What Are You Playing Along With in Life?
In the evening I become a voyeur. I like to walk downtown, pulling my jacket tightly around me as I peer into the windows of restaurants. I am not a lonely person; I have more than enough friends, a good job. But when I look through the windows of a restaurant and I see a man a woman sharing a meal, well dressed, leaning towards one another across the table, my heart becomes arrhythmic.
The end of December, at the cusp of the new year, I come very close. There is a man, smart and handsome and funny. We talk about books, and snowstorms, we make plans to travel. He knows exactly what he wants, and he offers me a place in his life in such a bold and generous way that I can barely keep up.
We sit in the corner of a clean, candle lit bar, drinking Alaskan Ambers and discussing the genius of Murakami. Through the fogged up windows, I can make out the blurry shapes of strangers as they walk by alone, pausing slightly to look in on us. He reaches for my hand and I draw away from him, slowly, pretending that I don’t notice.
This is the problem- I do not want to take his hand. I feel nothing, not the fluttering pulse of anticipation, not the wrenching stomach twist of fascination - the world’s loveliest nausea. With this man, for some unfathomable and infinitely frustrating reason, I feel utterly empty.
I’m an improv performer. My scene partner and I can work ourselves ragged to create a compelling story out of some terrible suggestion from the audience. (“Pants!” “Bread!”) I know how to convince the world that things are going exactly as planned. It’s a skill that I’ve studied, a very precise, creative and elaborate way of lying.
If I want it so bad, I think, why don’t I just fake it? I’m determined and impossibly stubborn. If I start dating this man, I will put my head down and make it work. From the outside it will appear perfect, just right, and nobody will have to know.
We all play along with something in our lives. Maybe your job is draining but you’ve got this far, you can’t quit now. Often it’s a relationship that we keep barely stitched together but seamlessly glossed over, because of children, or finances, or because we’re scared to be alone again.
It’s not always a choice. Playing along can be synonymous with survival. Other times it’s merely pride, or habit. We are so used to pretending that the thought of giving up the charade is too distant, too shameful to consider. How long can we keep it up? Until the waters have calmed. Until my debt is paid off. Until I can’t stand it anymore. Every life, every person, every circumstance is different.
