The Guy You Don't Know

Everybody has a guy they don't know. But to some of us, he may become a very oppressive presence. Take mine, for example.

I live in a charming and friendly residential area where it is not uncommon for people you only know by sight to greet you when they meet you in the street. That's why, at first, I wasn't bothered by having the guy I don't know smile at me and, sometimes, even add a friendly wave of his hand. Little did I know.

The blow arrived one day when, no longer satisfied with smiling and waving, the guy I don't know got closer, grabbed my hand, and spoke his fateful words:

"It's been ages since we've gotten together," he said. We should organize a game of poker like in the old days."

I know what I should have told him, and I've kicked myself several times since for holding my peace. I should have said, "Dude, I have no idea who you are. You are mistaking me for somebody else." Instead, I cowardly bleated, "I no longer play poker." How could I be so stupid?

"No problem, we'll do something else. The important thing is that we get together," the guy I don't know responded with a smile.

My life has been hell ever since. The guy I don't know keeps popping up when I least expect it. He asks after my kids and tells me what happened to alleged mutual schoolmates I have never heard about. Once a mere phantom who haunted me outside the grocery store, he now seems to be permanently walking back and forth by my house, and I have to time my trips outside and duck between the parked vehicles to minimize our encounters.

The worst part is that now it is too late to tell him what I should have said the first time. The dynamic of my relationship with the guy I don't know has created unwritten rules that my upbringing does not allow me to break. Social conventions now exist in the universe where the guy I don't know and I move, and they govern what I can and cannot do in this relationship that grows asphyxiating by the day.

Sometimes, I dream I mustered the courage to tell him the truth, but then I wake up and realize it has all been an unattainable fantasy.

If only I knew his name…