So I sat in Tompkins Square Park and I tried to think of someone . . . anyone who I knew.
When I first started getting requests to speak at universities, I asked our little crew whether they thought I should do it, and Maya said something I might as well have tattooed on the back of my hand: “Can you tell them something that will make them feel better?”
I’d like to say that it became my mantra solely because I just wanted to make people feel better, but also it felt like the only thing that would work. I wasn’t really me—famous people never are. I had to be what people expected, the sad, smart, nerdy guy who had lost his famous and charismatic best friend. I needed a brand that aligned with that.
And, to some extent, it was working. It wasn’t the way to get the most Twitter followers, but universities wanted people to give talks that were constructive. People were searching for some authority to tell them anything that made even a little bit of sense. As the grieving best friend of the missing emissary to the aliens, I guess I was an authority, and Maya’s advice gave me the angle I needed.
But being a professional grieving friend didn’t lend itself to new friendships. I also didn’t need much outside validation. A lot of the reason we look to friends is because they’re a source of meaning. If you’re getting meaning in other ways, it’s easy to let your friendships wither. That’s one reason success can be isolating. I learned that from an expert.
At least I was smart enough to not go get a fancy apartment by myself. I kept my roommate because I wanted to keep some ties to my former life. That was a tremendously good decision. Jason is irreverent, hilarious, deeply nerdy, and surprisingly unambitious. He is delighted that my fame has made our dumb podcast more successful, but I don’t think the thought has ever crossed his mind that I might be doing him a favor by not abandoning it. Slainspotting (our podcast about TV and movie deaths) is a thing I signed up to do that I like doing and that keeps me connected to something that existed before April died, before I was famous, and before there were aliens.
—
Basically, thank God for Jason, but I was not going to go see STOMP with him.
And that was where I was at, feeling like I had been barely saved from complete isolation by the nerdiest guy in New York, when I walked into Subway and asked Becky if she would like to go see STOMP with me.
—
“That was very weird and fun, Andy,” she said afterward as we were walking to the train.
“Is it Rebecca or Becky? I’m sorry I didn’t ask that sooner.”
She laughed lightly. “Either, honestly, but almost everyone except my parents and my manager calls me Bex.” The name popped out of her mouth in a way that seemed natural. It seemed like her.
“I like that. Bex, like with an x?”
“Like with an x,” she confirmed, before adding, “Are you ever going to tell me why you invited me to go see STOMP?”
“Are you going to tell me why you said yes?”
She laughed again. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I felt like a total douche asking out someone who is literally paid to be nice to me, and I honestly can’t believe I did it.”
“Fair, but I’m not going to tell you why I said yes.” I couldn’t decide whether that sounded flirtatious or menacing. “So why did you ask me?”
“I told you, my friend bought tickets and couldn’t get a refund. There were two tickets and I didn’t want to go alone.”
“But it’s a big city, Andy, and you’re a famous rich guy. There are other people besides Rebecca from Subway.”
“I don’t know many people,” I replied.
“That cannot possibly be true.” There was some formality to her speech that I assumed was part of her accent or dialect but may have been her signaling to me that she was being respectful toward me as a public figure, and not knowing for sure made me worry that she wasn’t seeing me as an equal.
“I . . .”
“You don’t have to explain,” she said seriously.
“No.” I stopped walking. The sun was down, but the sidewalks were still full, so we pulled off to stand under the awning of a bodega. “I don’t know anyone anymore. I have a roommate, he’s my only friend. All of April’s friends left the city after she . . . Afterward. I haven’t spent much time in the same place since I started doing speaking gigs. Lots of people want to talk to me, but I always feel like they want something. You seemed like . . . like a person, a funny and nice person.” I didn’t say, “And cute,” because that seemed like way too much.
“This is a shitty thing to whine about, but, like, every time I walk up to someone, I know that they’re probably going to remember that interaction for the rest of their life. It’s too much fucking pressure. I go to these fancy places and meet fancy people, and we work very hard to impress each other, and then I go to a hotel room by myself and try not to feel as alone as I am. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun. The food is amazing. The drinks are free. It’s fucking cool. But still, you’re the first person besides my roommate who I’ve spent more than an hour with in months.”
She rolled her eyes just a little, like she was accepting something but not totally
