Pool Repartey!
My apartment overlooks a pool. Not a particularly popular pool, but a pool that does the job. It’s filled with chlorinated water and gives you a place to hit on girls. More on that later.
When I moved in, I worried that the sounds of grown men doing cannonballs and people sunning themselves (which makes the noise Ssssssssszzz) would force me to adopt a perpetual Jack Black-ian visage of annoyed bemusement. As it turns out, that’s not the case. Instead, I’m getting a lesson in watching how people interact from my perch.
I watched a guy and a girl, tanned and slim alike, engage in conversation. Maybe not conversation exactly. The girl did the talking and the guy the smiling. She did not stop talking. He did not stop smiling. I know how this ends. He gets laid. She doesn’t stop talking until she realizes that he left two weeks ago. That lasts fifteen seconds. Then she calls her friend and continues talking.
Even better, I watched two couples made friends! The guys and the girls paired off. The guys chatting about whatever it is two dudes who work out a lot talk about (the Age of Enlightenment) and the girls blah blahed about clothes (but mostly the Cold War and its effect on liberalism). As they left the pool, the guys said it was nice to meet each other and that they should get together and play pool sometime.* The girls agreed.
It’s hard to listen when you’re trying to read Infinite Jest over the din of poolside conversation and lap-swimming. I guess some are pool people and some are book people.**
*I wonder if meeting at a pool had anything to do with this decision.
**I consider those who read on the beach to be mixed-race.
