3 years ago
Monday, March 04, 2013
Hey old friend
Surreal.
It all just felt so surreal.
There I sat, wingman-ing it up for my friend, as she flirted and made eyes at someone I myself had made eyes at six years ago.
Like I said, surreal.
I hadn't seen him in six years. Six years! Had no idea what he was up to, other than the periodic status updates he posted on Facebook. So since the last time I'd said hi, all I really knew was that he had pizza last Friday, moved to New York in 2008, and campaigned for Obama in 2006 and maybe again this past election. I had all these questions, but instead, I sat there and made polite conversation with his friend. How was work? What do you do again? Oh, tell me about that. Another device, eh? Congratulations, how exciting for you!
I said all the appropriate things, while trying to surreptitiously eavesdrop on the other conversation going on just across the table. After all, being a psychiatrist has trained me to become really good at listening while not really listening.
After an hour or so, my friend got up to enact her exit plan. I mean, we all know how awkward these kind of set-ups can be. And we had talked about it beforehand. She had concert tickets so, at any point, she could get up and say that she needed to go home to get dressed, or rattle off a 'oh my, look at that, the traffic in LA is terrible, I better leave three hours before doors open to make sure I get there in time' while desperately running for the exit.
She stayed well past the doors opening, and it was only when her friend - already at the concert - started hammer-texting her madly to see where she was, that she was guilted into leaving.
I patted myself on the back for a successful matchmaking venture.
But that whole surreal feeling was just beginning.
I thought that that was the end of it, that we would say our goodbyes, our wayward path crossing never to happen again, but instead he wanted to chat. Wanted advice. Wanted my expert psychiatrist opinion on his love life. On what he was doing with his love life.
I learned essentially everything about him in the next few hours. How he wasn't sure he'd ever been in love before, that he was worried he wasn't capable of feeling love, that there were maybe just three girls he liked in undergrad (and yes, he told me their names), and in the midst of all this, he asked me such pointed questions too, that it made me worry he'd come across this very blog and realized that he had played such a role in my early 20s.
[Side note: I highly doubt he's read this. After all, reading someone's blog and realizing you're the subject matter would make anyone prone to awkwardness, and this boy, well, he takes the whole awkward cake. So the fact that he was even able to look me in the eye, pretty much rules out any possibility of him reading this.]
But I got my answers to those questions I had so many years ago. No, he never liked me. No, he was trying to keep from leading me on. No, he didn't realize I had schoolgirl crushed on him. No, I didn't intimidate him...maybe.
Amid all the candor, I smiled, realizing that heck, we might actually be friends now.
How ironic is that, eh? Six years ago, I was lamenting that we could have been friends - no, great friends - if only we had more time to get to know each other. If only we had known each other earlier in our undergraduate lives. Turns out I was a little bit right. We needed time, we got it, and look at where we are now.
Yes, it feels surreal.
Surreal, but nice.
It all just felt so surreal.
There I sat, wingman-ing it up for my friend, as she flirted and made eyes at someone I myself had made eyes at six years ago.
Like I said, surreal.
I hadn't seen him in six years. Six years! Had no idea what he was up to, other than the periodic status updates he posted on Facebook. So since the last time I'd said hi, all I really knew was that he had pizza last Friday, moved to New York in 2008, and campaigned for Obama in 2006 and maybe again this past election. I had all these questions, but instead, I sat there and made polite conversation with his friend. How was work? What do you do again? Oh, tell me about that. Another device, eh? Congratulations, how exciting for you!
I said all the appropriate things, while trying to surreptitiously eavesdrop on the other conversation going on just across the table. After all, being a psychiatrist has trained me to become really good at listening while not really listening.
After an hour or so, my friend got up to enact her exit plan. I mean, we all know how awkward these kind of set-ups can be. And we had talked about it beforehand. She had concert tickets so, at any point, she could get up and say that she needed to go home to get dressed, or rattle off a 'oh my, look at that, the traffic in LA is terrible, I better leave three hours before doors open to make sure I get there in time' while desperately running for the exit.
She stayed well past the doors opening, and it was only when her friend - already at the concert - started hammer-texting her madly to see where she was, that she was guilted into leaving.
I patted myself on the back for a successful matchmaking venture.
But that whole surreal feeling was just beginning.
I thought that that was the end of it, that we would say our goodbyes, our wayward path crossing never to happen again, but instead he wanted to chat. Wanted advice. Wanted my expert psychiatrist opinion on his love life. On what he was doing with his love life.
I learned essentially everything about him in the next few hours. How he wasn't sure he'd ever been in love before, that he was worried he wasn't capable of feeling love, that there were maybe just three girls he liked in undergrad (and yes, he told me their names), and in the midst of all this, he asked me such pointed questions too, that it made me worry he'd come across this very blog and realized that he had played such a role in my early 20s.
[Side note: I highly doubt he's read this. After all, reading someone's blog and realizing you're the subject matter would make anyone prone to awkwardness, and this boy, well, he takes the whole awkward cake. So the fact that he was even able to look me in the eye, pretty much rules out any possibility of him reading this.]
But I got my answers to those questions I had so many years ago. No, he never liked me. No, he was trying to keep from leading me on. No, he didn't realize I had schoolgirl crushed on him. No, I didn't intimidate him...maybe.
Amid all the candor, I smiled, realizing that heck, we might actually be friends now.
How ironic is that, eh? Six years ago, I was lamenting that we could have been friends - no, great friends - if only we had more time to get to know each other. If only we had known each other earlier in our undergraduate lives. Turns out I was a little bit right. We needed time, we got it, and look at where we are now.
Yes, it feels surreal.
Surreal, but nice.
Friday, March 01, 2013
More adventures in parent texting
My parents have become huge fans of texting. My mom still has no idea how to listen to her voicemail, but she's all over the texting.
And they're trying to get hip with the lingo. Almost every text they send me is littered with TTYL! or BRB! or LOL! (which in their mind, stands for 'lots of love,' not what middle schoolers traditionally use it for), every acronym inevitably capitalized and punctuated with exclamation marks.
Recently, my dad has become a purveyor of the word "dude." Hey dude! Blah blah blah, dude! Blah blah, you know what I mean, dude?
Except, he doesn't quite spell it right.
So instead of it turning into a casual conversation between friends, each time he texts me, I'm reminded of just how much of a dud he finds me.
And they're trying to get hip with the lingo. Almost every text they send me is littered with TTYL! or BRB! or LOL! (which in their mind, stands for 'lots of love,' not what middle schoolers traditionally use it for), every acronym inevitably capitalized and punctuated with exclamation marks.
Recently, my dad has become a purveyor of the word "dude." Hey dude! Blah blah blah, dude! Blah blah, you know what I mean, dude?
Except, he doesn't quite spell it right.
So instead of it turning into a casual conversation between friends, each time he texts me, I'm reminded of just how much of a dud he finds me.
Saturday, January 05, 2013
I'm a little bit County, and you're a little bit rock 'n roll
I just started a rotation at the higher ranked, more academically minded institution across town, and I feel like a fish out of water.
---
PSYCH RESIDENT
Oh my god! I took care of the craziest patient today!! Listen to this, you won't believe it, but I swear it was true. She was covered in her own feces and was talking to her hallucinations as she threw pieces of paper at us!
OTHER PSYCH RESIDENT
Holy cow! What did you do??
FIRST PSYCH RESIDENT
Well, we didn't know what to do, so we gave her a combo of Zyprexa and Ativan IM. Anything to calm her down quickly, you know.
ME
Wait! You gave those together??
BOTH RESIDENTS
[stare at me as though they suddenly realize that there is another person in the room as I blush to the high heavens for speaking when not spoken to]
...
FIRST PSYCH RESIDENT
Well, I think all that talk about respiratory depression is just anecdotal. Anyhow... [pointedly stares at his co-resident and obviously dismisses me]... I don't even know how she ended up at our hospital! How did she get through security?? Hahahaha!!
ME
[speechless]
---It's gonna be a long month. Oy.
