The Vegetarian

I’m in a neighborhood on the border of North Hollywood and Glendale. Behind me is a cactus two stories tall. I can’t recall the car, but the driver was a chiseled, white male with shoulder-length blonde hair wearing a quality flannel. He would have easily been someone’s dream hunk in a past decade. He asks where I was coming from and I tell him, “A tinder date.” He proceeds to open up about his own relationship and how he struggles to create time and space for himself to be his own person. I can relate. On the flip side, he’s constantly blown away that someone actually likes him enough to want him in their life.

We talk about the roles gender, communication, and listening play in a relationship before bringing up an interaction he overheard from a gay couple he picked up the previous night. The “wife” of the couple (as he put it) had said something that insulted the “husband”. The husband replied with a snide comment. The wife was offended that his husband would intentionally lash out over an honest mistake, saying it wasn’t his intention to insult him. The wife wished his husband would have given him the benefit of the doubt instead of biting back. My driver wonders if he would have accepted the same feedback if it was coming from a woman, something only he can answer himself.

He’s 40 years old now, still good looking, and was happy to be having a dialogue on culture with me. He says he was much more careless around my age, having been diagnosed with colon cancer at 18 and given six months to live. I asked him how he beat his disease since his age and appearance both defied his diagnosis. He attributed his health to his daily “gorilla salad”, a combination of romaine lettuce, carrots, and cucumbers. I ask him about his thoughts on kale. He tells me it’s overhyped and hard for humans to digest.

I’m still deciding if I’ll take his word for it.