eighteen

17:11:14

I’m sleepy in Beirut.

Hugg left a couple of hours ago. We finally made peace. Regardless, I feel like the relationship is changing course, and perhaps, not for the better. It’s too fresh in my mind to be put into words. The thesis statement is still baking in the oven.

Socrates messaged me earlier on today, inviting me to join him and a friend on an outing to the mountains. I called him a little later to see how it was going. He was already back home.

I met Socrates a few days ago at an exhibition. He has a husky voice, and I like that. It makes me think of all the years he had spent trying to say something to the world. I soon found out that he was not afraid to feel strongly about issues and it is a characteristic that I admire.

Fearlessness. If only the wizard would grant me a brave heart!

Perhaps that is a little unfair a self-criticism, because people have called me courageous before. Yet, I think of those moments as me having been a little more thoughtless, and little bit more careless. But sometimes being stupid translates into trying.

When I first walked in, Socrates looked my way. I walked straight over to him, introduced myself and noticed that he was a little destabilized for that split second. We had spoken before, via the Internet. We shared a fascination with the world. It was nice to finally find someone who I could discuss with. I love the person he brought out in me. It’s the one who suddenly remembers her outside-of-common-conversation vocabulary, who uses language as she would use play dough, to remodel, to recreate, to entertain and who wishes to express because the person listening has the capacity to understand. I openly confessed that I enjoyed our conversations and that I hoped this would carry through into the real world.

It did. I felt at ease.

At first, he was still trying to evaluate the situation. I could see he was a little nervous, but he masked it well. I noticed that I was a little overdressed for the occasion. It didn’t matter though for I was radiating that peculiar kind of light that comes once every now and then, that brilliant burst of confidence which makes me feel like I could do anything. He felt it, and the half bottle of red wine in his blood stream made it all the warmer and all the more acute.

The conversation flowed, the exhibition was closing, the night was still young, so we carried the torch to Demo. His foreign friend came along; no first meeting should risk being over accessorized with awkwardness!

The evening was so lovely that I failed to give La Connasse sitting across from us the evil eye.

La Connasse will be revealed to you in all her glory very very soon, so relax your fists for now.

I excused myself roundmidnight; I had a ball to go to (the very same ball where a year ago I met the "charming" Clooney Fartface). Of course, as the Cinderella custom goes, I left him something to hold on to: a handshake for the foreigner and the more intimate, more culturally fitting three kisses on the cheek, the lip to cheek kind and a reminder to take me out for dinner.

Our conversation over the phone was long; we had a lot of things we wanted to talk about. The only people I can talk with for this long are with my closest friends, like Belle and Flutterby and other girlfriends who live far away, and of course, Botticelli.

We could have talked for longer, but I really wanted to keep the heated discussions for later, for street side cafes or for walks along winding streets. I promised to set a date as soon as I was free.

Giving the warm feeling the conversation solicited, I called Botticelli.

“Coucou.”

That meant he wasn’t busy and he was happy to hear from me. I was very happy too.

We spoke for a while, and it was mostly me updating him with my latest drama. I didn’t want it to be that way, I would have much rather preferred to be sitting right across from him, but those delights need certain circumstances. One being the mutual agreement to see one another.

I stress this not to make him look savage, but to emphasize to what extent I am sensitive to rejection, and especially his. If I were to arrive unannounced and he were immersed in his work, there might not be enough correlation for an impromptu sitting down. To top it all, I still wasn’t sure how he felt since our last conversation, the one where he called me selfish and left me feeling underappreciated and misunderstood.

Botticelli’s concerned tone made me feel better. I felt sheltered. His sincerity always manages to disperse the clouds of doubt that come over me. That is what men are supposed to do for emotional creatures like us; they have it in them to fight away those demonic illusions we sometimes create for the sake of witnessing chivalry. Call this baggage, call this social pressure on the male, but for me a man is somebody who I can look at and forget the meaning of doubt. He is logic, he is strength and he is clarity.

To all the extremist feminists out there, you should know better than to attack me for saying this. I know that women can be strong and logical and everything that a man can be. But I am not talking about women. I don’t know women.

My definition of a man is far from complete, but I do know this: to be a man is to recognize a lady and to treat her well and to never ever make her doubt him.