Orlando
I’ve gotta rewatch Fight Club - maybe just to rehash the “single serving” scene at the start. I just watched, not one but two men treat the airport bar like it was a Catholic confessional. Why is it that we’ll say things to total strangers that we would rarely say to anyone else? Or that we’ll act a certain way with someone because we know that we’re never going to see them again?
I’m there, sitting by myself at a table, on and off of the phone with my parents and Trevor about gate position and coming back from San Jose and this that and the other, and the guy diagonal from me begins to regale the guy next to him with stories from his life, personal, professional, and otherwise. All of this seemed to happen unprompted. It was a very strange conversation - one person did nearly all of the talking, and showed the other pictures of himself shirtless, all the while talking about how successful he was and what accolades he had achieved at what time and how much money he had and how educated he was. At the end I heard him invite the other man, a tall black man who looked to be my age or even younger, to his house! Trying to tempt him with offers of a private bar and Cuban cigars and classic, luxury cars. What had seemed like merely a case of oversharing, now appeared to be more akin to flirting, a sexual advance.
Even if one is to assume that the man making these declarations and offers was not making a pass at the other man, what kind of person offers entrance to their house to someone they’ve just met? At the Orlando airport no less.
Along with this I had my own unprompted, strange conversation. The guy sitting next to me - who looked to be in his late 20’s to early 30’s, blond, bearded, and dressed in fishing attire - began to ask me about where I was going, where I was coming from, what I was doing etc. I was happy enough to oblige but it was all too funny to have this conversation directly after watching the other one take place. And then, no sooner did he start the conversation, than he dropped a bomb on me: He was flying to Chicago to meet a woman who he had met online through a dating app.
He said they’d been chatting for about two weeks, and calling over facetime for hours at a time, so off he was.
“I was free this weekend and she was free this weekend so yeah that was it.” I was absolutely gobsmacked.
“Oh wow! Good luck” I said, trying to be encouraging and not let on how stunned I was by this plan. It was surreal, this conversation followed by the other. Is this how people act out in the world? Is this what free will looks like? The privilege to expose total strangers to the details of your personal life? Seeking out what? What exactly do they get out of it? Is it catharsis? A release of energy that has no other valve? It seems a sad world where not only is this kind of stuff taking place (unwanted sexual advances that also display imbalanced power dynamics and desperate attempts at romance facilitated by internet services and airline miles), but that the lonely souls in these situations are made to seek their comfort in the equally estranged fellow denizens of excessively commercialized spaces.
Plus, the crowd here in the Orlando airport is fucking nuts.