You’ve seen this guy.  “What is wrong with him?” you wondered to yourself.  Alone in a crowd, he was simply unable to adjust.  He could not trust his own instincts, and this made him impossible not only to like, but to know.  Anyone who attempted to touch him was invited way too far into his personal experience.  He was groping and clawing his way through each conversation, thinking hard, afraid to feel.  He is vaguely similar to the cloth-side of two strips of Velcro pulled apart thousands and thousands of times.  He is frayed, and has been left almost unattachable to anything or anyone.  All you see is his inability—He cannot admit his social ineptitude and withdraw, nor can he found a means to be a person of consistent, accessible characteristics.  He is an impediment to your fun, a stick in the mud of your light-hearted experience.  You feel bad for him, because he reflects all your insecurity and you resent him to hell because he reflects all of your insecurity. 

                Miraculously, you see him again in a store, or at a gala of some sort.  It is years later.  No, he is at a museum.  It has been years.  You see him there discussing a work of art with a strong sense of his own importance, and you can scarcely recognize him. 

                No, no.  It’s at a film.  You see him at a local theater and inside his group of friends he is a riotous, raucous good time.  It is as if you’ve witnessed a possession, either then or now.

                No, it’s at a family function.  It is exactly one hour and fifteen minutes after the start of the party and in he walks, boyfriend to your second cousin.  Before you lock eyes with him, he is circling the room and with grace handling the pokes and prods of new acquaintance.  He seems charming, and you feel afraid.

                “How could this be the same person?” you wonder to yourself.  Certainly, you were either deceived then or are being so now.  Your gestures slow as you bear witness.  You, gradually, begin to, do nothing but, stare at him with an expression of blank horror and still shock.  You look quite stupid.