On a lazy, static Sunday afternoon I began to reflect on the week’s events in an attempt to grasp onto a real existence, for part of what constitutes a real existence is the act of looking back on events past in order to anchor one’s self in time, and thus avoiding life as a floating piece of debris in the uncertain sea of the now. On embarking on this existence affirming reflection I came to a worrying realisation, in order to give an impression that I arrived neatly at such a conclusion the weeks social events will have to be recounted.
On Monday I went out with Steve and Alexa. On Wednesday I watched a film with Sarah and Dan. On Thursday I went out to dinner with Tom and Claire. On Saturday I was walking the earth alone and I bumped into Julius and Rebecca and before I knew it, I was walking with them. It seemed that I had enjoyed a pleasant, social week, interacting with others and thus securing another component for a real existence. The catch however, was how each pair I interacted with interacted with each other. They were all couples, romantically involved.
On reflecting on how I had basically spent the whole week interacting with couples I came to the conclusion that I was a third wheel, and a serial one at that. No matter how accommodating each couple was, I couldn’t help but feel like I was a stain on the carpet of their social/romantic space. I seemed to be an abstract thought floating between these different social spaces that would only ever be temporal. I decided to visit the Ice King in an attempt to shed some light on my realisation.
He climbed out of a cardboard box an looked at me with a stolid expression that I had grown accustomed to whenever I was in his company. He prepared a pot of Earl Grey tea which we both enjoyed while I told him about the conclusion I had come to.
I finished my verbal spew and watched the Ice King’s unchanging expression. In the silence in which he was hopefully formulating some advice for my social conundrum, I began to question why I had come here to seek advice from the Ice King. He often spent time in that cardboard box of his, cultivating a bitterness that seemed to be growing quite nicely. It could be said that I was the opposite, I spent a lot of time travelling between different social spaces trying to find a certain something - what this certain something was still seemed to be a mystery to me.
I guess the Ice King was all about theory, and I was about action. Perhaps I was hoping that between the two of us we could construct a balance of some sort.
“I heard about this guy,” he started, “who visited cafes and other social spaces. While in these spaces he would listen to couples’ conversations and write down excerpts from them. Once he was at home he’d compile these excerpts from different conversations and construct a relationship of his own, complete with arguments and quarrels.”
It was love constructed completely out of language, and perhaps the most I could ever hope for.
I left the Ice King’s palace without the advice that I had perhaps hoped for, although I now had something else - a possible solution, a vehicle to make the most of my social being as a third wheel. Maybe if I combined Alexa’s annoyance with Steve for getting a bit too drunk, with the loving manner in which Julius and Rebecca held each other’s hand then I would be on my way to creating what I had been seeking.
This constructed relationship, made up of words and theoretical gestures could be supply me with another component of a real existence; I let the warmth of delusion wash over me as I thought this.
The next day I found myself in a coffee shop with a notebook full of the records of interactions between couples. The stale words, with memories of romantic gestures between others, just didn’t seem to be enough. No matter how I tried to keep this constructed relationship alive, it was dead to me. I commended the guy the Ice King told me about, for his ability to find happiness in these dead words.
The more I thought about it, the more I started to believe that “this guy” was in fact the Ice King himself. This belief was further fuelled by the sighting of a cardboard box at a far table in the coffee shop I was in. whether he was the Ice King or not didn’t really matter, this method wasn’t for me. I put the notebook away, I’d probably dig it up one day when it transpired that things would not get better.
I declined Claire’s invite to go for a drink with her and Tom. I thought I would take a break from third wheeling for a while. As the possibility of being a first or second wheel was highly unlikely, it would do me no good to dwell on it. I decided to meet Disappointman for lunch. Disappointman had the ability to be incredibly, and endlessly disappointing. He was an hour and fifteen minutes late to meet me. His powers were not failing.
We talked for a while and ended up on the subject of the third wheel. He voiced some of his insecurities about the whole thing, which included the tricky nature of seating arrangements when dining with a couple. “Let’s say you have two chairs on either side of the table, do you sit next to the girl of the couple? That seems wrong. However, you can’t sit next to her either, for that is the classic romantic seating arrangement. Your best bet is to sit next to the guy and have an empty chair opposite, or sit opposite the guy and have the empty chair next to you.”
Can you be disappointed by someone when you weren’t actually expecting anything from them? Having lunch with Disappointman actually lightened my mood, and I had acquired some tips to help me in my life as a third wheel.
