mix of all these opposing qualities, like when speaking about a certain subject about which he's passionate, he’s this strong charismatic focused (almost to a point of impatience) individual, and then all of a sudden he's completely introverted and shy.

Anyway…I’m not really sure why I’ve ranted like this. It’s something that’s been bothering me this week and I don’t know why because I don’t understand it myself and he’s bothering me because he’s a Sudoko puzzle with blue eyes. And you know, it’s not like he’s got nothing to say, he’s a prolific writer, so his mind’s obviously full of words that he just won't use with me. I'm sure he doesn't even think about this, and I'm just giving myself way too much credit; even if it is a negative sort of credit, I'm being a little self-centred, forgive me...I'm just a little weirded out. And, I think moreso because this is someone I'd like to sit with over coffee and talk shop.

I can’t believe how all over the place this entry is. There’s no structure and I’ve got poor syntax. And I’m quite comfortable writing about this here because there’s no way in hell this particular man has the time or the interest to check this place out and I can't discuss him with my girlfriends because they'll all know who he is and I'm not interested in that can of worms opening up.

(And yes: This means that my girlfriends don't check my blog unless I send them a direct link to a piece of it. They get the real deal, anyway...)

Thanks for indulging my rant.