The Most Improbable Man

When being around someone makes you feel like a blow of fresh air, dont close the bloody window in its face just because it’s unusual. And if you spend six hours with a stranger and don’t let them go away just because you are confused. Or simply put, don’t be stupid, Jan.

When I woke up the morning after meeting R*** – well noon – I literary gasped and it wasn’t the Blazing sun trying to burn Barcelona to cinders.

It was a thought.

How. Could. I. Be. So stupid!

I usually wake thinking about leaking showers, late rents and where to place people without housing. That day, my first thought was about a man I somehow brought to tears… then let him walk away.

Believe you me I was watching the drinks like a policeman. In Barcelona they hand you over a bottle of gin and sprinkle tonic for a flavor. But intoxication or not, I felt changed. This was new.

A) I haven’t thought of a guy – anyone except my baby nephew – in eight years

B) I haven’t felt my chest so at ease in just as long

C) He was my first thought in the morning. That’s significant.

And also, if you behave kindly to someone and they still feel rejected; then you have done something wrong. 

I remember his flinch when I tried to comfort him. I honestly don’t know if it was me. Maybe somebody at the bar said something that drummed a wrong string. The whole time, we were cheerful. R*** was w***** or slagging someone, or calling them out when they were handsy. All that with rigor and wit. And yet he always came back to me. Stayed close. Talked to me like I was a person, not a target. 

So when I found him, for the last time, getting ready to leave, I felt stunned. The last time we spoke, he’d been wondering out loud what was happening between us. He thought it was strange. He shouldn’t be feeling like that towards a stranger. He started repeating “this could never be, this could never be anything”. I found it very intriguing, for someone to be so aware of the entire uniqueness of our situation. I listened to him quietly. He let me scratch his beard, feel his hair with my fingers. I said “We can try?”

Then he drifted away again.

You don’t have conversation like that with someone you’ve just met – even if you’d swallowed a kilo of molly. (Nobody did. And I’d been drinking water for hours). This was two people silently freaked out by how well they clicked together.

When was the last time this happened to you? Exactly. 

Looking back, I think the 30 hours of wakefulness made me bit blind to growing distress in R***s voice. And I think what he was really saying was “Get me out here.”

And I should have. I should not have let him walk home alone. That’s what humans do – we don’t let each other disappear into the night (or noon) when it matters.

Lesson number one: if something feels good, do not let it go. 

R*** felt like a fresh freedom and peace in my chest. I think I felt like that to him too. And this doesn’t happen twice.