Jameer shook his head and decided to go through it all again, to see if he could make any more sense of it than the imprevious attempts had provided. Imprevious was a word he'd come up with as he thought things over. A previous thought that seemed impervious to reason resulted in imprevious.
If he doesn't recognize someone that knows him it means that the relationship that that person thought he or she had with Jameer wasn't the relationship he or she had with Jameer.
Ok, so far so good.
It takes two to have a relationship and if one of those two parties doesn't have the same impression of the relationship, or doesn't acknowledge it the first place, it basically invalidates the relationship.
Thinking the word relationship so many times began to make his head hurt. Did it have to have four syllables?
One more problem with relationships.
So if that person had a relationship that turned out to be different than he or she thought, doesn't that bring into question not only their decision-making ability but all of the relationships that they had up to that time?
There was an expression that seemed appropriate to support that last contention, something about a house built on sand, but Jameer couldn't come up with it.
Jameer began to walk around squinting his eyes and rubbing his head much like the way he imagined a dog would at the onset of rabies.
Originally this line of thinking had him feeling bad for the person he didn't remember. As they walked away he felt a pang of grief over their sorry state that bordered on embarrassment. But there was something else eating at him.
So he started to think it through a bit more.
“So if that person had a relationship that turned out to be different than he or she thought, doesn't that bring into question not only their decision-making ability but all of the relationships that they had up to that time?”
His words.
“It takes two to have a relationship and if one of those two parties doesn't have the same impression of the relationship, or doesn't acknowledge it the first place, it basically invalidates the relationship.”
Also his words. Why did his words always seem to include the word relationship so damn many times?
“Takes two to tango.”
That wasn't his. That came from a 1952 Pearl Bailey song but the inference was clear. If the poor bastard slinking away was worthy of a cringe of embarrassment, then surely there should be a sprinkling of embarrassment left over for Jameer.
Embarrassment. Another damn four syllable word. He thought it was only four-letter words that were supposed to be trouble. Wrong again.
The saying about a house built on sand had something to do with a bad foundation. It was coming back to him now. The foundation would be subject to erosion and thus made it a dubious investment. He now feared it wasn't a house built on sand that should be his primary concern. It was looking more and more like it was a house of cards, built on whatever substrate he chose, that was his problem. For every person who thought there existed a relationship with Jameer that, when staring into the cold light of reality, turned out not to be a relationship at all it was like taking one card away from the base of Jameer's house.
And one was it all it needed to falter and fold and flop into an impromptu game of 52 pickup.
An outside observer of Jameer would note he seemed only moments away from a frothing mouth.
So because he didn't recognize someone from his past he now has to go back and re-evaluate every relationship he's ever had? Is that what he was trying to tell himself? He liked to think that he led a logical life but if this is where logic was leading him he wondered what was the worst that could happen if he decided to take a sharp right and follow the path of least resistance.
George Carlin noted “It takes two to tango. Sounds good, but simple reasoning will reveal that it only takes one to tango. It takes two to tango together, maybe, but one person is certainly capable of tangoing on his own.”
The words tango and tangled seemed intertwined to Jameer ... which in itself was ironic.
Jameer thought that perhaps ol' George was right. He didn't have to abandon reason after all. He just had to stop thinking it takes two to get tangled. Let that other stranger walk away and don't give them a second thought.
Problem solved.
Jameer continued his day.
“You never find yourself until you face the truth.” Another Pearl (Bailey) of wisdom.