Why Me?

What is it about me?

Is it my face? Do I have a face that says to people, “Tell me everything”?

Is there an air about me? Does this air make people feel that I’m a person they can trust?

What is it about me that makes people, who I barely know, want to tell me things about themselves, or ask for advice in their lives?

Today at work is a good example. I was sitting in the back room reading my book on my break when one of the girls comes back to count out her drawer. I said hi, scooted out of the way, and continued my reading. Suddenly, she goes into this story about her and her boyfriend and how it’s been wonderful. It all led up to her saying that he wanted them to get a joint bank account and she wanted to know what I thought.

What am I supposed to do? If I say to do it, she’d tell me all the reasons she shouldn’t. If I say not to do it, she’d launch into another story and give me all the reasons she should. If I just ignore her, I’m rude and then everyone in the store would be told how rude I am and I’d be hated. (As much as I don’t care for people in general, I don’t like to be hated. Who does?) If I mumble incoherently, she’d get curious and ask me what I said and pester me until I say something.

What am I supposed to do?

I played it as safe as I could. I said that if she’s worried about the two of them breaking up at some point soon not to get the account, but if she thought that marriage, or years and years together, were in their future that getting it should be fine.

Then I did a stupid thing, I started to read again. She started to tell me that they’ve been together for four years and that she loved him a lot and that she wanted them to be together forever, but that she liked her money being her money and she didn’t always trust his judgement with his money and it was always possible that he may leave her or she may leave him.

What am I supposed to do here? I’ve been in, like, zero long term relationships. I guard my money almost as well as Scrooge McDuck. I can barely picture a future past tomorrow. I only seem to love women who don’t want to love me back. And I trust almost no one. I don’t think I’m the best person to be giving advice in a relationship situation. Hell, I don’t think I’m qualified to give advice in any situation, unless it’s about what Spider-man should do while fighting Doc Ock or Electro or some other guy. Observations, sure. I like to give observations, and I think I’m pretty good at them, but not advice. No, never advice.

The silence between us had gone from being thoughtful, to awkward as I was trying to figure out the safe thing to say. She was staring at me, her blue-green eyes magnified by her glasses. My palms had become clammy. There was nothing safe to say. Anything that I could say would have led to her telling me more things and wanting me to say more and the cycle would grow until it would, in time, come to me having to convince her to stay with or break up with her boyfriend. I don’t want weeks worth of stupid relationship crap to waste my breaks every time we worked together.

Sure, it would give me lots to write about here, but is that really worth ruining my time over?

She was getting impatient. I could tell by the flush in her cheeks, the pursing of her lips, the tapping of her fingers on the printer, and the way her other hand was planted on her hip.

“I... th–,” I started to say when the shift supervisor came back and said, “Kelsey, what’s going on? We need you out front. Just drop your money and come pour some coffee.”

Kelsey glanced over at the shift, then gave me a glare that tried to peel the skin from my face. She dropped her money, grabbed her drawer, and headed out front. I rolled my chair back to the desk, took a deep breath, and started to read again.