[1:5] Lavender Valley

“What do you mean creeped out?” you ask. 

Josh doesn’t respond, taking a few seconds to stare at the game before replying. “Nah, it’s nothing. It’s stupid. Forget I said anything.” He flashes a smile, takes a long swig from his beer and asks, “you ever do any online betting? They make it sound like you’re going to make all this money but I can’t imagine that’s what’s going to happen. House always wins and all that.” 

You sense some nervousness. He’s dumped too much but clearly he was eager to talk to someone about what’s been going on. His eyes are fixed on the screen and he’s alternating between smoothing back his short thinning hair and scratching at his short cropped beard. The other hand taps his beer can. His eye flicks over to you to check if you have dropped it so he could blow past this and forget it ever happened. You haven’t. He tries to ignore you but quickly realizes that he’s said too much. 

He sets his beer on the coffee table and says “alright. Okay. So this is going to sound crazy and I fully accept that it is. You can judge me, I’d judge me too. 

“I move in right and everything is great. Really great. Too great. I mean this place, for the money it’s bonkers.”

You nod in total agreement. 

“So a few weeks go by and I get settled in and I’m chatting with some of the neighbor ladies, help them with a few things. You know, being neighborly. And they’re great. No issues. 

“There’s this one, Andrea - I dunno if you’ve met her yet - but me and her keep running into each other and we form a kind of report. She’s great. She laughs at my stupid jokes and cracks a few of her own. I think maybe we are starting to like each other. So we start meeting in the garden for tea. There’s like a gazebo on the other side of the complex near the lake with some tables that the ladies like to go to. I hate tea but she likes it so you do what you gotta do.

“We meet for tea, chat, it’s great. Make plans to meet again. I go and this time a few of the other tenets are there. She introduces me and it’s fine. Not optimal for me and her to get to know one another but it’s a good opportunity to meet the other tenants.  

"The conversation veers into girl-talk pretty quick so I feel a bit left out but it’s fine. I try to hold my own. Andrea wants to meet up again. Which is great because I was working the nerve to ask her out. In fact I was going to. I hyped myself up in the mirror, gave myself a pep talk, pretended to run up some steps like Rocky while humming Eye of the Tiger. Dude, I was ready. But when the other women were there I pulled the ripcord. 

“I can crash and burn with the ladies. I’m great at crashing and burning, one of the best. But I only really want to crash and burn in front of one woman who I can then hide from for the rest of my life and not a large chunk of my neighbors.

“So we meet again, the women are there and there’s more this time. I get introduced to a few more and we have tea and boom girl-talk again. But this time, and this is where it gets weird, so they start talking about cosmetics - make-up and shit. Half an hour in and I’m finding myself sipping this tea, not hating it, and engaged. Like engaged in the conversation about lipstick and foundation and whatever. 

“Listen, I’m not one of those guys who are insecure about their masculinity. I mean, I didn’t think I was. But when I caught myself in this conversation there was this sinking feeling. Like on a rollercoaster and I kind of had a panic attack. I don’t know why. I mean who cares? It’s a conversation about make-up, right? A man can’t partake in a conversation about that? 

“I mean I didn’t have anything to add but I was caring about what they were caring about and, I don’t know. It just struck me in a particular way. So I get out of there. I told them I had to make a work call and slammed what was left of the tea and just went back to my apartment and locked the door. I locked the door dude. What did I think was going to happen? They’d kick it in and make me talk about mascara some more? It’s so stupid. 

“So Andrea texts me a few times after that. I don’t reply. I can’t. That panic comes back every time. It’s stupid! I know it’s stupid! Two days later I have to get my mail and I run into her. Or she was waiting for me. I don’t know. She wants to know where I’ve been. I make up something about work being a nightmare and I’m sorry and something was wrong with my phone and the texts weren’t sending for some reason and I know that she knows it’s all bullshit. I can’t even look her in the eyes. 

“I’m being a total pussy and by all rights she should call me an asshole and storm off but she doesn’t. She’s all empathetic. She invites me to the gazebo to chat and relax. Have some tea, ya know. She says all the ladies are going to be there and they’ve been concerned and wondering where I’ve been and they thought I was funny and dude, I was so close to going. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I think I wanted to. But I was terrified.

“I’m not scared of women! I was married for god sakes. There are plenty of women at work that I’m work-friends with. We go out to eat and it’s a similar kind of thing and I’ve never, ever felt terrified. I don’t know what the hell it is about this place and these women. It’s literally no different. 

“That was the last time I talked to Andrea. I’ve avoided her ever since. I changed my hours at work so I can pick up my mail while she’s still at work. I don’t really go out for walks or jogs around the complex anymore. I still have this pit in my stomach and I don’t know why. I try my best to avoid the other women. I’m like haunted by what is a completely normal conversation. 

“Sometimes, I wake up at night and I swear I’m catching a whiff of this floral perfume. I know you must have smelled it by now. But it’s like this trigger or something where I’m back to feeling how I did that day in the gazebo. It’s in my head, I have these dreams of like where I’m not me and I wake up feeling just weird. You can tell me I’m crazy now. I can handle it.”

Something happened in the game and for a moment all you could hear was a cheering crowd and pulsing rock music and announcers yammering over one another. The commotion wasn’t enough to retake Josh’s attention. You could make out a kind of pleading in his eyes that he needed some validation that he wasn’t crazy. Trouble was…he was acting kind of crazy. 

You’re no stranger to being the only dude in a group. You remember battling with your insecurity over the years. The first time being when your friends insisted on dressing you up for Halloween. At the time it was humiliating and demeaning but that was just your own perspective. You’d eventually learn it wasn’t an attack. It was them sharing with you something they liked the only way they knew how and accepting you into their inner circle. 

You consider your words for a moment, not wanting to offend him but he’s clearly waiting for a response. 

1.) “If I am being honest, it kind of sounds like they were being really nice. And I get it; I’ve spent my life as the only guy in groups of girls and it’s easy to feel like the odd one out. But if Andrea is introducing you to her friends I think she might really like you and is probably hurt that you are, basically, ghosting her. Maybe you should reach out to her again even if it’s just to apologize?” (Cunning Roll to encourage him to reconnect with Andrea)

2.) “I don’t know man. That’s kind of a crazy story. I…I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve been the only guy in a group of girls plenty of times and been the odd one out when they start talking about something that isn’t in my wheelhouse but panic? I haven’t really talked to anyone here yet so I can’t really say - wait. What about that guy you mentioned chatting with a couple of times in the carport. What about talking to him and seeing if maybe he’s picking up the same weird vibes?”

3.) “If I am being honest, that’s crazy. They were just talking about make-up? Listen, I don’t know you super well but you seem cool  but like you were in a group of women, they were chatting about their interests, and you got scared and ran away and stopped talking to them entirely and won’t even make eye contact? You have to admit, that’s a pretty unhinged response. I mean think of it this way, they were just being them and weren’t excluding you or treating you like an outsider. Right?” (Brains Roll to convince Josh he was overreacting)