The Journal of Best Practices (9 page)

Conversation involves reciprocity and timing—neither of which comes naturally to me. So I absorbed the patterns that emerged between my new role models and their celebrity guests. I learned to integrate the rhythms and the melodies of their voices. And then I’d try out the patterns with various people throughout my day.

I was Regis discussing a recent bus accident with Kristen: “You know, I was watching the news earlier this morning, the coverage of the bus collision, and I have to tell you . . . sometimes tragedy strikes and you wonder how something like this could happen to so many innocent people. My thoughts and prayers are certainly with the victims and their families.” Prompting Kristen’s “What on earth are you
talking
about?”

I was Howard getting to the bottom of a coworker’s love life: “Now, let me back up for just a second, if I may. You said—because we’ve talked about this in the past, and I think it’s an important point, in the sense that . . . you say you need to feel
loved
by women. Would you say this is true? In other words, you feel as though you need a woman to be interested in
you
. Am I right about this? So, when did you start to sense that your girlfriend was interested in you sexually? And I’ll tell you why I’m asking . . .” Prompting, “Dude, seriously?”

I was Oprah giving a lecture on digital audio topics to an audience of technology directors and engineering managers: “We’re talking today about digital audio technology, a topic which is at the forefront of today’s consumer landscape. It’s in our
cars,
it’s in our
phones,
it’s in our
fire alarms
. . . people, and yet, many of us don’t realize just how many formats are available. Well, today, we’re having a discussion about where some of these audio formats came from, and what we can expect . . . in the not-too-distant future. Let’s take a look.” This, for some reason, prompted a request for a bathroom break and my boss’s quiet recommendation that I tone it down and act more normal.

I was Letterman being overly affable and playfully condescending at a summertime picnic with Kristen’s entire family: “Oh, my goodness, what do we have here? Man oh man, I don’t care how many times I’ve said it, I don’t care how many bowls I’ve eaten, I don’t care if it’s served hot, or cold, or stirred up in the pot there . . . I’ll say it again, boys and girls: I love a green bean casserole. Who’s with me?” While that line may have garnered Letterman a bass-guitar rip and a rim shot, it got me only a few uneasy chuckles and an extra helping.

I thought I’d come up with a clever strategy, something that I could use in any social situation, but Kristen quickly put an end to it. At home, anyway. It was for the best. Every time she opened her mouth, I would talk-show her to death. “What, am I on set now?” she’d ask. “Can I talk a few minutes longer or do you need to go to commercial?”

I now use the technique only when Kristen’s not around, mostly for business meetings and phone calls. I’ve even expanded the idea to include behind-the-scenes preparation and research. Successful talk-show hosts always have their material ready—they do their homework and are well-versed in their subject matter. Before any important phone call or meeting, I now take an hour or two—however long it takes, really—to think about and research whatever subject I’ll be discussing. It’s also helpful to script out a number of possible conversations, using what I feel would be potential questions from the other parties: What do you hope to achieve in this meeting? Who should be involved in this decision? Is the sombrero idea really necessary? It helps me to organize my thoughts and to feel more prepared. More confident.

I use a similar strategy to sort out complex personal issues, often when I’m in the shower. If I need to get to the bottom of something—my true feelings about capitalism, for instance—I interview myself. I become the host and the guest simultaneously, and usually by the time my segment comes to an end, I’ve made a number of profound personal discoveries.

Kristen, the kids, and I were driving to my parents’ house one afternoon a few months after my diagnosis when I pointed out what I felt was the final stumbling block in our quest to improve communication. Namely, I worried that by talking more, we would uncover things about ourselves that were best left unexplored.

“Like what?” she asked.

Without going into specifics, I told her that I knew at some point I’d have to talk about some difficult things: my own feelings of inadequacy, feelings of regret for not being the husband I thought she should have, feelings of disappointment in our marriage. Thoughts that had been occupying my mind for months—some of them for years—and I didn’t want to carry them around any longer. They were a burden, and I didn’t know if I should consult her, or a doctor, or what.

“Okay,” she said, carefully applying some eyeliner in the visor mirror. Apparently my revelation was nothing earth-shattering.

“The thing is,” I continued, “I don’t know how I can sort out these things without talking to you, and if I can’t resolve these particular issues, then we’ll always be facing the same problems over and over.”

She adjusted the visor and checked her lipstick. “You have to understand that if there’s something that’s really bothering you, then you can always—no matter what—come to me and discuss it,” she said. “We both have issues, and that’s why we’re doing all of this. So we can talk about it.”

“Right,” I said. “I’m just afraid that if I open all these doors, then you’re going to see some pretty heavy things and . . . you know . . .”

“And what?” she asked, closing the visor. She was looking at me now. Out of nowhere, my eyes started watering up. She grabbed my hand and held it in her lap. “What is it?”

“I’m afraid that if I bring all this shit to you, you’re going to think I’m a total freak and leave me, and I swear to God, I can’t do this without you. You can’t leave me. But I don’t know who else to talk to about this stuff.” I was crying now, and we were three minutes from my parents’ house.
I’ve got Asperger syndrome, but it doesn’t have me!

“Dave,” she said, “first of all, do you know me? You have to know that I will never leave you. For any reason. And second of all, I’m not going to judge you for what’s on your mind. I’m willing to talk about anything, especially something that’s important to you.”

I nodded and watched as the pavement, trees, and rooftops melted and blurred through my tears. “So, it’s not crazy to talk to you about my insecurities?”

“No crazier than pretending to be a talk-show host all day long.”

I kissed her hand. “I love you so much.” We drove a few more minutes, circling the neighborhood in silence while I pulled myself together. There was so much to say, so much to thank her for, and yet, at that moment, so few words I needed to use.

Get inside her girl world and look around.

N
ow that Kristen and I were talking more, it was becoming increasingly clear just how much we had lost touch with each other. Our conversations were often emotional and cathartic, which was necessary for rebuilding our partnership. But there’s a lot of friendship to be gained in the little stuff—what’s your favorite cheese, how is your project coming along at work, that sort of thing. We needed a respite from therapeutic discussion, but often we found ourselves groping for viable topics.

“Did I tell you that I had lunch with April?” she’d ask.

“Yep.”

Half an hour would pass, and Kristen would laugh about something she was reading on her computer.

“What are you reading?” I’d ask.

“Oh, just this thing.”

We couldn’t seem to find the common ground on which our relationship had begun. I couldn’t bring myself to discuss my job, as I never particularly cared for it to begin with. When I did have a story to tell about work, she’d stumble over people’s names (“Wait, Ben and Benjamin aren’t the same person?”), or she’d get lost in the technical terminology (“So, anyway, I had to discuss thermal dynamics vis-à-vis semiconductor operation with this Six Sigma engineer”). I may as well have been barking like a seal. My standard line of questioning relating to her day usually sounded so mechanical and awkward that she could never quite get into it: “Yeah, it was a good day. Notable? I wouldn’t say notable. Quantify it how, Dave? You mean, score it on a scale of one to ten? I guess my day was, like, a six or seven. No, ten being the best. Listen, can I call you later?”

In such chilling moments, when I’d found myself hoping—praying—to get carjacked by Charlie Sheen so that I’d have something to share at dinner, I had to wonder what had gone so wrong.
Are we really this out of sync with each other? When did that happen?

When Kristen and I were friends, being compatible was easy. We loved driving around, trying to get lost. We loved watching people trip and slam into things. Common ground, it seemed, was everywhere.

As friends, it didn’t matter much that Kristen was a girl with very girly interests—things that I knew nothing about. No one in my life was as girly as her. Not even former girlfriends had been so girly. The girls I had dated before Kristen tended to be artsy, outdoorsy—they weren’t the sorts of people who would rapidly fan their faces with their hands whenever they became emotional or who enjoyed shopping.

Kristen’s girl world was foreign and curious to me, so I paid close attention to it. It was cute, in a way.
My God, how many ponytail holders does a person need?
I wondered once, rooting through her coat pocket for a stick of gum. Spending time with Kristen was one thing, but whenever she threw her girlfriends into the mix, I felt as though I were visiting some remote civilization I’d only read about in
National Geographic.
“You mean, you
actually
share clothes with each other when you go out? I thought that was a myth.”

Kristen’s girl world didn’t intimidate me until I fell in love with her. I had no insight into that aspect of her life, and suddenly, my ignorance felt like a huge liability. Yes, I had fallen in love with someone who wouldn’t think twice about burping in a crowded movie theater, but I had also fallen in love with someone who loved shopping. Someone who knew why certain clothes could and couldn’t be worn together. Someone who had sorority sisters; a purse with absurd, almost infinite capacity; and sticky bottles of lotion in the cup holders of her car. Someone who watched MTV reality shows, who applied the word
cute
to everything from babies to belts, who understood what celebrities were talking about during televised red-carpet events. I had no clue what was going on inside her girl world, but I had fallen in love with her and I wanted her to love me back, so I felt an urgency—a motivated desire—to understand it.

My approach to understanding new things has always been to study them exhaustively from a safe, academic distance. If told to book a hotel room, I’ll spend hours on the hotel’s website and reservation hotline trying to understand the dimensions of the rooms, what the reception area looks like, and the texture of the ceiling (“It’s not stucco, is it?”). To others, this seems like a lot of unnecessary work, but to me it pays off in spades when I finally arrive and everything is basically as I’d pictured it:
No surprises, I can relax.

In an effort to acquaint myself with Kristen’s girl world, I began studying
Cosmopolitan
magazine. I had several publications to choose from—
Elle, Marie Claire, Cosmo
—but I knew that Kristen had a subscription to
Cosmo,
so I figured I’d start there.

I skimmed it cover to cover to get a general overview of the subject matter and then started over from the beginning, absorbing each tiny little article, banner, and Dove soap advertisement like a physicist poring over Einstein’s notebooks.

Every glossy, frantic page took me deeper into the world of a
Cosmo
girl—that mythical size-zero goddess from a land of orange and pink in which creative sex positions are explored nightly, who is forever finding courage to confront hostile coworkers and toxic friends. While it wasn’t exactly a road map to the mind and heart of a real-life young woman, the magazine did provide me with talking points. Nighttime skin-care tips, caring for split ends, how not to hurt a guy’s feelings when you hate his cologne. Extensive data that I could use to understand the hemisphere of Kristen’s world that I’d been ignoring for so long as a friend.

At first, I took the content at face value.
Gee, what
does
Kristen’s part say about her? Hmm. Right-sided . . . see Gwyneth Paltrow. Okay, Gwyneth Paltrow. Here we go: Kristen comes across as outgoing, flirtatious, and artistic. Holy cow. They’re right! What about me? Let’s see, left-sided . . . see Hilary Swank. Okay, I’m a leader, I’m smart, assertive, and powerful. Nice. That’ll do,
Cosmo
. That’ll do.

I also made the mistake of trying to understand what women love and hate about men. This little exercise almost drove me mental:
So, women hate to love what they hate about men.
In fact, I found that many of the heavier-hitting articles, the ones with titles like “Should You Try to Hurry Love?” and “The Wild and Wacky Way He Wooed Me,” were more diverting than they were helpful. I couldn’t picture Kristen writing in to one of these columns, given the types of things that I had been reading: the girl who met her beau—and it’s always “beau” in
Cosmo
land—in a drunken fistfight at a party, the girl who fell for her beau after he fished her bracelet out of a public trash can. What would Kristen write about me in
Cosmo
? “I agreed to go to an insect exhibit at the museum with my new beau. Before the big day, he snuck into my closet and glued spiders to my shoes. When I told him it was creepy, he started crying. I guess I like the sensitive ones.” I didn’t think I was getting an all-access pass into Kristen’s point of view with articles like those.
Maybe
Cosmo
doesn’t speak for
all
of its subscribers
. . .