Xeroxed bagles.

It is 2:00am, and I've just arisen from a dream in which (among other odd things) Match.com notified me via phone text-message that I was in close proximity to somebody who I should meet. It was an odd little game, in fact, with my phone giving me directions about which room I should go into in order to meet this secret person, and only a short amount of time to do it before the opportunity was gone.

In the dream, the secret person was (rather awkwardly) an old classmate who sadly had no interest in having sex with me whatsoever, but I'm still intrigued by the concept. It sounds technologically feasible, at least to a degree, given my phone's ability to report my location. Then again, a high school teacher of mine used to warn us of the dangers of acting on ideas made when not fully-awake with a story about an associate who'd once jumped up from a deep meditation yelling "I've done it! I've solved world hunger! Xerox bagels!"

So. Am I xeroxing bagels here, or what?

From the "How dumb do they think we are?" department:

This excerpt from a copy of USA Today sitting on the kitchen counter at the office: "These survey results, which have not been publicly released, were provided to USA TODAY by the Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine."

On the car in front of me:

Bumper sticker 1: "End suffering for all beings."
Bumper sticker 2: "Please spay and neuter."

On the one hand, I understand conpletely. On the other hand... uh?

The un-relationship.

I’m a master of the un-relationship. It’s really quite easy.

1) Put (or find) yourself in any situation with a person or persons with whom you are likely to cross paths again.

2) Don’t interact with them.

3) Next time you see them, continue to not interact.

Before you know it, you will have a non-verbalized but mutually agreed-upon social contract with this individual. He or she will not make eye-contact, will not speak to you, and will generally make a point of not acknowledging your presence at all, even when failing to notice you is inconvenient or even downright impossible. This is the un-relationship.

The un-relationship is clearly differentiated from simply not knowing a person. When you don’t know someone, introducing yourself is a relatively natural and honest thing to do. But once established in the un-relationship, there’s no pretending that this other individual is somehow new to you. They are not new. You know them. They are the person with whom you don’t speak.

There are many physical cues that disclose the un-relationship. Angling the shoulders and body toward anybody else in the room is a typical sign. Finding a distracting object, such as an empty glass, or a bit of lint, is also common. Leaving the room entirely is not unusual.

The un-relationship is most visible when you and your un-counterpart share mutual friends. On social occasions with these groups, you will find that you are conspicuously omitted from introductions, conversations, and the like. If absolutely forced to interact, it will be perfunctory, rarely exceeding a blatantly required “excuse me” or “thank you.”

Although less common, it’s quite possible to form an un-relationship with someone you have actually known. The process is the same… simply fail to interact with them anymore when you happen upon them. I’ve done this with clients, classmates, friends, even extended family members. I get the distinct impression from many of them that they regret having ever known me at all.