810: Say It to My Face
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A few months ago, somebody said something to me that I found so humiliating that I have never talked about it. Not to anybody. Not even with the people I love the most. This is way too embarrassing. It makes me wince even to think of it. But you know, telling my loved ones and my friends, that's real life. There's people I have to live with. You and me, here, right now, on the radio. And we have a different kind of relationship, right? I can tell you. So this thing happened while I was still riding around the city on this ponzi road-folding bike, which looks ridiculous, and there's no dignity to it. But it is handy to have a bike that folds up if you live in the city. And it was maybe 9 p.m. and I was riding home from work, and I was wearing a suit because I've been to work. And that morning it had been cold, so I wore a coat, even though now at night it was warm enough so the coat was unnecessary, but it was just easier to wear the coat than to be carrying it. I was also wearing one of those, you know, there's some reflective, like orange and yellow vests. I was wearing it because I had three bike accidents. Thanks to the fact that the folding bike loses its grip on the street and the rain. Extra precaution seemed worth it. I don't know. I have gray hair at that point, a neatly trimmed beard. I was wearing a helmet all in all. I was a picture of fastidious care. I was going south in Avenue B. I was between 3rd and 2nd street. A young woman was traipsing across the street, not wearing a coat full of cheerful, loose energy, bright eyes. She sees me on the bike. I am this locked down, buttoned down, helmeted, overdressed gray haired band in a reflective vest. And as a road pastor, the thing she says to me is, do you fart out the front? That's all she said. Do you fart out the front? It was really kind of stunning. As an insult, it's both incredibly efficient and deeply mysterious. Like, I don't even get what image she's trying to convey, in a literal sense. But I do think I get the feeling she's going for, and it's not respectful, you know? It's kind of like, you fussy, foppish, over-careful, old man. And can I say that thought she had? She could have kept that to herself. I think all kinds of things about people on the street all the time. I keep those thoughts to myself. I do not say those things to people, to their faces, because they are strangers. They are complete strangers. They don't need to know. But of course, it is so much easier to say what you really think, with a complete stranger. With our friends, with our loved ones, it can be so much more difficult to be honest sometimes. Right? When somebody you really know, and you have some tough truth that you need to talk through with them, the math of figuring out when to tell them, and what to say, and should you actually get into it and say anything at all? It can be so complicated. Like, sometimes you tell them, and the two of you talk it through and work it out, and it is relationship-changing. It's vital. It is so important. And sometimes, annoyingly, it fucking blows up in your face. Today on our program, we have stories of two friendships, and in each of these friendships, one of the friends says something to say to the other, something big, and they have to decide. Do I say it to their face? In each of these stories, they make a decision, and then that is actually when it gets interesting. From W.B. E.C. Chicago, it's this American Life. I'm out of a glass. Stay with us. That one, what are friends for? Seriously, what are they for? So, we start today with somebody who had something that he needed to talk through with his friend, and rather than have the tough conversation, and get things off his chest, and come to some new understanding, he did not do that. No, no, no. Instead, he stood about it for years, and then he talked about it to everyone, everyone, but the one person that he really needed to talk to, and be able to coin-fail, explains how that worked out for him. The thing Gabe Malika accidentally got stuck thinking about was a friendship breakup, and he got stuck there for a long time, eight years. And then he took all those thoughts and did the thing that only a former theater kid would do. He compiled them into a one-man show.
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