Me

“I’m Presbyterian,” he said as he looked through the menu trying to figure out what to eat. I cocked my head slightly to the side as I looked at him, a crease forming at my brow. I knew that the Seventh Day Adventists, and probably even the Mormons had certain dietary restrictions … but the Presbyterians too? He seemed to be struggling a little, which I chalked off to the poor lighting paired with the super small print on the menu. I know I’d struggled – I’d just stopped short of pulling out my phone and using the torch! The restaurant was rather popular, even though it was in essence a large darkened hall with dim lighting and cozy furnishings. Better readability for struggling patrons couldn’t possibly have hurt their ratings.

Pete, who sat across the table from me, was super tall. He was a handsome techie guy, whose proper English accent made him seem posh. He attentively kept all our water glasses filled, which gets 5 stars in my book! He was James Bond-esque: athletic build, intelligent, well put together, well travelled … I wondered if he’d arrived at the restaurant from a phone booth, where he’d narrowly missed singeing his perfect eyebrows, as he escaped a self-destructing message. That said, there was something about him that gave me pause. A certain je ne sais quoi. Perhaps it was the unnecessary proclamation of his religious affiliations that had rubbed me the wrong way. 

“I’ll just need a minute to figure out what I’ll be having,” he murmured in response to Kristie’s query. 

“Oh that’s alright,” Kristie chirped an enthusiastic response with a warm smile. Perhaps a little too warm? Very eager … Oh! Was she flirting?! How juicy! I hid the smile that was pulling at the corners of my mouth by taking a sip of water.

Kristie was the petite, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Swedish girl seated next to Pete at our table of four. She topped up her glass with beer from a brightly coloured can, emblazoned with lettering I could not make out. The golden hued liquid swirled gracefully into the tall glass, causing it to bead up with condensation. Given the summer heat outside, it was like watching an advert – an invitation into alcoholic nirvana. I was almost sure I could smell the hops from across the table. I could just imagine the pleasantly bitter while mildly sour taste of the liquid. Oh, and the oddly satisfying cutting sensation it would create at the sides of my tongue if I had a just one sip … I gulped down some water.

“I’m going to have the steak!”, Johan suddenly exclaimed, making me jump a little. He’d said it as though it were a revelation worthy of the gods descent from the high heavens, to shake his hand in admiration. He was seated next to me, so I turned my body slightly to give him a good look over. He was also handsome, but in a much less confident way than the Presbyterian. He smelled good and was well put together, but in a way that didn’t really scream “effort”. Perhaps it was an elaborate ploy to make us think, he woke up like that.

I chose to have a pork dish, which seemed both an interesting and safe choice, then went back to contemplating my table-mates. I was the only black person at the table, which often happened in Stockholm and didn’t bother me much. We came from four different countries and between us, spoke a total of seven languages. None of us were originally from Stockholm, and yet here we all were, sharing dinner on a Wednesday night. We were strangers meeting for the first time. There was an engineer, a marketer, a programmer and a lawyer. I let out a quiet chuckle as I mused at how many of those it would take to change a light bulb.

A friend in the US had told me about this group called “Time Left”. That wasn’t quite right though, was it? It wasn’t a group … it was an App. And a website. Maybe a company? Well who understood these things any more in a world where we had robot vacuum cleaners and self driving cars?! It was a thing, that connected strangers over dinner every week at a fee. A novel way to meet people. I’d tried it once before and was experimenting further.

Frankly, I felt like a fraud. I’d given these people my previous name. My previous title. My previous self. But I was in the process of reinventing myself … I wanted to be free to be the new me! I needed to be the Sasha Fierce to my Beyoncé. I had left a job and an identity behind. I was excited by my new path, and yet when faced with these strangers, I’d panicked and reverted to my big title at the big corporation. I felt that that identity gave me clout. It made me “somebody”. Yet … this should have been my chance to throw caution to the wind. They’d had no expectations of me.

Pete

He hoped they hadn’t noticed his discomfort as he’d moved to bury his face in the menu. Had his tone been too sharp when he’d requested more time to make his order? He’d indeed been pescatarian for some time now. He’d had to move away from his vegan diet on doctor’s orders, when they found that he hadn’t been getting enough iron in his diet. Eating fish had been a small price to pay, to get away from the fatigue that had been starting to overwhelm him.

But that wasn’t the real reason why he was having a hard time choosing what to eat. He was dyslexic. Most people didn’t believe that about him. Chasing his father’s approval, he’d been a lifelong student, amassing numerous degrees. Everyone thought that his life was perfect, and to a large extent, it was very very good. He had an amazing job and was at the top of his game. Single and without kids, he got to do fantastic things at the drop of a hat. He was trim and fit and knew that the ladies loved his accent – he often had girls asking him out. But there was an aching at the bottom of his being for something more. 

He listened to the light buzz of the conversations around him. Happy people living carefree happy lives. He could pretend that it was love that he needed to complete him, but knew that wasn’t it. He’d been in and out of relationships all his adult life with both men and women, and had somehow managed to keep just out of reach of the “falling in love” part. He didn’t want to lead anyone on, but he understood that for him, relationships would always be more transactional than anything else. 

He didn’t drink. Actually, the right way to frame that was: he couldn’t drink. Drinking was a bad idea for him. When he did partake of any kind of liquor, a side of him came to the surface and took over. A dark side. It was impulsive and a little too much like Gotham’s Joker for comfort. Creepy. Unstoppable. Dangerous. What had happened that last time was unspeakable. Vile. It could not be allowed to happen again. He had to be in control. Always. He needed to meet normal people going about their normal lives to keep the darkness in check.

Kristie

She was recently divorced and it was taking all her willpower to keep things together. She needed to make new friends. Originally from the south of Sweden, she had found it difficult to make her own connections in Stockholm, where people formed life-long exclusive bonds in school. It hadn’t been an issue while Jan had still been around to do life with. Their days had been filled with warmth, giggles and happy smiles as they’d sought out ways to entertain their two daughters. The most precious times for her, had been the tradition of reading to the girls whenever they could find the chance – at bedtime, at the dinner table, or even when getting dressed in the morning. She and Jan would take turns impersonating the characters. The girls had loved how Jan would deepen his voice in a strained baritone while she’d exaggerate a high pitched sing song effect. They’d roll around on the floor letting out gleeful peals of laughter. This was the picture memory she replayed in her mind when she needed to be okay.

She often wondered if he now asked his bimbo to read to her precious girls. How could this man who had been her only love … a man she still loved, have been so heartless? How could he have taken this wholesome beautiful thing they’d had and discarded it like shit down the toilet? She guessed he still read to them every other week when he had the girls, much as she did during her weeks. She would never forgive him if he invited that wretched woman he had left her for, into their sacred storytelling tradition.

She shuddered slightly. The temperature in the fancy Asian inspired restaurant was cooler than the outdoor sweltering summer heat. Stockholm was unaccustomed to high temperatures, so what passed for a heat wave was 28 degrees celsius. Her movement wasn’t on account of the temperature though, but to get herself out of her head and the depressing trajectory her thoughts had been taking. 

She needed to find her new tribe and this was a good opportunity. She had previously attended a couple of Time Left events, and her favourite part was that they took the decision making out of her hands. They arranged the restaurant and the people and she only needed to show up. She already had too many decisions to make on a normal day. Whether she would be getting out of bed to face the world that day. How to explain to her baby girls, that their daddy wouldn’t be coming back home to live with them, after moving out nine months before. What she would tell blasted Susan at work if she asked her just one more time how she was holding up. How she would fucking celebrate her upcoming 40th birthday …

Johan

Johan hated Sweden. Everything about the country rubbed him the wrong way. The thousand coffee breaks a day. The consensus building required to reach the minutest of decisions at any meeting. The tasteless meat balls. Hell, he even hated IKEA!

He was from South Africa. A country as far away from Sweden as one could get both literally and metaphorically. The people were … alive in South Africa! It wasn’t perfect, but it was home. And that was where he’d had her. Sedi. She loved him in South Africa. Benjamin, their son, had been born there. Everything had been amazing there. Well, maybe not perfect, but it was a whole lot better than it had ever been in Sweden! 

Sedi had gotten a job in Stockholm and proposed that they relocate. He would have done anything for her. Even uproot their precious three year old baby from the only life he’d known. Walk away from his parents, job and life. Anything for her. And then, somehow, she’d walked away from him. Walked away from them. She’d said that she needed to find herself. What he wanted to know was: when had she gotten lost? If she wasn’t the amazing angel he’d fallen in love with, then who was she?

So anyway, he was now stuck in Sweden. He couldn’t live a life without Benjamin and Benjamin couldn’t live a life without his mother. Game, set and match.

He’d tried dating but thought that he must have been doing it wrong. He was a traditional kind of guy. He took his dates to fancy dinners, bought them chocolate and flowers, showed affection in their love languages, settled the bills … This wasn’t getting him anywhere. The last girl had told him that he was weird when he’d proposed a romantic hot air balloon ride over Stockholm.

He was fed up and was now just looking for reasonable adult conversation. Real connection with lively real people who wouldn’t be offended if asked to pass the salt. That’s why he’d gravitated towards Time Left. He’d gotten a subscription package and was out every other Wednesday meeting new people. As his sizzling steak arrived at the table, trailing behind it the scent of the molten fat seared by the flames of an open fire, he reflected on his dining experiences. He’d met a circus professional, a neuroscientist, a real life fixer and a lady he suspected might be royalty. Blimey! Maybe Sweden wasn’t that bad after all.

Me

After the food was elegantly placed before us at the table, everyone tucked in and the conversation flowed. The more we talked about hobbies, experiences, work and life in general, the more everyone seemed to relax. I confessed the truth about my work status and shared my new business idea. I was touched by the greatly encouraging positivity they all beamed at me. Kristie vulnerably shared a little about how difficult her divorce process had been and the toll it had taken on her. Pete then felt comfortable to share that he was dyslexic. Johan, perhaps trying to lighten the mood, brought the conversation around to dating and regaled us with tales of his pitiful dating mishaps. We all somehow managed to settle in, connect and bring out more of our real selves.

Have any plans this Wednesday?