Just to see the other side of it, to determine if there is such thing as a comfortable middle ground. I don’t want you to do anything dangerous or immoral, but I want you to do things like go to a party, join an organization or club. After you do some of these things, I want you to tell me how you felt doing them. You don’t have to start right away. You can wait a bit until you feel comfortable.”
“Okay. How about next year?”
Petrov smiles. “That’s not a bad idea,” he says. “New Year’s Eve would be a good night for you to spend time with friends. You could go to a New Year’s Eve party.”
“Maybe I should just vomit on Times Square,” I say. “Then I’d be fitting in.”
Petrov shakes his head. “You know I’m not suggesting you do anything dangerous. But I do want you to learn to socialize better. What you should do is work up to spending New Year’s Eve with people. We’ll start small first. A five-point plan.”
Petrov grabs a memo cube that has Zoloft embossed at the top. Some people will take anything if it’s free.
“First,” he says, “I want you to write a list for me of ten things you love. The street sounds were a good start, but I want ten of them. Secondly, I want you to join at least one organization or club. That way, you might meet some people with similar interests, maybe even people you think are smart.” He’s writing this down. “Third, go on a date…”
“Okay…”
“Fourth, I want you to tell someone you really care about him or her. It can’t be sarcastic.”
“Sarcastic? Me?”
Petrov tears off a piece of paper and hands it to me.
ZOLOFT®
1 List 10 things you love
2 Join an org./club
3 Go on date
4 Tell someone you care
5 Celebrate New Yr’s
“The point’s to help you adjust,” he says. “Not to teach you to do anything bad. But to help you see that there could be positive aspects of social interaction.”
“I wouldn’t have such trouble adjusting to the world,” I say, “if the world made sense. Which it doesn’t. I’ve seen that time and time again. Maybe the world should adjust to me.”
“Just try,” he pleads. “When you meet someone new, for instance, don’t…”
“What?”
“Don’t pontificate.” He scratches his goatee. “Don’t feel the need to show off everything you know at the same time, or make every argument that’s in your head.”
“If I’m not comfortable saying what I’m thinking, then isn’t the person wrong for me? And if they don’t like me, isn’t it better I find out sooner? Besides, if I say what I believe, this way we find out right away if we’re compatible.”
He blinks for a minute. “It’s good to meet compatible people, but you don’t have to hit them with tests all at once.”
I shrug. “I’ll think about it.”
He nods. “Just try.”
When I get outside, I pull my coat over my head to ward off the pouring rain, and I run to the subway. I am dying to get home, slide under the sheets and doze off. But I can’t. I have a job interview.
As I get close to the subway, a guy in a raincoat seethes at me, “Smile!”
This makes me feel worse. I was lost in thought, minding my own business, and someone felt he had the right to disturb me anyway. Doesn’t he realize that by making me feel like I was doing something wrong, he only made me feel less like smiling? It actually had the reverse effect he intended. It’s like striking a bawling kid to stop him from crying, and we’ve all seen that done.
I don’t see what it had to do with him anyway. I never go around demanding that people change their facial expressions. How come everyone tells me what to do, but they would never let me do a tenth of the same back to them?
The café where I am to meet Brad Nickerson is two stops up. When I arrive, he’s already seated at a table. He’s got slicked-back blond hair and a nondescript face. He’s also younger than I expected, and I’m not so sure this isn’t secretly a blind date rather than a business meeting.
He stands and smiles.
“It’s good to meet you,” he says.
“Likewise.”
We both sit down. He lets one of his legs hang over the other—he has long legs—and he briefly asks me how my trip up there went. Then he turns his attention to a clipboard. “I’m just going to ask you a few questions about your qualifications.”
“All right.”
“Your father says you type,” he says.
“I have.”
“Which computers do you use?”
“In school I used Macs, Dells, Gateways, HP’s, most of the off-brand PC’s, and all of the Mac and Windows operating systems. I wish they were more compatible. If Europe accepted the Euro, why can’t our computers be a little more compatible?”
His eyes narrow. “How old did you say you were?” he asks.
“I’m nineteen.”
“You seem awfully serious for a nineteen-year-old.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Now I feel bad, just like I felt when the guy yelled “Smile.” As if I was doing something wrong simply by existing.
Brad doesn’t say anything either, only stares at me and waits. And waits. When they send people to do job interviews, they should at least make sure they’re half as competent as the people they’re interviewing.
“You could tell me what the job’s about,” I say.
“Oh!” he says. “Well, it would be, at first, sort of an administrative assistant to the boss, typing things when need be, helping with office work. But eventually it could lead to greater responsibilities.” He picks up his coffee cup. “How does that sound?”
I don’t suppose he really wants a truthful answer. “Ducky,” I say.
“Mmm-hmm.” He sips his coffee. “Mmm.” He thinks for a second. “Well, why don’t you tell me your strengths and weaknesses?”
A relevant question, at last! I say, “I try to figure out what’s right and wrong, and then I stick by it. I don’t engage in activities that are dangerous to others or myself. I try not to make judgments about people.”
“I wasn’t making a judgment about you,” he says, apropos of nothing.
“I
