Let the world know, I'm funny, right?

 I love cheese as much as the next homo sapien but this guy puts cheese on everything. We were at a food court in one of the many malls around and he pulls out a box. It's small and white, quite ordinary really and drumrolls... as he opens my 'gift' for me. I see two chocolate cupcakes , and as you can guess, cheese is his topping of choice.

"Technically though, one is mine." He says as he takes one out of the box and begins to eat it.

" This is the next phase of baking I'm telling you. Instead of cream cheese we use actual cheese as frosting"

I grit my teeth hoping It passes off as a smile and tell him I'll try it later.

"No, no, I want to see your reaction. You're officially the second human I'm trying this on after myself. I need to know I'm not the only one who thinks it's a good idea."

As I raise the cupcake to my mouth I think two things. One. That I'm The First Human to try this after him. Which means he might have also tested it on non-humans, ones that probably love him despite his bad choice in frosting, aka, pets. Second. I see that he's halfway done with his cupcake and he says he's tasted others, and since he hasn't developed any visible mutations from it, it's not too bad.

Let's just say, I wasn't a fan. When I told Frank, (I've not met a Frank in years) he was so disappointed, and no matter how much I tried to get past the whole cupcake fiasco (has a nice ring to it)  it stayed with us the whole interview, the elephant in the  room. So now you know the weirdest thing I've ever tasted.

Frank, as a condition to allow me to actually do this, he said I must make him something from scratch and vice versa. I made him a sandwich, because there's little anyone can  do to mess that up. He made me the cupcake. Although, I don't know how scratch we were supposed to go.. Like, was I supposed to go kill an animal to make the ham to make the sandwich? Did he kill the wheat to make the flour to make the cupcake? This was all vague, but I decided not to question it, (sorry to send you down my rabbit hole of thought) We started with a simple question.

" Frank, if you could go back in time and be a part of something more what would you go do?"

He looks at me like it's a trick question.
"Umm, well, maybe actually socializing with people as opposed to hanging out by myself. I've realized some serious gaps in my social skills and stuff so maybe that," he pauses then adds.

" Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out by myself, but I feel I've missed a lot by not letting others into my club."

"Things like?"

"Well, I had never talked to a girl for longer than maybe ten, fifteen minutes until recently, like last year. I've never gotten mad at anyone and confronted them. And this is kind of stupid to add to the list but I never went swinging on a see-saw with someone. What's that called, seesawing?"
"It's actually a sport," I say putting on my most serious face.

He laughs (and since I've been told I like describing people's laughs...) Kind of the way I expect an investment banker to, clean and hearty, but without any secondary action to it. No claps or slap on the knee (do people actually do this?) No leaning forward, or doing the thing some people do when something is too funny, they stand up and walk away laughing like they're trying to get away from the joke. I take on the unspoken challenge to try and get him to do something, I'll even settle for him closing his eyes as he laughs.

" But seriously, I'm always self conscious. Every little move I make, whatever I say or do in public I analyse thoroughly after, before I go to sleep, or on my way home."
"And you think you wouldn't have been overanalyzing if you socialized more when you were younger?"

" Well, yeah. Plus maybe I wouldn't be as anxious as I usually am when I think about meeting someone. I almost cancelled this, I had to read that post about you getting stood up about ten times to get myself out of the door. And every time until I was halfway there I kept wanting to turn back. Nothing against you, just, the thought of meeting anyone, and then having to go through all these humans to do so is, daunting. Now, imagine if you were a friend of mine, you'd constantly have to put up with me flaking out on you all the time. Because most times, I can't manage to get out of the house."

I look at him,and the first thing I see is a chain hanging loosely on his wrist. That, with his black  'nothing to see here's t-shirt and khaki trousers made him look like he didn't even know what anxiety was. When I point this out he laughs his banker's laugh and tells me,

" Fake it till you make it. I live by these words. Plus this chain is just something for me to fidget with when I get super nervous. Sometimes I end up with bruises I only notice when I shower because of how hard I pull it."

" Help me understand this, because I get nervous about meeting people too, but I suppose your anxiety is worse than mine? "

" I don't know about rating, just that my anxiety is always with me, sometimes I forget it, and sometimes it comes In big waves. Like, sometimes I'm so drowned by it that I can't speak or move, I'm just trapped in a hypothetical scenario in my mind that I can't seem to stop playing out over and over. Sometimes, Its so big I have to remind myself to breathe. Before I knew they were panic attacks I thought I was having a heart attack. At like 16, I was convinced they were mini heart attacks that would accumulate and kill me one day."

I'm an idiot, this is probably the worst place to take someone with anxiety.

"Do you really think this is something that could've gone away if you socialized more?" I ask.

"Hmm, well, I guess not, not fully, but everyone I know who's like this had a not so nice growing-up-hood, is that a word?"
I laugh, and ask ." Have you seen a counselor or, a therapist?" I say the last word like it's taboo. Because I don't know if it's an okay thing to ask.

" Hehe, well, I wouldn't know where to start with those. Plus which parents will agree to spending money on therapists? They just assume we millennials manufacture problems to spend their money. And all my friends think I need to suck it up and stop worrying. They think anxiety is rich people problems, or white people things. It's not something that can really be discussed. You tell someone you have anxiety and they tell you,

"Join the club, my rent is due kesho."
The really  don't understand, and that's not their fault. It's just the way things are." He shrugs like he doesn't want that to be the status quo.

"Is it better or worse these days?"

"It's better, most of the time I manage to forget it when I'm with other people, and when I eat really good cheese. But other times, when I'm alone, I can't shake the thoughts. I think the best super power was Peter pan's, to think a happy thought so hard that he flew."

I see the guys who walk around with menus eyeing us badly because we've finished our food and aren't going away.

He tells me,
"I have two questions for you, no actually three. One, was the interview okay? I'll be thinking about it the rest of the day if I don't ask, "

"Well, other than cheese cupcakes it was okay, definitely my top fifty"

"You haven't even done that many." He says laughing.

"Well, it was my most cheesy one." I expect even a polite laugh but he just says
"Seriously, this was my second question, did you really not like the cupcake?"

I go off blabbering about how my taste buds are not refined enough to appreciate this next wave of culinary genius and he asks me,

"How come you don't have blue hair this time, I was looking forward to seeing it"
I tell him that I gave creative control to a friend and he shook his head. Grey and maroon shouldn't work this well according to him. As he gets ready to leave he tells me,

"You have nice fingers by the way,"

Have I ever mentioned I don't know what to do with compliments? My mouth goes "Thanks I grew them myself." before I could stop it. He bursts out laughing shaking his head (those are definitely points!) and I go home patting myself on the back.








Photo by Mugoya Mokua.