The Characters

Stare out at the void. The crowd. Shuffling and mingling and flowing from room to room, interaction to interaction. I'm sitting with Amy in a dim corner on large and comfortable chairs. She's gone through a rough break up and I'm, well there's always something going on. 

I had asked her to come with me. To this lounge, to an opening where a few of my paintings were being displayed for a couple months. I hate going to these things, and I hate going to these things alone. I am intensly nervous around crowds, but with someone near, some safety net, I can slip a mask on. A costume. A character and pretend.

"I don't think I'm going to be much fun tonight," she says.

"I know. Don't worry, you don't have to be. I just wanted to hang out a bit."

"Okay."

"Thank you for coming with me though. I appreciate it."

"Of course," she says, watching the flow of bodies.

"I hate this type of thing."

"I know. It's funny."

"Why?" I take a sip of the wine I had paid twelve dollars for.

"Because you keep putting yourself in these situations."

I raise an eyebrow. "Well, yeah, that's true, but..."

"But what?" she asks.

"But I have to. Get out there, I mean."

"But you didn't have to come here tonight. You could have just stayed home. You could have just dropped your paintings off and not worried about it."

"I thought about it."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you didn't, It's nice hanging out and doing something and I'm happy you're leaving the house, I just mean that I think there is part of you that likes this sort of thing. Or wants to, anyway."

I think about it for a second. I take my phone out and film some B-Roll for a video I'm putting together. After a few seconds I stop, put my phone away, take another sip, and return.

"Yeah," I say. "That might be true. I do want to be normal. To be... okay with this. Or, comfortable with this. To look forward to these types of things. Mingling. Socializing. Bumping elbows or whatever the hell they say."

"It's okay not to be."

"Of course, for sure. But, I don't know, I do this sort of character when I'm like this, or at shows, or if I go out for whatever reason. You know? Social me."

"I know. I'm well aware of the character. Characters."

"Yeah," I say. "But, I guess I just hope that one day I become it? Does that make sense? Like, one day the person that everyone meets in places like this is the person I just... am."

Amy drinks her beer. A good amount of it. I think she forgot she had it.

"Do you want my opinion?" she asks.

"Of course."

"I'm not a huge fan of the social character. I prefer the regular you."

I laugh. "Depression me?"

"That's not all you are, and you know it. You know what I mean."

"I know. Well... No. I don't know, it's difficult. Most people that I let meet me, I mean in that way, run. Or resent me for it. For, like, lying to them about who I was before I let them in. I don't know. Social me is either really well liked, or really disliked and I'm okay with that because none of that is actually me. It's not me that those feelings are directed at."

"It is to them, though."

I look at her for the first time in a few minutes, questioning.

"To them," she says, "That's you. That's why when you let people in it disappoints them. I'm sorry, that sucks, I get it, but to them the actual you is the person they met." She takes another drink. A couple walk by and briefly glance at one of my paintings, nodding. "When people meet you out in places like this, and I've seen it happen over and over, you light them up. You can be really charming and funny and nice. That isn't to say the real you isn't those things also, but the social you is all there on the surface. You seem wide open and people feel like they instantly connect. So when you eventually show people that 'hey that was all an act, and here is quieter, more serious, depressed me', as you put it, it's kind of whiplash for some folks."

"Yeah, I get it."

"But, on the other hand, there are a lot of people, and I've seen this a bunch too, who meet you, can't stand that social you, and never even get the opportunity to learn that it's this character you do. I mean, I know why you do it, I get it. I love you and I get it. I just mean, those folks don't ever actually meet you at all. But they think they have, and that's enough for them to only think of you as that person."

"I can't disappoint them, then."

"You disappoint them from the beginning. At least with the folks that do like social you, they might get the opportunity. I mean, will it guarantee you to be universally liked? No, of course not, but... I don't know. I love you. I really like the you I know. The not-character you. I wish that that was what you wanted everyone to see. In these situations or not."

I sip my wine. 

"Did you see who's here?" she asks.

"Yeah."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Nothing? Drink my wine and walk around."

"Okay. Is there anything I should do?"

"No. I don't care."

"Okay." She finishes her beer. "I'm getting another one. And I've gotta pee. Watch my purse?"

"Sure."

"Do you want another wine?" she asks.

"Yeah, please."

She nods, stands and disappears around the corner.

The lounge is dim and I wished the paintings had better lighting around them, but they were displayed and out and that was enough. I can see one of Grace's paintings across the room, near one of mine. She had done it in under a week and it was fantastic. Really put mine to shame. Unsurprisingly. 

I finish my wine, set my glass down and pull out my phone. Not keeping up the character. Not mingling. Not socializing. Yet. The nerves had hold of me and it would take a little more time and wine before I could handle it. 

I hadn't eaten all day and I was considering leaving. Heading down the street and getting a veggie burger from the restaurant I like, where I knew the staff and had slowly begun to let a few of them in. Where I could relax a little.

I could see Amy now at the bar, waiting for the bartenders attention. It was busy and after a few minutes she came back with a beer and handed me a glass of wine.

"They didn't have caberet," she says.

"Well, no this isn't that kind of place."

"Wait... what did I say?"

"Caberet."

She laughed. "I said that to the bartender too. She was like 'what?'"

"If you came back with a glass of caberet I'd be so fucking happy." I smiled.

"Well, for now it's just house red. No show at all."

"Absolute bullshit."

"I said I had no idea what she was talking about, by the way."

"About?"

"The fire thing."

I processed what that meant and when I got there laughed. "Okay. I mean, it doesn't matter. But, that's cool."

"Also, I saw Joseph and Ally."

"Where?"

"Back in the other room."

"Should we hang?" I asked.

"Yeah, if you want, let's go."

We stood and went to the other room, where Joseph, Ally, and a few others had gathered around a corner of the bar. More wine. Friends. Art. The Character came and went with the flow of people I did or didn't know. 

I don't even notice it anymore. The change just happens. Over and over and in the morning I will wake and I will be exhausted and socially unavailable for days or weeks and it's only recently that I've figured out why. 

The Characters. The one-person play. The show. 

It's exhausting.