What do you love about life?
After another break, we’re once again back. Another last-longer is on the table, and my precious crypto is where my mouth is to prove that I can write a blog post every day until either Ted or myself expire. The bet doesn’t start until Saturday, but right now I think the biggest threat to my otherwise-inevitable victory would be simply forgetting what date it is, and not being in the habit of writing every day, failing to rack up even a single post before having to forfeit my ethereum. I think writing again will be good for me, and I (somewhat expectedly) have a mixture of excitement and apprehension about it. A lot has changed since I last wrote regularly, despite it being only a relatively short time ago. There’s a lot to catch up on, a lot of difficult, messy thoughts to try and articulate concisely and honestly; a lot of fresh beans to spill.
Last night I was invited for a drink by a new friend - something noteworthy in of itself, now I am old and bound by social constraint not to show the kind of vulnerability that might lead to some kind of emotional connection with strangers. More about him another time though, because this was the first time I had the pleasure of meeting his girlfriend, and that’s what I want to write about today, because she got me at my own game - and she got me real good.
As the couple arrived, I was already sat at a table with a drink, so we exchanged the conventional pleasantries before the boyfriend excused himself to the bar to acquire beverages for himself and his partner, leaving her and I alone, knowing nothing more about each other than first names. I went for what I thought was a good opening gambit: “what’re generic getting-to-know-one-another questions?” I mused semi-rhetorically before following up with “what do you do for work?”. It was my attempt to be self-aware about the situation; trying to lean in to the potentially awkward and uncomfortable position we were in; acknowledging the prescribed ritual we were about to partake in together without deviating from it.
And then she promptly showed me how it was done. After responding that she worked as a guidance counsellor for young people, she reciprocated my gentle inquiry with the infinitely more disarming, “what do you love about life?”.
It was brilliant. Inspired. I was in awe.
As someone who habitually decries small talk as unfulfilling and largely unnecessary, this is exactly the way I would love to be able to approach meeting new people - but of course I do not, because I am always afraid of them judging me negatively for my directness - despite the fact I’ve never met them before, I still care about what they think about me. Guh, how dumb.
It’s a great first question. I think a lot of people would interpret it as a bit of a trap, but I know it wasn’t intended that way. When pondering my answer, it occured to me that I thought a lot of other people simply evade giving an answer at all - a suspicion which the lady in question later confirmed. I knew I had to say something; I do not want to be the kind of person who, when prompted to be vulnerable with someone else, turns down the opportunity. Being ashamed of loving something about life seems ridiculous on the surface, but there was a sudden rush of panic that I was going to have to justify my answer, and could fall short of persuading my new conversational companion that I was intelligent and wise enough to have discovered something in life that made me happy, and further more that it was one of a potentially very short list of acceptable answers which are generically applicable to all enlightened individuals and aren’t the result of some vicious cycle of delusion and self-augmenting ignorance.
Obviously that is a very cynical take on the situation, and it’s not an entirely fair one. I really enjoyed being asked the question, in fact, I wish more people would ask me those kinds of questions, even as the first things out of their mouths, and I am borderline desperate to be the kind of person who is able to ask those questions first. With all the anxiety and discomfort of immediately facing having some of my emotional defenses stripped away, comes a great amount of freedom and joy from letting go of them.
I knew in the moment that I had to give a genuine answer - I would not accept anything other than honesty from myself in that moment. And that’s good; it shows I am going in the right direction, becoming more willing to show myself to the world and have less shame in the process. It’s very meta, but asked and answering what I love about life, was a moment of life that I loved.
The answer I gave, after a few moments of consideration, was connecting with people, being vulnerable with them, loving and being loved. What do you love about life?