Imagine losing a Sunday to a man who is enjoying his. You are in the bathroom rehearsing what you should have said. He is eating masala dosa. You have finally found the sentence that will destroy him. He is asking for extra chutney.
It happened at a wedding. You waved. An old friend looked straight through you. Thirty years of friendship, and apparently you now require an introduction. You lower your hand and pretend to adjust your hair. Dignity demands some quick housekeeping.
On the drive home, you mention it to your wife. She says he probably did not see you. This annoys you. You were standing right there. She looks out of the window. You begin explaining the seating arrangement.
By lunch, you have remembered other things. His hurried telephone call last month. A remark about your car. Each seemed harmless then; now they fit. You feel less foolish about being hurt. You have discovered a pattern.
Later, you tell your brother. He remembers that the man has always been rather pleased with himself. This is comforting. You now have independent confirmation from someone who was not at the wedding.
On Monday, your friend calls. “Were you there yesterday? I forgot my glasses. My daughter had to point out my own cousin.” You laugh. You say something about advancing age. You do not mention the investigation.
The facts have changed in seconds. The feeling takes longer. Some part of you is reluctant to let the case go. You worked hard on it. Besides, your remark about your car still needs explaining.
As a doctor, I am interested in that reluctance. An explanation can become precious because it makes our distress understandable. Giving it up leaves us with an uncomfortable possibility: we suffered, and made others suffer, over something we had misunderstood.
Yet the hurt itself wasn’t invented. For a few hours, we believed we mattered less to someone who mattered to us. Most of us know that feeling. We may be embarrassed by how much a greeting can mean.
Perhaps being overlooked has a history. Perhaps we have spent years trying to be heard in our family. An old friend’s unseeing face touches something already tender. Before we consider his eyesight, we remember our place.
There is a loneliness in this. The friend knows about the wedding. We are also responding to occasions he never attended, words he never spoke, people he has never met. He cannot explain those away. He does not know they are in the room.
Still, sometimes people do see us and turn away. No spectacles arrive to rescue the friendship. Then we face real disappointment and, afterwards, the question of how much of our day it will take up.
That question becomes clearer at home. Our wife asks whether we want more sambar. We answer sharply. She goes quiet. Someone else has made us feel small, or we believe he has, and now the person beside us must watch how she speaks.
“Did you see me waving yesterday?” It is an ordinary question, almost disappointingly small beside the speeches we have prepared. Yet it leaves room for an answer. We might learn something before spending the evening defending what we think we know.
On Monday, the friend’s explanation settles the wedding. Then we remember lunch. Our wife was only asking about the sambar. We go to find her. There is something to apologise for, and this time we know it happened.
