The Ring

(Sorry I've been lax on making poast, I am fascinated recently by this whole Questionable Content strip. I... I don't even know why. I started reading at the beginning, and even though the dialog is chunky, the artwork is a bit rough, and the pacing is brutal, the characters themselves are hauntingly familiar, and I can't... stop... clicking. It's got a lot of niche language in it, and watching the artwork style and storytelling technique evolve before my very eyes inspires the same sort of captivated interest as time lapse photography.)

So a couple months ago, the Muse buys me a ring. It is an industrial steel, black banded 'I Love You' ring, and I liked it.

I don't usually wear rings. I think most people just slide them on and forget about them, showing them off when they remember. I feel them all the time, constantly aware of them. I wore a wedding band for about 6 years once, and never got used to the feeling. It's the same reason I would never get a piercing, I know I would feel uncomfortable with it all the time, and never be able to relax into I removed the offending object from my skin.

This particular ring, the largest one in stock, was still too small to be worn on anything but my pinky. So the Muse took it in to be resized. Apparently, you can't resize steel, so her options were at that point to either give up the chase and leave me with a very fine pinky ring, or go ahead and purchase something more significant. Which she did.

It's not an engagement ring, our relationship just isn't there yet. Certainly a harder core version of the "I Love You" ring, and a little less substitutional than a promise ring. It's more like an "I'm Always With You" ring, a reminder of her wherever I go. Literally, in this case, as I will always be aware of the ring on my finger and what it means.

In most relationships, I have here and now tendencies. While you are here, right now in front of me, there is a relationship. When you are not, that relationship is put into stasis, and the next time I see you, it is brought out and carried forward. In the meantime, there is no real maintenance there. It is assumed to exist, fading over time, without ever completely ceasing to be.

This is just the result of moving, country to country, town to town, my whole life. My parents were always on the move, sometimes traveling in a direction to get somewhere, sometimes moving around villages and towns in the same area like the world's slowest tourists. Even when we were standing still for a while, the community, filled with people like my parents, would shift around us, making and breaking relationships every day.

You would meet the nicest person, the cutest girl, the neatest friend, and you would never know how long you had to spend with them. It could be three hours, six days, or six months. Never more than a year. Often, you would re-meet these same people a year later, and again, never really know what you had left. Even then, although it was always assumed that you might meet up later, chances were slim, and so if you found someone you liked, you treated them as if those were the only moments you had, because likely, they probably were.

You never really dissolved the relationship, you never said goodbye. Children growing up in that situation, children like me, grasped onto anything with even the slimmest hope of permanence. It was always maybe I'll see you later, and yah, that would be great. Make enough of those kinds of friendships, and sooner or later a few come back around. Not many, not many at all out of the hundreds of thousands of people I have met, but a few.

People wonder how it is I can pick a person out of a crowd and make friends with them, instantly. Some of my long term friends, the ones I have met since moving and staying here in Edmonton, call me Slider. As one of them would say, 'He just slides right in.' And its true. Any group of people, any place on earth. I can find a way to hang out for four to six hours, no problem. Not for anything more than a few days, but for one day? One night? Simple as breathing. It's what I do.

I can tell you what sort of personality you have just by watching you for a few minutes. You may be unique, by there are only so many different themes, and they weave and bend around everyone.

Your life is written in the small, detailed lines on your face, how often you smile, how often you frown, how excited you get, how solemn you are. Your eyes, clarity, focus, perception, tell me how you see the world and absorb information. How you talk, what words you use, the timing and inflection, tells me your vocabulary, your cognitive thought pattern, your sense of humor, your state of mind. How your body is built tells me how you are used to moving; strengths, work habits, life experiences.

When I am choosing to blend, I am prepared. My clothing is layered, my hair is neutrally set. I have no logos, no sports teams, no brand names. My jeans are washed and black, not new, not worn. When I enter a room, it's as if I've been there before. I have a small, neutral task to do. I am every person you've passed by without thinking about. An extra in the movie of your life.

Within the first few moments of entering a scene, I've already grasped the theme of the joint, got the layout of the establishment and mapped out the different parties gathered there.

Within the first two minutes, I've decided on a persona and hit the bathroom. My hair is now slightly altered to suit the theme of the place, and the people I'm going to hang out with. It might be slicker, maybe shaggier, maybe more unkempt. Maybe my shirt was just too obviously out of place, its gone, and lining one of the many deep pockets in my ubiquitous jacket. Maybe my shiny silver watch is now neatly resting above the shirt sleeve. Maybe I look snappier, maybe I look worn out.

Within the first ten minutes, I've got an advanced grasp on every relationship in the room. I know who the buddies are, who the daters are, I know who the meetup groups are. I know if those two guys just met that girl in the corner, or whether they've known her for a year. I know if everybody in that group of ten people knows each other, or whether they belong to a function and just happen to be there together. I know who is killing time, I know who is open to conversation. Then I listen to the noise of the place, open myself up to the situation, and I know where to be.

It's all by ear from there. You will find that I can do anything you can do, but you will likely be better at it. Do you like to play pool? I'll challenge you, and you'll win, but it will be damn close. Close enough for a rematch. Close enough to continue the conversation. Do you play darts? Same deal. Pong? Golf? Video Games? Political outrage? No matter the game, I can play it, and I'll be just difficult enough to beat to be fun. A run for your money. I'll ask you for tips, and when I win, as I will always win at least once, I will probably do it by using the same trick you just taught me. Everybody wins. You're the man, I'm the man, everyone's The Man. Let's drink.

You will find that I have a piece of history in common with all the major players in the scene. Moved up from a small town? Me too. Small towns are great. Or they might suck, depending on why you moved. Injured? Me too. Check out this scar. From a different country? Me too. Speak a different language? Me three. College? Broken Home? Military? Nuclear Family? I can relate. Oh, I have my differences here and there, but all in all, we're on the same page. I hear what you are saying. I speak your language.

Because I do. Within just the first few minutes of conversation, I've already started to sound like you. My intro was done in a very neutral accent, and as I hear you talk, I've been switching that pronunciation to match yours. I use your words when I speak, I use your meanings, and once I gist the flavour of it, I can say anything and still sound like I grew up twenty miles away from your home town. If I explain something, or inquire about something, I use the words and timing that will bring that meaning home to you. There are very, very subtle shifts in dialect, especially here in Canada; its more about how one puts words together and uses them more than just mere pronunciation. I know I've hit the right vein when I crack a mild joke and get the timing right to make it sound humorous.

Humor is mostly about timing and presence, not about content, at least it is for me, as I don't know what 'funny' actually is. I know when things are funny, and I laugh at comics and jokes and people, but I can't make something funny. I can make people laugh if I am with them, for some reason I know how to do it if I am tuned into them, but in a neutral set, like in writing for example, I'm completely lost. The jokes I try to make usually pan, and things I never intended to be funny turn out to be.

So I just tell it like it is. Life is funny, and thank god, because otherwise I'd never be able to bring someone to laughter, and its a handy thing to do sometimes.

We can spin tales the whole night. You can tell me a story, maybe its real, maybe its embellished, but if you like to tell it, I like to listen. I like stories. I collect them. I might even tell a few of my own.

If I like you, I will probably play a little game with you at some point near the end of the evening. I doubt you'll be aware we're playing it. I do it because up until this point, the persona I'm projecting is tailor built for wherever I am. It's not actually me though, its essentially a glorified coping strategy.

For whatever reason, I needed to be there for that amount of time, and I have made the very best of it. I have had the very best time it was possible to have given that situation, according to my needs at that time. I did my best to make sure you had a good time, and most likely, if I liked you, you were on fire tonight. The invisible hand turning your every move into gold. This is my gift to you, for being open to a new person and a new experience, no strings attached. I may not exist, but surely there are others who do, and hopefully that same openness is shown to them. It's the best that I can do, under the circumstances.

Here's the game: I will casually tell you two stories about myself, and it will seem as though one is true, and the other is not. The tale that seems true will fit in with the easiest to believe, that I really am just an ordinary boy, like everyone else you meet. That I have my place in the world, and for whatever reason our paths have crossed. This tale is usually swallowed whole, with few exceptions.

The other story will fit into something far more difficult to believe, that what you are seeing as this guy, is just one tiny fraction of what actually exists. That I could be anywhere, or anyone, and have the same kind of experience. That there is no one place for me, that I fit in everywhere and nowhere, adapting to different cultures, lifestyles and ways of thinking.

Most people laugh at the second tale, everybody has wanted to be somebody or somewhere else at some point. Sometimes its chalked up to being a dreamer, or that maybe I had to much to drink, or that I'm just spilling out bullshit. Sometimes its completely ignored, it doesn't compute and the whole thing is skipped over. However you take it, I'll agree. Oh, I nearly got you there, yah, no, its not exactly true, but it is a good story. Heh, maybe I saw that on Discovery or something, man am I wasted.

Every once in a blue moon, somebody at the table has their own iceberg. The girl nobody thought was paying attention. The guy who used to talk so much he was hushed down into a year long quietness. There is a specific look that moves across their face when they hear the change of tone in the last piece, when they hear my voice, when they hear my timing peek out for those few seconds, and you know they believe. Sometimes people will squint at the first tale, and suspicion rears its head. They think it's a fabrication, but can't process the why or how.

Those who find the truth, almost always find a way to talk to me alone. You know, it was really nice meeting you, they say, maybe we'll catch up later. Yah, I smile back, that would be great.

Even though life tends to be more stable when one is always in the same geographic location, there are no absolute certainties. You can cuddle up, you can care, you can love someone as hard as you want, but after they leave your presence, you never really know when or if you'll ever see that person again. Tragedy strikes. The unexpected occurs. The situation changes. The truth of it is, is that all we ever have with someone is Right Now. It doesn't matter how many times you seen or been with them before; there is a first time, there is a last time.

And so it is, that I play with my new ring; feeling the cool metal of it wrapped around my digit while its edge digs gently into the webbing between my fingers. A part of her always with me in the here and now. It's quite comforting, really. I love always being reminded she loves me, and is out there right now, wanting and waiting to be with me again.