face to face

i’ve written this a thousand times — i don’t understand how people can sit across from each other at a table and look into each others’ eyes and talk. i don’t understand how it doesn’t just become an insane face scanning self conscious nightmare. i don’t understand how it’s not too intimate. 

if i’m eating with someone, we’re sitting diagonal or side by side. it’s not because i don’t like you, it’s because i’m a freak. i can’t have a human’s face be the default thing i see when i look up from my food. there’s this interview quality that’s so easy to recognize in first dates but that’s how i feel sitting across from anyone ever. everything is a first date for a sensitive guy like me.