We were walking to dinner and trying to decide where to eat when we ran in to a woman my girlfriend knew and was becoming friends with. They had met while walking the dogs – or something like that.
That’s not really where the memory begins.
I was thinking that I should pick up sushi at the grocery store (along with some other groceries). Then I was trying to think of the last time I had “good” sushi, restaurant quality sushi, something other than grocery store sushi. Do I even know what good sushi is? Are my taste buds dulled by Safeway sushi? I remembered dinner at a Japanese Fusion restaurant in Philly. A small place, dimly lit. The girlfriend and I were having dinner with this woman (the woman with the dog) and her fiance. I can’t remember if we had sushi.
That was the train of thought that brought me to the time when we were walking to dinner. We ended up arguing on that walk. I tried to remember what the argument was about. I could vaguely recall my side of it – I was hungry and didn’t want to stop and chit chat… which seems petty, because it was. But then I remembered that the argument began with the girlfriend criticizing me for not engaging in the conversation with her new friend. My defense of being hungry, while true, was, I think, the only defense I could muster in the moment. A more accurate explanation would have been, “I dunno, I just wasn’t engaged in the conversation” or, “I was bored” or “I just didn’t switch gears well.” Nothing about their conversation drew me in. They were talking about the dogs – the friend’s dog had bit the dog walker earlier that day – or maybe the day before. I think they used the same dog walker. It was a whole thing – they had texted about it. I didn’t have anything to add to the conversation and it seemed like they were picking up from their earlier conversation. I stayed on the periphery. The girlfriend was bothered that I seemed like a stand-offish jerk. Moreover, she seemed to think that I was trying to sabotage her new friendship. She didn’t have a ton of friends and was worried that by not engaging, I was sending a message of disapproval.
There was no disapproval on my end, no intent behind my disengagement. My mind was elsewhere. If anything, I was a little out of my depths. My people can be singularly focused. We avoid getting sidetracked on the way to dinner. If anything, I was hungry and eager to see her and spend time with her – and this was a distraction from those things. What she probably saw, what she was probably reacting to was a shift in my demeanor from engaged to disengaged from excited to can we get on with it.
I have a friend out here who recently went to couples therapy for the first time. From the little bit that he shared me, they’re navigating similar waters. The therapist tried to explain that my friend is like a puppy dog, all tail wags and waiting by the door for when his girl gets home, and when she changes the plan, he gets bummed out. As my friend told me these things, I could only nod in agreement. I’ve been the puppy dog. I’ve been bummed out in a similar fashion. It wasn’t until I had my own actual dog that I realized how that type of attention and pouting can, at times, be a bit a much.
I don’t remember the woman’s name. I think her dog’s name was Wookie. I don’t remember the outcome of the dog bite and the dog walker. I don’t remember if we talked about our argument in therapy – or even when it happened in relation to other moments in our relationship (was it before or after the couples dinner, before or after we got engaged). I can’t imagine these things taking up the energy they once did – but who knows, I haven’t played the role of puppy dog in a while. I don’t remember if I had sushi at that dinner (I think so) or if that was the last time I went to a sushi restaurant (probably not). Which gets me back to sitting on my sofa, finishing my morning coffee, and trying to decide what I want for dinner -which may or may no be grocery store sushi.