I Was Too Weird

[Listen to an audio version of this blog HERE.]

"I think I'm too weird for you," I said.

"Why?" he replied, and if there were anything he could have said to cement my statement permanently and irrevocably, it would have been, "why?" Simply by asking "why?" he was exemplifying the truth of my soft accusation. Were he weird enough to understand me, he wouldn't waste my time with such a pedestrian question. Instead, he would have said something like, "No my love, let me scratch behind your ears," or, "That can't possibly be true, as I'm far weirder," or, "How about yams and horseradish for dinner?"

I was too weird for him, because when I decided to sleep on the floor for a week and stick glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, he simply said "Why?" instead of understanding that I was replicating a camping trip to Joshua Tree, let's say, or Yosemite. One must prepare for such things.

I was too weird for him, because when I wrote a poem about all the things in the world that are pink, including flamingos and bubble gum and vaginas and lemonade and sticky-note goodbye's, he simply read it and said, "Why?" When he could have commented on the line breaks or use of the first person pronoun or argued that not all starbursts are pink, as the poem implies.

I was too weird for him because when I sprung out of bed at 6 a.m. to do some pull-ups and stretch out my calf muscles and go for a long run up a steep mountain, he said, "Why?" When he could have gotten up with me, not even to do pull ups and calf stretches and long mountain runs, but to do anything worthwhile at all. The morning was too weird for him, what with the birds chirping and dewy grass and purple sky and no traffic. He liked the world loud and distracting, and quiet was simply, too weird for him.

I was too weird for him, because when I turned my Spotify station to Clint Black and belted out a higher-pitched rendition of "Killing Time," he just stared at me with his large brown, cow-ish eyes and said, "Why?" When he could have sung along, or complimented my bird-voice, or asked me what exactly I enjoyed about Clint Black, or country music, or this particular song that implies time is a real enough construct to be able to kill.

I was too weird for him, because when the ocean turned bio-luminescent in the middle of the night and we drove to the beach to see it and I laughed out of joy and danced in the sand, he said, "Why?" When he could have danced with me, or simply appreciated the strangeness of the moment, and our world. Instead he stood rigidly, as if the gentle ocean breeze were stabbing him, as I pranced up and down the beach alone, joyful nonetheless.

I was too weird for him, because when I asked him if we were dating, he said, "Why?" When he could have said, "Why certainly, darling" or "We are not merely dating, we are life-ing, together," or at the very least, "No," so I could have had a solid answer to suck on like a hard candy as I plotted my next move. The phrase, "plotted my next move" makes life sound like a game of chess, which is quite a comforting thought if you really think about it. If life were a game of chess, and we were chess pieces, I would be the King and he would be a Pawn, due to his limited vocabulary and propensity for untying loose ends even further.

I was too weird for him, because despite his large brown cow-ish eyes and heartbreaking smile and silky deep voice, I decided being alone was better than living with a mouth that only said, "Why?" The universe itself doesn't hold every answer, and as we mouthed back and forth at each other, neither of us knowing how to speak each other's language, I felt myself stretch and shrink and nearly burst, like a square of bubble wrap beneath a very rotund bottom. And right before I burst, I realized that perhaps, just maybe, I wasn't too weird for him but that rather, he wasn't weird enough for me.

P.S. Don't ever settle for someone who won't dance with you in bio-luminescent sand, or listen to your wonky music, or scratch behind your ears. “There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.” ―Alain de Botton

xoxo

Sarah Rose