an open letter to the guy who works downstairs

Okay, so you’re cute.  On a good day I look female.  You are a fashion designer.  I am sort of a graduate student and also a babysitter.  These days, come to think of it, I’m really just a babysitter.  You have piercing blue eyes.  People tell me I’m funny sometimes but I am starting to realize it might be their way of letting me know they think I’m average looking and not very intelligent. 

I’m a big fan of anonymity in a crowd.  As much as it makes me look like an asshole, I’m the kind of person who will meet someone at a party, engage in an hour-long chat, and if we cross paths the next day on campus, will pretend to attend to Something Pressing on my iPhone to avoid eye contact and the awkward wave-of-shame because it just dawned on me that last night we decided to be best friends, shotgunned 5 beers, and then told each other our deepest secrets and commiserated over our childhoods.  One of us might have cried.  One of us might have been the “lookout” while the other urinated in someone’s closet.  Tears, yes, there were definitely tears.  On numerous occasions I have sent cover-up text messages to myself to avoid such a wave, one of which read, “sandwich sandwich sandwich what kind of sandwich will i eat this is so awkward i feel so awkward i want to eat a sandwich now that is all i want in life why are there so many people in this world to run into i just want to be teleported from home to class to sandwich to home i type really fast on my phone good job rose sandwich meow end of serious exchange brow furrow yes indeed i haven’t decided what sandwich to eat oh well xoxo gossip girl.”

When your men’s suiting boutique started construction downstairs I didn’t say hello to you because I wasn’t sure what exactly you were doing in the courtyard, and sometimes in Paris saying hello to someone when it is not merited is looked upon as Rather Odd, so I decided to pretend like you didn’t exist and hoped that soon you would go away forever so I would have just seemed Extremely Busy and Therefore Always in a Rush rather than Rude and/or Socially Awkward. 

Then it became clear that we would be seeing each other on a regular basis, and I guess not saying hello became our thing: just a half-smile and the language-ambiguous murmur coming from me because I always have my headphones on when I get into the building, and when I attempt to speak while simultaneously listening to music I sound like a deaf person.  

But then your partner - who is jovial and unintimidating and married with children, with whom I have a normal and friendly relationship - invited me to your store’s opening party, where we were finally introduced and therefore forced to talk, which felt a bit weird albeit wholly necessary because at this point we had seen each other’s faces over twenty times without ever exchanging a simple bonjour.  Immediately I felt like I had to rush to get through the biographical bullet points to justify my presence on earth, so I told you I was American and from Los Angeles and what I was doing in Paris.  You told me you co-own the boutique, which at first I didn’t believe because you’re only 28 or 29, which I hope you didn’t find insulting because I was actually very impressed, but sometimes when I’m nervous I forget how to speak French like a normal person and so I am only able to convey basic emotions, like shock or sadness or happiness.  Normally I speak in a nuanced manner.  I can be very clever, you know. 

Then you had to go mingle with the other guests, and I felt extremely awkward since it turned into a proper Fashion Event and even though I desperately texted ten of my friends to come, none of them could, so I drank a lot of champagne by myself and shoved smoked salmon blinis into my mouth just to occupy my hands.  I spoke with a few of the tailors in the boutique - a charming Italian woman and an Adonis of a German homosexual - but mostly I drank large amounts of champagne and shortly after, decided to go home and pass out before I made any New Best Friends I would have to avoid in the future.

From then on we said “salut,” to each other enthusiastically, and I was thankful that my days of awkward murmuring were over.  Occasionally we said “ça va?”  which means “how are you,” and I would respond that I was fine and you would respond that you were fine too.  Sometimes we would have prolonged interactions, in which we would give each other details about the nature of our respective existences, like when I came into the building with a noticeably broken nose and two black eyes and I sat down in one of the lawn chairs you and your partner put out in the courtyard on pleasant days, and we chatted about me getting punched in the face. 

Remember that one time when I ran into you outside my building at 9:30pm on a Friday evening, and I acted like I just saw my high school teacher at the mall?  I was surprised to see you outside of work, in our little bubble of contained interaction, so I decided to inquire about the circumstances of your passing by your place of business/my residence outside the context of your hours of operation.  It was a mistake.  I should have left it at bonsoir.

I said, “Hey, where are you going?” and you said, “To a restaurant.”  And then I made a very strange gesture that will forever haunt me, that makes me want to slowly rip my fingers off from the knuckle and feed them to stray dogs, and use the oozing blood from each nub to paint my armpits, rubbing it in fervently like a reverse Lady Macbeth with my palms and bloody finger stubs. 

So you said, “To a restaurant,” like a normal person.  What I did in response was not normal: I gave you a thumbs-up, which turned into two thumbs-up, which then turned into a strange inquiry involving my two thumbs as to whether or not the restaurant in question was located in that direction.  I might have done a nervous half-dance with my thumbs in the air as I slowly began to realize that I was in the process of Profoundly Embarrassing Myself.  My routine confused you, which is understandable, because it confused me too - when I recount this interaction to myself in my head, my hands turn into these grotesque, oversize clay figurines that are controlled by a sadistic midget puppetmaster who hates me and never wants me to have a normal conversation with anyone, let alone a heterosexual male.  I pray that you thought I was drunk.  I wasn’t. 

You smiled and laughed nervously and said, “Euh, au revoir.” I said “au revoir” back and then I raced over to the corner where I checked to see if you were gone, and I buried my head in my sweater and screamed, “WHY AM I SO AWKWARD.” 

Ours is the kind of relationship where I can sense that you harbor some kind of opinion about our brief interactions - and while I’m not sure if you find me attractive or if you feel sorry for me - I would very much like it if you can find it within yourself to disdain me.  Please.  Have you ever hated someone so much that ignoring them completely becomes this saccharine, greasy pleasure - like the hang-over food of human emotion?  I have.  It feels great for a while, and when it stops feeling good, you can just move your store.

You see, every time we interact now I feel so awkward I want to take off my shoes with my teeth and play hopscotch in broken glass.  I want to scream into my cheeks, so that it inflates them until they get bigger and bigger, and suddenly my whole body will turn into a hot-air balloon fueled by my own shame so I can fly away, up, up into the sky, back to America.

I’m sorry for being weird.  Let’s be friends.  Or we can just go back to being strangers.

Sincerely,
Rose

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