The Most Inscrutable One Wins!

Across the table you slowly smile.
What now must I pretend to know?

Note: Perhaps you've met such a person? The one I have in mind was not only conversation-killingly inscrutable, but delivered whole profound dramas that only he could follow. In the midst of discussion, he'd drift away, working his lips and frowning, then smile like the coming of a new dawn, then say nothing or say things like "YES!" But "Yes WHAT?"

And I, having been flattered enough by his saying or hinting that I understood things better than most and having foolishly indulged in joining him in being critical of the superficiality of mutual acquaintances, would be trapped in these self-serving agreements, so couldn't be too insistent on learning what the smile was about. I had to "just know." Or, asking, I'd get the start of an inarticulate statement that would be interrupted, first by his saying, "Well, it's complicated" and soon after by something like this: "You see, it's...no, I don't like putting it that way...on second thought, I'm not happy with that...hmmm...AH! Yes, that's better...no, that's not quite it...".

To make things more difficult, this person could be charming, could even make fun of himself, and occasionally he did say things worth hearing--bait for his traps? Or maybe I put the traps there for myself because I wanted to imagine him brighter than he was.

I wonder how much of my attention and intelligence is STILL stuck in those long-ago conversations, waiting for an explanation that will never come.

Dean Blehert
dean@blehert.com
dblehert@verizon.net
www.blehert.com