All That I Know is All I Don't Know

At the boba tea café a man brought his PS4 and Xbox One in an overstuffed backpack he had adorned with anime women in bikinis. He played Street Fighter on the big screen TV near our table and corrected someone sharply when they mispronounced the character name Blanka. He went back to playing after correcting the patron. His friend Ed whose parents were born in China asked if he could play. Ed called the Blanka corrector "Zimbabwe Man."

Zimbabwe Man agreed to the proposal.

They played Street Fighter while Helen talked about her Twitch stream and talked about how much harassment she received as a woman on stream, and after talking about it for awhile, a newcomer approached her after ordering a drink for himself and they exchanged names and he said "nice to meet you, miss," and she said "did you just assume my gender?" even though she had made it patently clear throughout the night. Ed laughed and then asked Helen if she was on the spectrum having overheard it all in amidst getting his ass kicked by Zimbabwe Man. Helen didn't understand the question.

"Are you autistic? I took an online test once. It said I was," Ed spoke, as he scrolled through the roster of fighters to choose for his rematch.

The other day a white person dropped the n word rapping along to a song and spent forever apologizing to me and I didn't know what to say. A few days earlier I had told them I cut a friend out of my life because they bragged about Trump on election night and dropped the n word. The friend I cut out was white too, but that goes without saying. In that moment I felt the person who rapped the word owed me nothing, because we were in a car and she was quoting a song, even though I know I would never do it, and then I had to grapple with my own values and how I project and choose to forgive or not. They were apologetic and I didn't know what to say because I never do. I forgive everyone really, I don't say that to pat myself on the back but maybe to try to excuse things. The only person I don't forgive is myself and I've hurt myself more than anyone else so maybe that's fitting. I know she's a better person than I am, warm and caring and intelligent. Those are the things that matter. Now I worry if I am writing too much. If I am worrying too much. If I am too much.

Over the weekend I didn't drop the n word but I took four Xanax and drank a lot of bourbon that was 50% alcohol and then a beer that was 18% alcohol even though I vowed to myself and someone who cares about me I'd never ever mix like that again, because I used to do it all the time and then I got taken advantage of and that was that. I didn't drop the n word even when drunk because I never do but I blacked out and nothing woke me up and someone seriously thought I might die, so I suppose the sliding scale of harm we inflict on each other and ourselves is perpetually cranked up to 10, and I messed up worse than rapping I think but what do I know, I'm white and privileged and maybe this is my weakness, that I will never know anything and fumble around until I stumble into a wall and it falls on me and I can be the guy who bragged only ever about speed reading but didn't read the sign then and there that said the wall was unstable and not to touch it, but I was drunk or anxious and looking at the ground and that's how I missed the sign and ended up crushed to death by bricks.

"Zimbabwe Man" is black and from New York. He says he loves the nickname and uses it to refer to himself all the time, and tells other people to call him it, so I guess it's true. His parentage is Caribbean and French and from there he doesn't know. He has moved a lot, besides New York, he's lived in Detroit and Traverse City and St Louis and Cleveland and Atlanta, and says he thinks he finally found a place to love in Grand Rapids. I hope some day I can find that too. A home I feel I can love. Maybe I never will, and that's the problem. I dream about waking up to palm trees and tropics and my window open all night, not nightmares and stink bugs and grey skies and small towns and the fact that I am still the same person in the same place I have been for too long. I have this idea that I can be better off lonely in a big city than a small one, but I suppose loneliness is a killer all the same and nothing will ever be good enough, and I'll end up driving home late at night sullen and upset in LA or Chicago or New Orleans or New York the same as here, except traffic will be relentless and I'll be too self-conscious to sing in my car surrounded by other traffic at all times. I like when I know someone has my back but I also fear that renders me lazy, that if I live with roommates or a partner in a big city one day I won't reset and go out and meet people and then when I fuck up and they leave or I move somewhere else I'll be back at square one. Perpetually at square one, like always, people taking leaps of faith I don't have, leaving when I should have long ago, trying to make new friends knowing that everything is impermanent except the weight on our shoulders of bad experiences, only lifted when our eyes shut for the last time and the world spins on unaware of our meager existence. Maybe I'll never get over the fact that I finally made friends again and now they are all gone and I am back at square one. It's square one for a reason, because it's the same square as always, that I am always in, like my square bedroom or desk or house. I once again have so few people in my life that I am afraid. There are so many people and things I need to learn and see and I feel like I am racing a decaying body to do so, and then I have a bad experience and wonder why I even bother, so I don't, and then that is a bad experience in and of itself, the not bothering. "Zimbabwe Man" says he's made more friends in Grand Rapids than all other cities combined. I don't know if that says more about the city or him, but probably him, and I hope he feels that is a success he can build on. I hope one day I can do the same. Maybe it'll be in another city. I don't have much confidence.

When I first got to the boba café Ed recognized me and said it's been awhile and was very welcoming and asked me about life and work and my writing and spoke to me like it hadn't been a few months but just a few days. He smiled a lot and showed genuine interest, and I asked him what he had been up to and he said he was still trying to find what he wanted from life and I chuckled and said "me too, buddy, me too." He got up mid-convo to play Street Fighter with the man not from Zimbabwe who still used it as his name. I don't know what to call him in real life other than Nate. That is his actual name.

Matt joined us at the table and then started talking about everything and anything, and before I knew it nobody could get in a word edgewise because Matt had to prove a point on everything. Gun violence got brought up and he started going on about how we can't worry because we're more likely to die in a car crash than by a gun (false, in a vacuum; more Americans die per year to the latter by 10-20% depending on the source used, but they all agree it's more), or even by a tornado (stupendously false), and early on they were honest mistakes so I didn't say anything but as they night carried on I realized they were less honest mistakes and more attempts to brag and show off intelligence and neither me nor Ed nor anyone else could start a sentence without him leaping in. He went on a speech about social anxiety and how people struggle with talking with it because they're expected to react right away in most conversations. Laugh at a joke immediately. Nod or agree to a statement without pause. And that this group was great because you could wait a long time before formulating a response and nobody would judge you. I waited all nigh to formulate a response, to get to say anything. I never did. Matt mentioned several times how he owned two houses, one in Lansing and one in Muskegon. He also owned two cars. He also was going to Portland for a week. And had just been in New York. He said Queens was beautiful. I asked him if he saw Brooklyn. He said no. I told him it was fun. He grunted in response.

Matt sat next to Neal who was older (upper 30s) and dressed in a tie and had a fancy IT job. By the end of the night, we all knew this. He told us many times. We knew how his boss was a narcissist. We knew how Neal had to solve everything. I guess we also knew that Neal, who was married, kept hitting on Helen and sitting with his legs spread wide open and Helen laughed and smiled and so did he and what do I know I suppose. His pants were tight. At one point Helen touched his shoulder. He had about 14 years on her. My dad has 7 years on my mom. I don't know what any of this means. I once met someone from Tinder who lied and said they were older than they were on their profile but didn't tell me until we were face to face.

Later on 8 of us went to a kava bar and a band of 4 white dudes played and sang reggae and one had dreads and they all vaped profusely, smoke rings blown into the air, eyes closed and smiles on their lips. Ed the Chinese American clapped and the man known as Zimbabwe Man hooted and hollered and drew a beautiful sketch of the four musicians. The man in dreads had a lovely voice and played guitar very well. The lyrics weren't that great but 4 young adults sat up front and made jokes about wanting to bang them as the night wore on and people had more and more kava. One person in ripped jeans wolf whistled at them. Their friend said "get it gurl."

Chris left shortly before I did. He hugged Ed and Helen and everyone else and they said they'd see each other soon and that they liked his bright yellow jacket. He smiled and said school was kicking his butt right now but really liked these hangouts. He was in grad school for counseling. He wants to work with people dealing with substance abuse. He didn't drink any kava.

A few weeks ago at a bar a woman I had never met kept putting her hand on my shoulder right away, when we first started talking, and it didn't upset me but it seemed presumptive. Or maybe I am weird. Around grade 5 I stopped hugging my parents as much as possible. I can't even remember the last time I hugged my sister. I don't even know that I ever can really remember doing so. At a bar in Washington DC years ago me and my friend were getting drunk and two women approached us to talk and everyone was hugging each other and then the blonde next to me became hard to hear as the bar filled up so I started putting my hand on her shoulder to lean in thinking it was alright, we had hugged and high fived and all, and truthfully I couldn't hear a goddamn thing and my voice was going raspy. It was the first time I touched someone in context like that, as platonic as it was. Later that night after we got pizza she looked at her phone and said her boyfriend would be mad that she never texted him all night. Her voice had changed and briefly, right then, her jovial smile and tone were gone. I feared possessiveness on the other end, but that was unfair and maybe her boyfriend was kind and great and just wanted to make sure she made it home ok. She invited us to brunch the next day. I texted her at about 10:00am asking if she still wanted to meet up for brunch. There was no response. I promised to never touch anyone again.

The girl who kept putting her hand on my shoulder left at about 9pm that night, she smiled as she said goodbye. I never saw her again.

Late at night at the kava bar, Neal asked Ed about the autism test he cited and said you can't trust any online tests, because that's stupid. Ed tilted his head. "It was a legit test," he said, "my doctor told me to take it. So you can eat my ass." He paused. "Kidding about that last bit, I know saying I took an online test sounds weird." Neal forced a laugh. It was clearly fake.

After about 20 minutes I realized I had spoken to nobody in that time and my one attempt to talk when someone asked about the history of the word Cacao/Cocoa got ignored so I texted someone and told them I was trying to extricate myself and that the entire atmosphere of the group changed and that was true, what was once safe and comfy and approachable now felt foreign and edgier and like I was out of place. I was the only one not laughing and talking and smiling.

I was going to hang out again the next evening, Saturday. One person had a bunch of friends from the east side of the state coming to see her and the group, and there would be 20 of us at a bar. I decided not to go, and then I ended up with 4 Xanax and a lot of alcohol, so I guess I got the liquor in my system either way, but it's funny that looking back if I had just sucked it up and went and been uncomfortable I wouldn't have blacked out on benzos and alcohol for the first time in months, but then I remembered how upset I was driving home Friday night at myself and people and feeling isolated so maybe I still would have either way. I can't construct a future or past much less a night out on the town for a few hours. I don't remember anything much from Saturday night. There's a long text log to various people. I know I talked to some. I don't know what I said. I apologized and they all said I was actually perfectly polite and fine and didn't say anything bad other than I was pretty chatty but the not knowing eats at me. Other than the apologies Sunday morning I haven't talked to several people I spoke to that night since. I don't know when next I will. Maybe never. That's the wrong decision I know. But I suppose I've been good at wrong decisions. I write about these things and people and sometimes wonder. If people knew they'd be in a silly blog at some destitute corner of the internet, would they behave the same? Even anonymized, names and proper nouns changed, how would they feel? Someone on Twitter once joked about not knowing writers because you'll end up in their stories. I'm not a writer. I never claimed to be one. But here I am, writing in a blog, so maybe I am, and maybe we all are, because we all journal or sing or write stories or poems or arrange fridge magnets and we all try to communicate in ways that feel impossible and foreign at times and necessary at others. Maybe it's true that we are all vapid bullies online in ways we aren't in real life, but then I hear everything that has happened 'in real life,' and I know the internet is just an extension of it, and pain and abuse and addiction can happen anywhere and everywhere, and most all of who I know were victimized by people not via Twitter or Facebook but through the day to day aspects of our social life, our existence, or workplace, our house, our friends.

I've thought a lot about the last few nights and how I feel stuck between observing and not contributing, and maybe the former is all that I am good at. I've had people I just met open up to me about trauma and drug abuse and rape and horrible things over the years, often within minutes of conversation, and I wonder if that's how everyone is or if my quietness lends to the belief that I can be trusted with said stories. It doesn't weigh on me or upset me, I like meeting people and for some reason I like first dates and late night talks over drinks or whatever. Maybe everyone just wants someone to talk to. Maybe that's why Matt spoke so much. In between his two houses and trips to either coast he truly had nobody to talk to. Maybe the guitar player wore dreads because he liked them. Maybe he is the privileged stereotype we expect. Maybe he isn't. I guess I'll never know. Maybe I'll never really know if jokes about autism tests and Zimbabwe nicknames and gender references are something some people get comfy with. I used to have a queer friend who said he and his other queer friends had an 'anything goes' attitude and called each other the f slur all the time, and then when people not in their circle called them it they were so used to it they shrugged it off and didn't let it bother them. The friend used to self harm. He disappeared from my life long ago. Maybe we can't speak for anyone but ourselves and even then we're so wrapped up in our fears and anxieties we can't do that, so we try to project and talk about weighty subjects and hope that gets you someone to come home with or if nothing else a smile and a nod and some validation.

I live in a town where I can painfully picture every single way I used to want to kill myself in it, and that scares me a bit, and I feel like I now scare other people, and that I have been a bad person for it, for acting like I can't care for myself as much as I can care for others, or like I want to get out any way possible, whether it's benzos or moving somewhere warm or just hiding in my room all weekend. I feel deep down that I am such a fuck up that everyone could do better than knowing me, except me, because a fuck up like me deserves to be stuck with me. My mom told me recently that she will spend her entire life now worried about me taking my own life, and I suppose I can see why, but the weight of expectations and her sadness just makes me hide even more. I fear hurting everyone more than anything unless it's myself, and the irony is that in doing so, I hurt other people. Maybe I'll wake up not to palm trees but to myself more and more until one day I realize that's just how it is, and at least I have a full bed to myself, and a pizza to myself, and can meet people if I want but it's not that easy, and I'll feel bad if I eat the whole pizza, and the bed feels cold and distant when nobody else occupies it after awhile, even if I can roll around in my horrific nightmares guilt free, and the people are getting older and less brash and coupling up and the dive bars and hipster music fests and hostels are so passé now that we're about work and marriage and Waxhatchee's Swan Dive. I fear losing people closest to me, and I try to do my best and I've gotten better, self harming now 4 years in the past, 8 months clean of benzos and alcohol wiped out but ready to start clear again, scared to admit what I admit, unsure what I want or need, trying to be kind and listen and learn and go from there and if it's enough for someone that's great but I don't know if it ever will be, or if it matters even if it's not enough for me, or maybe that's what I need because someday it'll get me to rebuild and reset, this idea that right now I am not my username on this silly blog that is, like all things - or Mike or Neal or Ed - screaming into the void. I fear my lack of degree and how my income is capped and how I've spent thousands of dollars on my jaw and mouth and car lately that was meant for late night drinks and sunsets in Asia or Europe or something, hole burnt through I can't get back, staring at my bank account aghast that it's the smallest it has been since I was 18 or 19, the desire to pawn off my guitar (I'll never be good at and don't practice enough) or video games (same) stronger than ever. I tell people on the phone or face to face that I don't know anything and it is true, I know nothing, don't know what I should know, and struggle to grasp the reality I want to construct, or what to say, so I say I don't know and it's honest but at some point I need an answer. I hope one day I find one. I've had people tell me I am nice and kind and caring and cute and I believe them because they don't lie but I want to be better and more and stop falling short. Some people care deeply about me and it feels nice and I want some people I know in my life forever but nobody ever has been so why should I expect things will change? Or maybe saying that is self-defeating and selfish and terrible so I don't know. Maybe everybody deserves better than me. Maybe we're all assholes, myself included. I don't know anything. Remember?

I told someone the other day I think deep down I hate my parents. I felt awful admitting it. They always loved and supported me and never abused me. I lived in a household more safe and secure than many. So maybe I'm just fucked up for thinking this. But they tried to choose everything for me, my friends, my clothes, my classes, and succeeded, threatened to hospitalize me or ground me at a moment's notice, screamed at me for anything less than a 4.0, ripped Star Wars books out of my hands and said it was a waste of time to read them. They sent me to Australia and I love them for it but I also live in their shadow, they still try to know everything about me, and I am so scared to make a single decision because they always did for me as a kid, and the very few times they let me choose something as small as dinner, or a shirt, they shot me down and said I was wrong, so I trained myself to just accept whatever anyone wanted, and never make my own decision, and never accept anything less than perfection as good enough, and let them control me, or let anyone else do so, like friends or coworkers or whatever, and now I am lost to it, and I feel bad just writing this, but I feel bad knowing that I will never be perfect, or never really say what I want, and live with that forever, a ghost, like I have been, whatever anyone wants me to be, and I hope that's enough for them. I told a friend once if I had a button to press that made them happy forever and me depressed forever I'd press it without hesitation, and the world isn't zero sum like that but they didn't understand how I could want that. Maybe I will just drag down whoever I know with me. Maybe we all do and we're clawing at each other constantly to get out when if we just all lifted at the same time we could. Maybe shitty metaphors are really lazy and inelegant and muddy things more than they clarify (they are bad, and I hate them, so chalk up one more thing about this I hate).

On Sunday I woke up and a bunch of pictures were posted of the 20 person strong group at the bar that I didn't go to. In the photo, 19 of them are smiling and looking at the camera. I see Neal and Chris and Ed and Helen and they all look happy between drinks and Jenga and Cards Against Humanity, and I know how easy it is to fake because for a long time that's all I did, but there's a genuine quality to their smiles that feels real, that feels apparent, that even a still, relatively context-less photo captures. And then I wonder if I should have gone, again, and if I could have smiled too, or if I would have been the second person who wasn't, and if I would have driven home upset at myself for forcing for a second time something that wasn't going to work, now even more frustrated and distraught. Maybe some day I'll be better. Maybe that's the wrong way to look at things. Maybe we just change and grow and some things get better and some worse and we try to live with what does. I feel like I am better than I once was. I've made tangible improvements. Big ones. Maybe that will one day be enough for myself. I think it's enough for a lot of people. Just maybe not me. The one person I am forever stuck with.

Because it's all true about all but one person smiling. I said 19 because one person clearly isn't. She's sitting there looking off in the distance, sullen and almost afraid, her hands in her lap, a dinner in front of her she has barely touched. She is one of the out of town friends who hasn't met any of these people. In the photo, the man who is not from Zimbabwe has his arm wrapped around her shoulders, face leaned in close to hers, large smile on his face, 3 empty cocktail glasses in front of his seat, looking all the world like he has found his home. I don't know what to make of the photo from my phone in bed, other than what I can guess, what I have hinted at, what I believe based on what little I know. Maybe I never will.