Diary of a Professional Overthinker – Entry 1.

I glanced down at the messy bundle of paper strips he revealed from a pencil case that must have been at least twenty years old (definitely a high school relic) and waited for his shaky hand to extract one.

 ‘What’s the first thing you notice when you meet someone for the first time?’ he asked.

He didn’t notice my raised eyebrow, and even if he had, he wasn’t going to interpret what it meant. When I agreed to questions, I’d been hoping for something like, If you woke up tomorrow with a tail, what type would you wish for? In which case I would need thinking time. For example, a cat’s tail could be sexy, especially with an accompanying purr. Then again, what about a shingle-back lizard’s? Ugly, yes, but having a tail that could be mistaken for a head might prove quite useful. Especially for a person who struggles to keep focus and maintain eye contact.  

‘I’ll go first,’ he said with a reassuring smile as if easing my mind into this game of intense intellect. ‘The first thing I notice about a person is their eyes.’ He kept his averted from mine.

‘Okay.’ 

‘Now your turn,’ the shaky hands replaced the scrap at the back of the tattered pencil case where it was surely going to be greeted by fossilised pencil sharpenings. 

‘I notice…’ how could I tell this stranger whose face was so warped from some kind of head trauma that I noticed just about everything. The way his eyes darted away the second they touched mine, the way he slumped in his chair as if trying to hide himself with himself, or the way he had already disengaged from my reply before it had even left my lips. 

I could probably say just about anything right now, but I’d better not test the theory by announcing that I thought of myself as the spawn of a mute alien species that spends its first forty-four years curled up inside a meteorite while the constellations sprayed the sky in glitter just for me. Next year would be my break-out phase where I’d emerge from a yolk knowing exactly how to speak.

‘…I notice the way people move, their demeanour, their… characteristics.’ 

‘Oh right. ok, next one. Your turn to pick.’

Did I have to? God, I did. He had just shifted the pencil case’s yawning mouth toward me. 

Fingers like fine-tipped tweezers, I extracted one of the crumpled strips. This one was particularly creased and I itched to ask whether one of his past interrogation sessions of boredom had ended in the person wanting to turn it into a spitball. Mental note to self: hand sanitiser, remember to use, front pouch of handbag.

The question read: What is your favourite tv show? 

Sure that his answer was going to be as riveting as the first, I opened my mouth to speak, wishing I were already in my forty-fifth year where I had the ability of free speech. If that were the case, I would change the question to: What do you do when your out and you realise you’ve put your top on backwards and the itch you’ve been experiencing on your chin which you didn’t scratch in case it turned into a pimple (you’re very prone to getting them when you touch your face) was actually the tag, and the stares you thought were because you looked interesting were in fact…

‘Times up.’ One of the speed dating organisers announced.

‘What happens now?’ I asked him, but he was on his phone giving me a two star rating like a highway motel with mouldy bathrooms and an algae infested swimming pool that desperation forces one to stay at.