Day 227 — Pairs

I like people watching. As I spend more time in my own wonderful company, I look at the people around me and try to read the situations.

I went to a gig a few weeks ago and studied a pair that was in front of me. They were young, aged anywhere between 16 and 21. I couldn’t tell. When I do workshops in schools, I’m always amazed by the sheer size of the kids. Unfortunately, it reminds my why ‘colour blind’ police continue to execute our kids and see them as threats. Anyway, this isn’t a post on race relations.

So, I’m watching the pair. The boy is in smart casual clothes. Dark trousers and a checkered shirt, probably from H&M. The girl is in a creme playsuit. She’s rocking her afro and living her best life. Her afro sits atop her slight frame, completing her like a star does on a Christmas Tree.

The gig is for JMSN, an Albanian-born and Eastpointe, Michigan raised Soul Singer. As he sang and danced on stage, we realised that his hips perfectly matched his chocolate like flow, I don’t even think they were connected to his body at times, honestly. It made the gig more fun to see him move in such a way and made us all smile.

There was one person in the pair that was smiling, the girl. For the first half of the gig, she danced and sang along to her heart’s content.

The boy was less enthusiastic.

My friend deduced that the girl must have bought the tickets.

Every so often, she would sway ever so close to him, inviting his hips towards hers, smooth, all of this soundtracked by delicious R&B. Her left hand would reach out towards him, edging closer to pull him in, but he stayed rooted to his spot. Her warm advanced were matched with the coolness that you feel when opening a chest freezer.

“Maybe he’s not one for PDA” suggested my friend.

“Yeah, but she’s giving out energy! You’ve gotta match that!” I replied.

I felt sorry for her. I know that I didn’t know the ins and outs but couldn’t but think that she wanted a connection from him that she wasn’t going to get back. I thought to myself, “girl, I know how you feel!”.

My mentor once told me, “never expect a thank you, it won’t come when you want it to”. I think the same can be said for the love or energy that you give out. Like I said, she was moving her body as one-half and waited the entire night to be made whole by the other half of the pair. This is why I called them pair and not a couple. They had their similarities but didn’t like they shared parts of life together yet. Maybe that will change too. I’m not a hopeless (read: stupid) romantic.

When the last song came on, the boy changed his tune. He went from standing like a puppet to being the puppeteer that was pulling the strings on the beat. He jumped, he sang, he danced, he was actually animated! It was the complete opposite to the rest of the night.
“Maybe he bought the tickets!”


The pair seemed happy in the end. Maybe their next gig will be as a couple, or with different pairs. Pairs waiting for their energy to be matched.

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Nathaniel Aaron Cole

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I'm a writer/workshop facilitator/co-founder/researcher from East London. I talk about my Mental Health and self development…a lot

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