The Tortoise and the Hare

In my dream, I held the two pieces of plastic in my hands. In one hand lay the white rabbit. In the other lay the emerald tortoise.

I glanced up to ask him the meaning of this, but he was already gone.

--

I sat on one of the couches pushed aside to clear space for the beer pong tables, checking my e-mail on my phone for the millionth time since I had entered the room. The smell of cheap beer permeated the claustrophobic apartment, punctuated by the clattering of pong balls atop the linoleum floor.

She told me afterwards that I had looked as pissed as hell at the mixer. As BB spoke to me over Skype, I imagined my mother lecturing for me the umpteenth time about body language, how my instinctual habit of crossing my arms made myself intimidating, unapproachable and uninviting.

But I wasn't pissed. I was just tired. It was the same routine -- the girls and boys would compete in throwing little plastic balls into opposing plastic cups, drinking until they flashed in and out of consciousness. There I'd be again, the clear-headed guardian angel who'd swat away the predatory boys, walk the inebriated girls back to the dormitories, clean up their regurgitated messes, and lay them in recovery position before turning off their bedroom lights and trudging back to my own room.

I'd done this so many times that there was nothing to be angry about. It was just the routine.

--

"I don't remember having this conversation with you at all," I said.

Apparently I had told her about "my type." Don't get me wrong. I have never been drunk in my life. This lapse of memory could be simply attributed to old age (having just hit the two-decade mark) or pure absentmindedness.

Supposedly, I had told J that I preferred somebody who did not drink very much. As she told me this, S responded, "Yeah, I can see that."

Oh really?

I am surprised to hear that I had ever said such a thing. After all, S herself is the one I end up taking care of every time we go out. So many of my friends have reached that point of no return that it would seem strange that I would single that out as the characteristic I would look for.

They don't say this to my face, but I know what they're thinking. I'm a frigid prude, a sober fun-sucker. I know my tolerance is not too shabby, but I don't know my limit -- I have never had the desire to find out. The shot of Bacardi tasted disgusting. The two shots of Malibu did nothing for me. Amongst the toxic haze of college Bacchanalian revelry, my mind is as clear as the summer sky.

How many of my friends have lost their first kisses in the smog? It happened to S just a week ago. She'd been pushed into the arms of a guy at a nightclub by the beach. They'd started dancing, both just a little drunk. The first kiss was a surprise, but chaste. The second involved tongue. He held her hand for the rest of the night. I could tell, when she had returned to campus and recounted the story to me, that she had hopes for this new acquaintance.

That was until Y told us that this was the same guy in her hall during sophomore year who would bang his screeching girlfriend every day between 2-4 pm without fail. Nobody talked about him again after that.

--

Everyone knows the story of the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race.

But does it really? We are running in this race, but I don't know where the finish line lies. "If you don't hurry up, all the good ones will be taken." "Don't forget, your biological clock is ticking." What am I racing against? All the other members of my sex? Is it better to be the hare -- sprinting out from the gate, running headlong into the fray and coming against obstacle after obstacle, risking heartbreak after heartbreak? Or is it better to be the tortoise -- ambling along the path cleared by the others before her, at the risk of reaching the finish line in last place?

Here's the thing about the tortoise. The tortoise has seen everything that has happened to the hare. The tortoise has seen the sleepless nights, the loss of appetite, the avoidance of gazes, the disintegration of a love that had once pledged to be eternal. But the tortoise has also seen the exchanged looks that speak in unwritten poetry, the tint of rose on a blushing cheek, the crescent of a smile that could move the tides.

And so the tortoise marches on.