The Right Collision
Most women bore me inside five minutes. I don’t know what it is—maybe it’s that they’re not thinking about anything worth thinking about, or maybe I’m just impossible. But I can’t do the conversation where someone’s talking about their hair or their breakup or wherever they live, and you’re sitting there wondering if jumping out the window would be rude. I need someone smart enough to be interesting and crude enough to be honest about what’s going on between us. Or at minimum, someone who knows what they’re doing physically.
Sandra was different. I met her more or less by accident and it felt immediately obvious that this was someone who actually got it. She was sharp in a way that was playful, could cut you down and then laugh about it, didn’t pretend to be anything. Smart. Funny in a way that landed. Physical in a way that mattered.
After that we just ended up in the same places. Parties, art things, whatever was happening. She’d show up and the whole evening would shift. Suddenly there was a point to it. I’d watch her move through a room and think, yeah, okay, this is what I actually want to be around. Someone who sees things the way they are, who doesn’t waste time on bullshit.
The thing about meeting someone who actually fits is that everything else becomes background noise. All those events and people you feel obligated to see—they suddenly reveal themselves as the waste they are. You just want to be around the person who makes you think and who makes you want to be better or weirder or whatever. Who looks at you in that way that means she’s actually there.