framed.

I get a phone call from Chase, an old friend that moved to Manhattan on a whim last winter. It was nothing he dreamed about. He said he came by accident. He invites me to a social gathering. I tell him I will arrive fresh and pressed by eight. Thirty minutes after my intended arrival, I walk through the doors. Appetizers were placed like a centerpiece that everyone hungered for but did not touch. The room danced with life, color and laughter brought upon by lubrication. Women sat in chairs and their dresses made them look like they were poking through a flower in bloom around their waist. Men could be heard purring to their partners.

I showed up at with a frame around my neck. I figured Manhattan was the city of character, so it was the least I could do to fit in properly. But when baffled guests asked me what called for such peculiar behavior, I could only smile with my eyes, and them alone, pause as if waiting for silence to speak for me, and finally say if one were to take part in a spectacle, he better look spectacularly. And then—as if ready to finally clarify myself and give excuse for my appearance—I only expounded upon the former. Oh, stop speculating and let us experience the extravagance!

I never teased, although everyone felt they were silently being mocked. I got the sense women opposed me for no reason that laid claim to who I was, but rather how I made them feel. And if one knows even the slightest about a female’s interior, it can be guaranteed that this was the worst way to affect another woman. Essentially, to be capable of making a woman feel was proof that one mattered. And this was a power that, in turn, made them feel powerless, which was a vulnerability they would never admit governed them.

A nameless female with her back to my face, turned and displayed the constellation of freckles sparkling across the landscape of her skin. Her wish was to speak with me. She spoke, “I heard the words you used to talk and I think you are arrogant.” I thank her for the shallowness of her thoughts. Women disliked me for my courage. It was an awareness that ironically gave the impression that I was removed from critiquing my sense of self and they disliked me because it was a quality they knew, not admittedly, they would love to have.

Men observed, trying to compare me to other women and finding it impossible agreed I was motivated by confidence. Framed in sight, I could tell they found my poise fascinating and my assurance refreshing. But it is my intensity, which always intimidates them—a consciousness of my mind in sync with the physical, that makes them insecure that they know nothing of their own—my elusiveness which creates a challenge. And it was because of this—and this alone—that their admiration always stayed at an elementary level and never matured to become real.