People Watching
By: Ostav Nadezhdu
Tags: Fiction, Communication, Relationships, Isolation, Dating

bundle up

Mac watched her eyes carefully. He’d never understood what “shining” really meant, unless it referred to an increase of lacrimal fluid buildup in the eyes due to intense emotion. How else could eyes shine? Her eyes shone with excitement, he would read in a book, and then drive himself crazy trying to figure out if it meant literal specularity, or a certain facial expression — a tightening of the muscles around the eyes, maybe? Anime didn’t have this problem, because eyes literally shone in the stylized way of a cartoon, but his familiarity with anime tropes did little to help him IRL. Mac was always reminding himself of this, trying to avoid becoming the kind of weeb who forgot what real humans behaved like.

Were her eyes shining? He could see tension in the skin around her eyes, muscles pulled slightly, but was it the tension of an inner smile, happiness, excitement — or was it nervousness, heightened alertness, the unease of a cornered animal? Mac felt that the difference between the two was an angle of only a few degrees in the direction of the pull, and he also suspected the relevant angle of inflection differed from person to person. In other words, there was no way for him to be certain. She giggled, and his ears strained to make out relevant details from the sound, picking up the tension in her throat, the rate of decay in the sound — too much sustain was a sign of forced laughter — inflection, the amount of air exhaled during the laugh — little air escaping was another sign of a tense, nervous body. He was now 80% sure she was enjoying herself — no, make that 82%. Mac, on the other hand, was busily quarantining the part of his psyche that obsessed over the microexpressions of his date away from the part of his psyche that was in contact with his physical body, and thus informed his own subconscious behaviors. If he allowed that paranoid mess of nerves to inhabit his physical body, he would surely begin to sweat pheromones signalling fear and anxiety, and she would be made subconsciously anxious herself by sympathetic response, and he didn’t want that.

Some part of Mac he barely felt responded to her laughter with more banter, and the rest of him began planning his next move. He was pretty sure it was almost time for the arm around the shoulder. They were walking slowly, mostly alone, it was dark, he was 82% — no, 85% — confident she was enjoying the evening, now he had to introduce physical contact into the date or she was going to lose interest, or worry that he wasn’t attracted to her. Mac hated this part. He pictured in his mind’s eye swinging his arm up behind her to rest on her shoulder, tried to imagine the relative placements of each of their torsos based on the cadence of their strides — he had a slightly longer stride, and was consciously pulling his steps short to match the tempo of her own footsteps — he tried to figure out what would be an appropriate thing to say or not say during the act, how to steer their conversation in that direction, he debated whether to avoid looking at her, which seemed cooler, or look at her, which would help him guide his arm better, he worried that they might stumble due to their height difference and considered how to recover in a way that allowed him to pull his arm back without killing the mood. He looked at the road ahead and saw an oncoming car — should he time it with the passing of the car, so that the engine noise would make saying anything unnecessary? Or would the passing car and his sudden move combine to confuse her and catch her off guard — would she instinctively flinch, whether she wanted his touch or not, forcing him to either politely pull his hand back and disappoint her, or put his hand on her anyway, making him look like an asshole who ignored her flinch?

The car passed before Mac had made a decision. She was still talking. Her hair was smooth and shiny, lighting up with flashes of street lights when she turned her head. Mac reveled in the presence of her even as his mind went in neurotic circles over how to keep her there. He would look down at his feet and see her slender, feminine legs keeping pace next to his. He would look at her face and see his glance returned not with guarded hostility but with interest, maybe even a shade of affection. He would look away from her and sense her aura behind him, radiating connection to him in a way that made his usual anxiety about having someone standing behind him invert completely. After training himself to see 99% of people in the world as 2D, part of the background, to have someone suddenly pop out and become a real person with him was surreal. Especially one who was so attractive to him.

Mac laughed in response to something he hadn’t quite heard but had had the inflection of an ironical line. His laugh was carefully practiced to sound genuine every time, and it was intuitive to him now. Even when something genuinely struck him as funny, when he opened his mouth the same rehearsed laugh would come out. He’d made himself become that way through hours of study. He decided this was the time. He’d just laughed at something she said, indicating he was interested in her as a person, now he would signal that he was attracted to her physically as well, make the connection, and once the physical barrier was broken everything would become much easier. When he was younger, Mac used to resent women for being so passive, for forcing him to become so hypervigilant and well-studied just so he could interpret how they were feeling and whether it was OK to cross that line. He felt it was incredibly unfair that women were simultaneously passive in dating and severely critical of unwanted attention. They basically demanded men make moves on them without knowing fully whether they would be accepted or rejected — the least women could do is rebuff unwanted advances gently. But all the rejections Mac had suffered were very harsh. Twice he’d tried to kiss a girl only for her to walk out on him — both women had gone on to tell their friends he’d sexually harassed them. Mac nursed a resentment against them even as he’d worried he might be a latent rapist. Being treated so rudely for what was (in his opinion) a not unwarranted assumption that mutual attraction existed and should be fed wounded his pride, and he angrily paced his room for hours going over all the subtle hints and signs that he’d taken for flirtation, his complete willingness to back down at the slightest hesitance from his would-be partner, the unfair way all the risks weighed on him while she never risked anything. At the same time he feared himself for a monster, worried that they may be right, especially after the second time, that he might be a horribly inappropriate and gross pervert who should be placed under a restraining order, and he was mortified to show his face in those social circles again. This blend of insult and shame lent an undercurrent of bitterness to his efforts to make himself into a more observant date over the next several years, and he many times ranted to himself about how he was turning himself into Sherlock-fucking-Holmes for women who still didn’t do the slightest amount of effort to win him over in return. But he kept practicing his observation, and over time his pain faded, and instead he began to trust his own competency to handle those unfair circumstances regardless. There was still bitterness somewhere deep inside him, but it was unfocused and quiet.

Mac swung his arm up, looking away as he did so. He realized at the last second he might accidentally bump her head if he went too high, so he compensated low instead. His arm crossed her back, his hand touched her tricep. Now that he had physical contact he could feel where his hand was without looking at it, and he adjusted his position a couple inches higher, to be more natural. His attention immediately pivoted to his feet, carefully guiding his steps to match hers so as not to trip each other up now that they were joined at the shoulder. He managed to keep pace without pulling on her, and one knot of tension out of many dissipated inside him. The move had been relatively successful — now to check the result.

He waited, but she said nothing. They were still walking at the same speed as before. He didn’t dare look at her, that would betray how nervous and insecure he was. He wished he could read her face in that moment. His mind had completely blanked from the frenzy of trying to coordinate his move, and he couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. He frantically cast around for another line of conversation to bring up. “So, do you write?” he finally said.

“No,” she said. Mac panicked. That was a very short answer! “Why,” she asked, “do you?” There wasn’t much energy in the question, but was that because she was tired from a long evening, because she was bored by the subject, or because she was disgusted by his arm around her?

“A little,” he said. “It helps me process my thoughts sometimes. Mostly I journal, sometimes a story.” This was agony. He didn’t dare take his arm away as long as there was a chance he was misinterpreting the situation, but at the same time if he left it for too long he could permanently ruin his chances with her.

“That’s interesting,” she said, and she sounded genuine. “Would you let someone else read something you wrote?”

Mac’s heart raced. Was she really that interested in him? “Why, are you interested?”

She shrugged. Mac felt her shoulders move under his forearm — he could feel her shirt shift under her jacket, and the shape of her naked skin beneath her clothes, and the outline of her skeleton under her flesh. Her shoulderblades rolled beneath a thin layer of fat and muscle, her bra straps were subtle indentations he could barely feel. Mac’s mouth went dry — this might actually go well for him. He might finally get past the hump, the initial gauntlet of hurdles a man had to go through to get a woman’s permission to be with her. “I might be,” she said, “if you don’t mind.”

He said nothing. He wasn’t sure what to say.

“I’d be interested what your inner life is like,” she said. “Like, what you’re thinking about throughout the day, you know?” Several steps passed. “Also if there’s any private stuff, well, you don’t have to show me of course, but I’d be interested in reading about that, too. I don’t tell secrets, I’m just curious about you.”

Mac hmm’d noncommittally. He wasn’t sure yet how much he dared share with this woman. He wanted to be seen by her, suddenly, in every way. He wanted her to read his darkest secrets, to know how he was plotting their every interaction, to understand what kind of a freak he had become. He wanted her to figure him out, comprehend him, and accept him. The quiet, bitter part of him wanted her to be grateful that he put so much effort into winning her over. Wanted her to be awed and maybe a little guilty, wanted her to say “I didn’t realize…” and to pity him a little bit. Then another part of him wanted to be wanted, only wanted her to understand him so that she could more accurately want him specifically, wanted her to undress him and to want him to undress her, wanted a deep recursive spiraling of want until they were locked together in physical ecstasy, turned on by each other’s desire more than by each other, ultimately turned on by themselves, by having a proxy to express their own admiration of themselves (he assumed she admired her own beauty the way he admired his own intelligence) and by being worthy of being the proxy of someone so admirable, to think is this really happening? can someone this beautiful really choose me to gratify her ego with? and also is this really happening? did I really get someone this beautiful so attracted to me she’s willing to act as a masturbatory aid for me? because ultimately that kind of sex is elaborate masturbation, and Mac knew this, but he sensed the potential for something even greater behind that first hookup and he wanted that, too. Finally, a part of him was exhausted, and wanted to be done with the neurotic guessing game, wanted her to say good job! you win! now you never have to do this again and we can just be regular people to each other and settle down with him, bringing her favorite mug, her quirky habits, her tedious financial concerns, her TV dramas, to coexist with him and live with him and want to have him around without constantly requiring attention from him, to want each other’s presence with no commitment beyond that, and sometimes not even that, only to want each other and be secure in the knowledge of being wanted, of having someone to return home to, to have an anchor, he wanted to be in a boring relationship with a quiet undercurrent of love running through him where bitterness was now, he wanted to win the game and escape, and he wanted her to want him so that she could be his lifeline out.

“Are you OK, Mac?” she asked. She’d stopped walking. She picked up his arm and removed it from her shoulder. “We’re here,” she said.

Mac looked up, even as he allowed his arm to be removed, even as his heart plummeted in his chest. “Oh, yeah, this is your place, right?”

She nodded. Her eyes were not shining anymore. Concern and suspicion crossed her face. “Sorry, I don’t want to be rude, but you’ve been acting weird tonight.”

Mac’s mind exploded. Part of him panicked, wracked with guilt and shame over his act being exposed. Part of him despaired, feeling the closeness he’d desired slipping away from him at the last minute. Part of him went to work corralling his emotions while another part of him froze his physical body into an emotionless statue, doing his best not to betray the flurry of activity happening behind his eyes. “What do you mean?” he asked. If he could at least get her to tell him where he’d gone wrong, maybe he could fix it, or do better next time.

She took two steps sideways toward the door, putting some distance between them. “Listen, Mac, dinner was good, and I had fun getting to know you better, and when you put your arm around me that was really nice. I thought I was going to maybe ask you to come in with a bit, and see where things went. But then you were really stiff and awkward as soon as you touched me, like you didn’t actually want to be touching me. It was weird. And then you got really dodgy about your writing, even though you’re the one who brought it up. I guess I’m not mad at you or anything, but the mood just feels weird right now and I don’t think I want to have you come inside like this. I’m sorry, Mac.”

Mac wanted to cry. He’d been so close! ‘Stiff and awkward?’ Of course he was awkward, she hadn’t given him any sign of accepting his advance for several minutes! It was incredibly unfair — he’d really tried his hardest, done everything right, pushed himself to the limit, and then right at the end she decided to reject him anyways for no reason. “Ok, I understand,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say. There was nothing else to say. She’d turned him down. Clearly, there was something fundamentally disgusting about him to women. He’d been rejected over and over, often with no justification (‘the mood feels weird’: an empty non-reason clearly carrying the subtext that she was viscerally repulsed by him and couldn’t explain why) and despite doing everything as well as he could. Mac was simply inadequate to win a woman’s heart—actually never mind her heart, to win a woman’s tolerance. Mac wanted to slam a car door on his own head.

“Sorry, Mac,” she said again. “I really did have fun before that. Maybe we can try again some time?”

Mac felt bad for her to be making this overture of kindness she clearly didn’t want to follow through on, but he also felt insulted to be handled with kid gloves like this, like she expected him to blow up and attack her if she bluntly rejected him. “That’s OK,” he said, “you don’t have to do that. If it’s not working it’s not working, I don’t mind.” He did mind very much, but he felt it was inappropriate to put that on her, as bitter as he might be.

“Okay,” she said. She sounded disappointed — but no doubt also secretly relieved.

“Good night,” Mac said, pulling his lips and eyes back in a forced grin that he only flashed briefly, before it became too obvious that it was fake. “Thanks anyway, I had a good time.”

“Good night, Mac,” she said. She looked like she wanted to say more, leaned toward him from across the sidewalk, her chest raised with inhaled breath about to be put into words — but Mac turned before letting her say something that might unravel him, and hustled off into the cold city night, alone.