Nothing Good Comes From Fear

Manhattan – 2007 (I’m 52)
My story is about me being afraid to say what’s on my mind … to men… actually to one man that I could not manage to break up with until I ended up giving him a birthday party which was not a good thing.
On our first date I told him I had this problem of not being able to say what I was thinking with men and he said not to worry and he asked me what I wanted to drink and I told him I don’t drink and he said “fine” did I mind if he drank and I said “no” because I don’t but I also told him I didn’t think it was a good idea to drink on a first date because it impaired your judgment and made people look better than they really are and then he told me this quote by Winston Churchill which was “I don’t drink to make myself more interesting … I drink to make you more interesting…” and I laughed, but a second later I realized that was exactly what I just said, but I didn’t say anything, and that’s when the trouble started.
So we went out again that was okay…
But then I called him in the middle of the week and said “hi what are you doing” and … it turned out he was at a bar so he couldn’t really talk … so I said “okay I’ll see you on Friday which was when we had our next date which was a book reading and when I got there he was talking to some other people and they were drinking and he was telling them that Winston Churchill line again which they thought was really funny I guess because they were hearing it for the first time and then when we were alone he said in this really dire voice “there’s something I need to tell you.”
And what he had to tell me was that it really upset him when I called and said “hey what are you doing?” because it was a personal question and an invasion of his privacy and we really didn’t know each other well enough for that and what I wanted to say to him was that I really didn’t give a shit what he was doing and it was just a conversation starter and that he was a freak and not to call me anymore, but what I said was “… I’m sorry….”
That was when I started trying to break up with him and I did what I always do when I’m trying to break up with someone, I started paying for everything.
So I took him out for a drink to break the news to him and I said “I really don’t think this is working out” and he got really upset and he said:
“Isn’t it better that I told you what was bothering me?”
And I was thinking “Hell no!” but what I said was
“Yes I will see you tomorrow night”
And so the next night we had dinner again and he had many more beers and then he took me back to see his apartment.
It’s this big apartment on Riverside, lots of rooms and every one of them has a collection of something:
In the bedroom teddy bears,
In his office model cars,
In the dining room hats,
In the pantry little bars of soap
And in the kitchen a collection of corks…hundreds and hundreds of corks.
So from then on my mouth is moving but all I can think about is my getaway, except I make the big mistake of asking him “what are you doing for your birthday” because I know it is coming up in a few days and because it is his sixty-fifth birthday which was a big one and he says he isn’t doing anything and instead of saying:
“Okay then, see you later, have a nice life,”
I say: “you can’t do that you have to invite some friends over”
And, like an idiot I offer to help.
So that is how I end up a few nights later bringing a cake that I can’t eat and champagne that I can’t drink to a party for this guy that I can’t stand and sitting in his living room hearing the Winston Churchill line again and everyone but me is laughing because all I can think about is how I want to hit him over the head with a large pot that is one of a collection of pots on the table next to me.
But anyway I got through it and I tell myself it was a mitzvah that I did helping him with the party which is a good deed in Yiddish which I know even though I’m not Jewish and it wasn’t a complete disaster because I met a woman who invited me to a MOTH event at the library the next night which was how I found out about Story Slam and I was happy about that.
And the next morning I figured I spent enough money by then over a hundred dollars which seemed like enough to break up with him so I sent him a nice email and he seemed okay and everything was great… except my new friend also invited him to the Moth Event and the sponsors were wine and vodka so of course he came and drank and he sat next to me which was kind of awkward but I tried to be nice and thanked him for introducing me to my new friend and do you know what he said.
He said that it really bothered him that I was “latching on to his friends” and he said “latching on” about three times and then I got really mad… which I don’t think is the way you’re supposed to feel when you do a mitzvah and that made me wonder why if I wasn’t feeling good about this good deed I had done.
At first, I thought maybe you had to be Jewish to do a mitzvah but I realized that wasn’t it. I think you can’t do a mitzvah or any kind of good deed when you’re afraid, because nothing good ever comes out of fear.