The lines

On the plane, think about something a pretty girl told you about yourself before you left: that maybe your obsessive-compulsive disorder is behind more of your social foibles than you thought.

You’ve always had a need for stable relationships. For rules. You don’t do well when relationships slide from one category to another. You are transfixed by rules and cues about what sort of relationship is being transacted. You hate the awkward moment at the end of a movie in a theater — should we leave? — how about now? — so you make it a rule to stay through the credits. You draw a line.

This isn’t all bad.

You thrive at coloring within the lines in part because you thrive at seeing the lines. You can diagnose a relationship — see a line — from a mile away.

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Also on the plane, you’ll meet a polite and personable young man who’s even shorter than you are. Turns out he’s a physical therapist on staff for the Kansas City Chiefs. Ask him to give you a locker-room tidbit that will impress your sports friends. He’ll report that Tony Gonzalez is “not just a great athlete but a great person.”

Tell him that as locker-room tidbits go, that one is pathetic.

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You didn’t talk about your OCD reflections with anyone. but two weeks later, your friend Jeremy will be having a rough time coming back from reunion, and he’ll write something that you’ll remember:

“last night i dreamt that i couldn’t remember the lines”