disappointment

"Do you know about the pre-cambrian shield he asked?", her mind scrambled desperately through her options. Could she say yes? Would he believe her if she did? She knew enough now to know that questions like this inevitably led to a backstory followed by another seemingly innocent question leading to even more explanation all of which contributed to a very long story rife with meandering tangents best titled "I don't give a sh*t".

Over the weeks she had created a game where, as she watched his mouth form the words of the story she never asked to hear, she tried to trace the conversation (if it could be called that) back to it's roots question by question. Today's lecture began as usual with her only contribution to the conversation: "How was your week?" which was all he needed to launch into his Saturday morning monologue. This week he had visited the Sharon Temple and she groaned inwardly when he named the place - she'd never heard of it. Of course, he asked, and as she replied in the negative, she eyed her morning papers longingly knowing what was to come: a surprised "Oh, you don't know where the Sharon temple is?" and a description of how to get there town by agonizingly small town; one town was built using the 'board and beam' style unique to Ontario and his question "Oh, you don't know what 'board and beam' is?" was followed by a detailed description of the style, chosen because of the hardness of the wood which came from the pre-cambrian shield... at which point she interrupted him, conjured up a breakfast date with friends and made her escape.

It's not that she didn't mean it when she asked him how his week was, his weekly adventures were part of what had charmed her when they first met. She felt that each story he shared contained a lesson: stop and smell the roses, be curious, look at familiar sites with new eyes, explore, read, learn...this was back when they were new friends. Before his comments about her 'nice ass', before he started referring to her in the third person while she was sitting right in front of him 'and what does R. think?', before his probing questions about her childhood, before he started caring so much about what she thought.

Why did men have to be so predictable? The opposite sexes were never allowed to just be friends, they were a FEMALE and a MALE first, friends second. I. was more than twice her age, she knew his comments about her appearance were harmless but they were irritating all the same. Why the f* did it matter? Why did he feel the need to comment at all? It was so freaking predictable, exept she hadn't expected it. She hadn't expected him to fall into the male habit of deferring to her first. It was annoying. She had enjoyed thier conversations specifically because they were just that - conversations. Now as he talked, she couldn't shake the feeling that his monologue was rehearsed; that as he had moved through his week, gone about his adventures, he had been mentally planning how he would present them to her and that all she had to do was ask the question, "How was your week?" for his prepared monologue to come tumbling out with barely a pause for breath.

Far from looking forward to their Saturday morning coffee-talk, she had begun to approach them with a mixture of dread and disappointment. She continued to show up with her papers and coffee in tow hoping that they could revert back to their old pattern of reading their papers in compatible silence, sharing headlines when so moved. This was never the case. Instead, I. talked and she carefully arranged her face with the appropriate expression: surprise, sympathy, interest...all the while resenting her obligation to do so, his refusal to notice that she'd contributed nothing more than 'uh-huh' to the conversation, and, lately, a feeling of suffocation at his cloying, inappropriate comments.