Vases

“The thing is, I didn’t say that. And honestly, I’m so fucking sick of this conversation”

“Yes. You did.”

“I did what, say ‘that’? See now you’re being vague, because I finished the sentence differently so now your answer is confusing, as though I did ‘fucking sick of this conversation’, which is, in fact, not a complete sentence, which in fact explains so much about you in general.

“What does that even mean?”

“Why do you always ask that? It’s such an obnoxious question. What does that even mean? You know exactly what it means, it’s like I stated something in the form of an SAT question: you literally can’t be confused by it, because it has to just has to make sense or we’d have no rationale way to judge people in their teens.”

“What you just said didn’t make sense. This is my point.”

“My point is, I said that I THINK he’s off with you. I didn’t say that he’s into you. Those are two different things. It’s like the difference between a burrito and a hamburger.”

“What?”

“A burrito and a hamburger. Nobody ever really wants a hamburger. They just know it’s possible. No one gets drunk and at 2:14am says, “I could really go for a hamburger.” You know what people say they could go for? A fucking burrito. Because burritos are delicious and oddly dangerous, like you know you’re doing something wrong to yourself when you’re eating one but good god, you’re gonna have that fucking burrito.”

“Matt, what the actual fuck are you even talking about right now? Tom came up to us at the party, asked how things were, and left, with his girlfriend.”

“See, this is the common misconception women, no, PEOple, have with relationships: no one is truly in one. We’re all just wading around the world staring at every last person, wondering about what it would look like with them. Life, a dentists appointment we missed and what the phone call would be like when we called to tell them, the way they’d say the word vase, everything. Because when you think about it, there are literally over 6 billion iterations of what life could look like, and we all act like it’s totally normal just to choose one iteration and expect that we’re not curious about the other 5,999,999,999 other sliding doors that we could open. No one is taken. No one. We’re all just out there, available for the taking, and not because we’re bad people, but because we’re curious. We’re just available. Because everything is. Everything is literally available in this life. Blessing and a curse.”

“I next level hate it when you do this.”

“…and the thing is, that curiosity never leaves. Yes, Tom has a girlfriend. But Tom is a human looking at the other 6 billion minus her and he can’t help but wonder what it’d look like if he opened that door with them. You’re that door. Don’t you get that? You’re that door. And I can’t ever be okay after that, because I know now that, always, you’re a door to Tom. You’re Tom’s door. His vase or vahs.”

“Well then theoretically, you can’t ever be the same in general, because that technically means i’m 5,999,999,999 other people’s doors as well. Basically, you’re fucked.

“Exactly.”

“So there’s literally no point in us dating?”

“No. There is, because I love you.”

“But you’re scared of losing me?”

“Always.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway. Wanna get a burrito?”