The story of my commuting days would not be complete without Carey. I saw Carey practically every day I rode the train. He worked in my building (for another company), so we also often ended up in the elevator together in the morning. One afternoon I saw him sitting across from me on my ride home, and I said something like, “We work in the same building.” (Note that I am not the kind of person who makes small talk with strangers. The only reason I said anything to Carey is that he is young [I found out later he was 25] and cute.)
What happened next I never would have guessed. He opened his mouth, and never closed it. His commute ended two stops before mine, and, in that time, I learned that he is married (but no ring), has two boys (one with Asperger’s), doesn’t like to read, doesn’t make enough money to get his moped fixed, hasn’t talked to his sister in 2 years, and started doing drugs at a young age because his parents both did drugs. This all in the first 45 minutes I ever talked to him. Needless to say, my attraction to him was quickly squashed. At least he brought up his wife in our first meeting, in case I had any ideas.
The next morning I got another earful all the way to downtown when he sat next to me on the train. As if I needed any more confirmation, this meeting solidified my thoughts that I didn’t want Carey to think that we were now “train friends.” He was exhausting just to listen to – he had so many stories and talked so fast. I learned that this was not his first marriage (he got married at 18 because he got a woman pregnant but then they lost the baby – seriously, he’s telling me all this!) and that he is a Jehovah’s Witness. He told me about how he was disciplined at work and about his problems trying to get on medication for ADD (why any doctor would doubt that he needs meds is beyond me). I don’t think, at this point, that he knew anything about me except my name, where I worked, and that I wasn’t married. The rest was all him.
I put an end to our morning conversations by riding in a different train car. I would then have to walk slowly to the office so we didn’t end up in the elevator together. I knew which car he took home, too, so I rode in a different one. After a couple of months I figured there was no harm in quick conversations with him, so I started walking with him from the train to the office in the morning. I would catch up to him when we got off the train, and we would walk together. He said nothing about my absence at first, but once later mentioned (as a “joke”) that he knew I must be avoiding him.
From then on, we walked together from the train, and I got these brief updates about his life, work, wife, kids, financial situation, how crazy his family is. It was almost always entertaining, but I never felt that we parted too soon. Our relationship ended when the bank that he worked for went under and another bank bought it out. Only a handful of the former bank employees were re-hired, and Carey wasn’t one of them. We didn’t have a formal good-bye, as I didn’t see him on his last day, but I feel that we had said all that there was to say (well, he did, anyway).
I think about Carey every once in a while, and hope that he found another job and that he keeps taking his ADD meds. It was a good lesson for me that I need to be careful about striking up conversations with random guys, even the young cute ones.
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