IN LIEU OF SMALL TALK

It took me over six years to substantially recover from my relationship breaking up ten years ago. My apartment mate seems to have entirely recovered from her breakup with WB two years ago. From which we can deduce that she is more flexible and resilient than I am.
Or more likely that I am more neurotic. If not neuro-typical.

Whatever the case, I still like women. I just haven't pursued the matter.
Maybe as many as fifty percent of my favourite people are women.

That may have something to do with my distaste for sports.
Football and baseball are boring spectacles.

Women are less likely to engage one in ridiculous conversations about "the team" than many men. I do not have any favourite teams. Well, Ajax, the Amsterdam soccer team is sort of a candidate, if only because I have an affection for Amsterdam. But I haven't followed their progress, nor exulted over their victories or lamented their defeats.
Do not ask me to name any of their players.

If I had a choice of genders to share a room with, I could choose either.
During sports season however it might more likely be the other.

Years ago my brother Tobias and I would spend the entire evening in the room off the courtyard in near-complete silence. Him with his books and the chess board replaying the moves of the masters, analysing and understanding their game, me happily reading about the conquistadors spreading disease to the Aztecs, or Charlemagne and Elegast burglarizing a nobleman's castle (from which we might learn to never trust your brother-in-law).

The cats occasionally kept us company.

The occasional click of chess pieces, the turning of pages, a clink from my teacup and saucer, and the striking of a match to light my pipe were, often, the only sounds.

Talking and communicating aren't always the same.

I am not a very sociable man. I miss smoking my pipe while indoors reading and drinking tea, and the sound of chesspieces from across the table. I miss the cats. And I miss non-speaking.

The Covid lockdown has not affected me very much. I do not miss long conversations about nothing, and I do not miss being around hordes of people. Sometimes I miss having lunch at favourite places with a cup of milk tea. But a pipe and a walk afterwards always beckoned.
And I was free to leave at any time, having eaten alone.

There is no pressure to be social.

TOBACCO INDEX


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