I was online outside Home Depot. A gentleman standing on an X taped on the ground exactly 6’ behind me decided to make small talk while I was scrolling through Facebook.
“This is something, ain’t it?” He observed, muffled through his COVID mask.
I lifted my head from my phone, “Sorry?” -just as muffled.
“You know, this,” he gestured to the line in front of us with his hand but he was holding his phone. So, I thought he was talking about social media, which I was looking at.
“Yeah it sure is something. Are you on Facebook?”
“Yeah, why? What do you want to be friends or something?” He asked with a belly laugh.
“No. I was just messing with this avatar thing they have now and was going to ask about it.”
Then I thought for a moment…
“Why, do you want to be friends?” I asked sounding like a twelve year old testing the waters with his first crush.
The silence lasted too long. We looked at each other with our masks on like two surgeons standing over a patient who suddenly became gravely sicker.
“No, I uh, I just thought you were asking, you know, to be my friend.”
That 6’ wasn’t far enough. He’d have been happier with 600’
“I wasn’t, but if… “ I trailed off and shrugged my shoulders.
It got awkward as fuck
“I’m not saying no to being friends,” he backpedaled, “I thought you were talking about something else.”
“I was, but if you want to be friends, I mean, I don’t care.”
I don’t know for sure, but I think he whispered “holy shit” into his mask.
He looked down at his feet and wished he could launch himself to any other place on earth immediately.
The line moved and we both advanced to the next X.
I figured I’d let him off the hook. “We can talk about that later. But let me ask you about these avatar things.”
“Sure, yeah, What’s up?” He was excitedly relieved to change the subject.
“I’m not comfortable with mine,” I said. “I made it and it’s considerably better looking than I am.”
I held out my screen to show him my Facebook avatar.
He leaned in and squinted at it. “You know it’s a cartoon, right?” He said.
“That’s what makes it worse. Cartoons are supposed to be exaggerated or caricaturist, I shouldn’t be jealous of a spoofed version of me.”
His eyes over his mask alternated between my phone screen and my face like he was watching a ball bounce. “It’s fine I’m sure.” He said safely.
I know earlier I let him off the hook. I decided to put him back on it.
“Stay there, keep the 6’ between us.” I held out my phone to him. “Tell me, am I as good looking as my avatar?”
I lowered my mask off my face so he could judge.
There’s a moment in a man’s life when he questions every lifelong move he’s made to bring him to his current situation. He thinks of his decisions, right and wrong, he thinks of fate, existentialism, and of God’s role in putting him where he is, and if, as this guy now thought, if God even exists.
If God does indeed exist, he’s certainly not in Home Depot’s parking lot.
“You look, (he coughed a little), you know, like the, uh, thing, the avatar.”
“Is that a compliment?”
The time interval between the question and its answer is often more telling than the answer itself.
“Look, buddy…”
“Friend,” I corrected.
“Ok, ‘friend’, whatever, it’s fine. Your cartoon head is close enough.”
“Well, that does nothing for my insecurity.”
I swiped my finger around the screen and deleted the avatar. I released a sigh of woe and acceptance. “Whatever,” I said.
When I looked back at him he was on his phone dialing someone to talk to- anyone who’d answer.