19 October 2004 | Haunted House
There are two things I failed to mention last night.
The first is that I’m 41, not 35. When you told me the Nixon story, I remembered the sweat on his lip as well as you, only I didn’t dare say this because I was supposedly only two at the time and two-year-olds don’t notice things like that. It made me wince. I wanted to confess right then, but there seemed no point.
A long time ago I was hitchhiking in Wyoming with my boyfriend and we got picked up by some guy in a station wagon. One of the first things he did was take this huge hunting knife out from under his seat and place it on the dashboard. He kept it for protection, he said, but it made him uneasy. So long as it was under the seat, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was pretty freaked when he first brought it out, but in time I got used to it and more or less forgot it was there.
I’m not comparing my lie to the knife; it’s just that I would have liked to have admitted it from the start. In practice, though, there’s no point doing that unless it seems like I’m headed for a second date with someone. Why confess to some guy I’m never going to see again?
On the other hand, I was curious what you’d say and almost told you the truth for this reason. After all, it’s an interesting lie. I mean, lies are interesting to begin with, but this one is particularly interesting because it must be admitted in the end, at least to someone you get involved with, because the truth is bound to come out regardless. This makes it different from the lie, say, of telling someone that their pathetic haircut looks good. If we had to admit such lies, we wouldn’t tell them. This is one of the things I’ve realized recently: there are few lies we would tell at the cost of having to later admit them to the person we deceived. Lying to a murderer is one exception, as is lying to a friend to keep her surprise birthday party a secret.
Also, the longer one maintains a lie about one’s age, the worse the violation. To take two extremes: admitting the lie on the first date is different from admitted it after having had sex. In the latter case, I’ve basically tricked someone into fucking me. Or that’s how it could be perceived. Originally I thought of telling the truth somewhere in my profile, but then it seemed like the whole profile would be about the lie. This is when I decided to bring it up on the first date, depending on the vibe.
The vibe between us was only so-so, so I said nothing. It’s funny: I was hoping for a reason to confess to you, although I knew the chances for that were slim.
This segues to the second thing I failed to mention. Last night was not our first date but our second. The first took place a little over three years ago, at a place called Bliss in Williamsburg.
I recognized you when you wrote to me last week. You haven’t changed much; just a little more grey around the ears. I thought of telling you immediately, but then I hatched this other plan of surprising you on the date. I’m not sure why I did this; I guess I thought it would be sort of funny when I walked up and you recognized me. The way I imagined it, we would laugh about it.
I got what I deserved, though. All through the date, I kept thinking you were going to figure it out, but you didn’t. Or if you did, you certainly didn’t indicate that you did. This is why I told you the haunted house story. I told you that same story three years ago; I repeated it last night to try to spark your memory. I nearly spit up my beer when you said it seemed familiar.
I feel a little sick about this now, and I’m sorry. There was a level on which I was fucking with you. I did it because I was angry at having been forgotten.
It never occurred to me that you would do this. How can you forget someone you talked with for two hours? Again it’s funny because you mentioned your memory problems on both dates. Obviously this is a theme with you, although I wonder to what degree you’re really aware of it.
At one point last night I thought of trying to find a way to meet you in a year to see if you would remember me then. However, the more I thought about this, the sadder I got. It reminded me of certain relationships I’ve had in which I’ve felt unseen. Unremembered, unseen—you get the point.
Anyway, I doubt you’ll ever forget me again, now that you know the truth. I may not have sweat on my lip, or whatever it is that makes a lasting impression on you, but my lies are unforgettable.
