He Wants No Part of It

Dearest Rachel –

The other day, I observed about how Daniel doesn’t really seem to have much of a handle on adulting. Oh, he can manage a thing or two when the chips are down; in fact, just this morning, he was calling the insurance company about the fender bender he got into a couple weeks ago while I was up at the camp. Of course, that was after I’d received several voice mails that were intended for him – thanks to the two of us sharing a data plan, it seems that we also sometimes get each others calls and texts; I’m not entirely sure why. Although, since he hasn’t set up a voicemail box on his line, any recorded messages wind up with me, requiring me to relay them to him. In any event, this morning’s call, while not directly prompted by me (I was just getting back from the gym and heard him on the phone with the guy who’d been calling me for the last couple of days), wasn’t without some prompting on my part; just not at that moment, which I’ll at least give him that much credit for, as I would have forgotten, had I been in his place.

The fact of the matter is, he doesn’t really want to grow up, and I can’t really blame him. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that I’m responsible for it, for the most part. He’s seen what I’ve gone through, and he wants no part of it. As far as he can see, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, to borrow a phrase that seems to be making the rounds these days.

Take what I tend to refer to as “the work farce.” You remember what it was like; the stories I would (reluctantly, because who wants to relive days like that, even in answer to a request to know how my day was?) tell you about life at the office, and the regular harangues that Mohinder would deliver behind closed doors for hours at a time nearly ever day or so. You know how I would dream about being able to leave the place behind, and the change that came over me once you permitted me to retire (I will never forget how you put it: “you supported me all these years; now it’s my turn”). The thing is, Daniel could see how being out in the workaday world ground me down and, since he’s in a position where he doesn’t have to subject himself to that sort of thing in order to be comfortably well-off, why should he?

And it’s not that he hasn’t done any work of his own; he’d had internships in both high school and college. I don’t know if he earned anything from any of them, to be honest. I’m pretty the one in college was partially for course credit, as well as contributing to his tuition costs, while I’m less certain about his work during high school. It could easily have been a job training ‘class,’ as he and his classmates would have been completely unskilled labor, but without a certain level of recompense, it might have been considered exploitative. As it was, it seems to have put him off restaurant food (well, at least at that place) for life, since he now literally knows ‘how the sausage is made.’ These days, with rising minimum wages, he’d be hard-pressed to even get such a job, given his still-minimal skill levels, but again, seeing what both he and I have been through, he’s made the logical, if somewhat indolent, conclusion that since he doesn’t need to deal with it all, why bother?

Likewise, there’s the dating and social scene, which he seems to have also given up on. In some ways, this should be even less of a surprise; when Covid hit, you and I found ourselves itching to get out of the house (to the point where it quite literally ended up being your downfall, given your desire to check out the camp’s winter facilities the moment it was made available to us), while Daniel made it something of a challenge to see how long he could avoid leaving the house. I forget how long it wound up being, but it was several months; of course, had he been on his own, he would have been forced out much sooner, as he would have had to provision himself, but since we were more than eager to get out and do what we could, we let him play at being the “good citizen” and stay home.

But as you know, he had several girlfriends, particularly during his college career. Some were little more than very good friends; at least one relationship had him and the girl agreeing almost from the start that they would make an awful couple, despite being thick as thieves as friends (she admitted to being somewhat ‘high-maintenance,’ which Daniel’s laid-back character would never have been able to accommodate as an actual boyfriend, but as a friend who was a boy, that wasn’t an issue). But there were a couple others that seemed promising, but ultimately fizzled out for one reason or another. Maybe he (and the respective shes) decided it was too much like work to keep up, an mutually let it die; to his credit, he never had a relationship flame out in acrimony, so there’s that.

Meanwhile, since your departure, he’s watched me go through various methods to try to find someone else to fill your shoes, without success. There’s no two ways about it, honey; the dating scene is different than when you and I were part of it; either the rules have changed, or they’re just different at my age (he would probably tell me to “embrace the power of ‘and,’” here). The things I’ve put myself through, and the many ways certain possibilities have blown up in my face, have planted in him the conclusion that it’s no more worth it to seek a life partner than it would be to seek a career. Life is just fine without it, or her – why put oneself through all that trouble?

And I’m not entirely sure, honey, but I think he might also consider himself what is referred to in the current vernacular as a “sigma” male, who has no more need of a woman than most women seem to believe they need a man (you know, the whole “like a fish needs a bicycle” thing). Personally, I would argue the point, as he doesn’t undergo any of the self-improvement rituals that tend to characterize a “sigma.” At some point, I should probably write you a separate letter explaining what I understand of the concept, and why neither he nor I qualify for that label (albeit for very different reasons), but for now, suffice to say that this is the case, and we can leave it at that.

The only situation that I’ve endured that he considers a worthy one is one that he has no need to engage in; my weight loss journey. He’s pointed out that our current societal ethos seems to be lined up foursquare against ‘fat-shaming,’ which he considers a particularly unhealthy trend. The fact that I’m doing something about my situation in that regard, he considers to be admirable; he’s literally said more than once how proud he is of me for what I’m doing – despite the fact that he knows my motives have very little to do with any concern for my own health.

Granted, in this case, he doesn’t engage in this activity with me because he doesn’t need to. At six foot plus and probably no more than a hundred fifty pounds soaking wet, it’s not as if he has anything in the way of fat to work off. He can go longer than I can without eating, too; he can quite easily forget how long he’s gone without, and I have to make a point of asking him if he wants something to eat now and again. I worry that, when I do my own intermittent fasts, I’ll accidentally drag him along with me in the process; fortunately, by engaging in them over weekends when I’m in the booth, he’s already on his own, so he knows to take care of himself in this regard. He even makes a regular point of checking in with my folks, and having a Sunday meal with them, so I don’t have to worry too much about him thus far.

***

I realize that I’m raising a manchild, honey, and that I’ve got no one to blame for it but myself. I mean, I suppose I could assert that he had an example in you, as well, since you would probably be more than willing to admit to having been a womanchild most of your adult life, but I was the one working to support that and enable it, so the blame still ultimately falls on me. And considering that my experiences don’t exactly encourage one to follow my path, I can’t blame him for not doing so, either.

In fact, honey, I wish I could follow his a bit more, and be more of a manchild myself. Not sure how to do it, though…

In any event, keep an eye on the both of us, and wish us luck. We’re going to need it.