Three mornings ago, I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and emerged from the bathroom to find a man in a bathrobe, seated in the kitchen chair.It happens. It’s a shared house. Three other men live here, and the guy in the chair was one of them, Dean.

“I made a roast beef,” he said, “and it’s really good, with cloves and barnacles, juicy perfection…” Yeah, he said ‘barnacles.’ I don’t know what that means on beef, and wasn’t about to ask.Instead I grunted politely and walked across the kitchen and into my room, closing the door, of course. Dean raised his voice to be sure I could hear, and continued describing the roast beef — “Robert and ‘L’ said it was the best they’d ever had.”Dean loves to cook, and loves to tell people he’s a great cook, which he isn’t. He gives me spiels like this once or twice monthly, so I knew what was next, and indeed, shouting through the door he offered me as many slices of beef as I want, which is zero.I replied through the door, “Maybe!” and, “Thanks, Dean!” because I’ve tried ‘Fuck you’ but it only ratchets up my annoyance, not Dean’s.The conversation, if that’s what it was, wasn’t a coincidence. Telling me about the roast beef was why Dean was in the kitchen. He wasn’t cooking anything at 6AM, wasn’t making a snack or washing dishes, and he wasn’t waiting for a chance to use the bathroom. He was there to tell me about roast beef.Ten minutes later, time was running short. I needed to be at the bus stop, a 2-3 minute walk, and had only a few minutes to prep my lunch. Dean had stopped talking, but even with my door closed I knew that he was still in the chair in the kitchen.Well, I was wrong. He was standing, leaning on the wall in the kitchen, when I emerged from my room to make my sandwiches. As my door squeaked open, he started talking about roast beef again. “It would be great in a sandwich,” he said. Maybe I mumbled a reply, maybe I didn’t; I don’t care, don’t remember. My sandwiches were tuna.
Then I went into my room again, did my last few bits of getting ready for work. Dean was still in the kitchen, leaning on the wall, waiting for me, but instead of discussing meat the moment I opened the door, he began laughing — stage laughter, not real laughter. Without my asking, he told me about something from a TV show he’d watched the night before, and chuckled again, louder, and started replaying lines of dialogue from the sitcom.The other men in our house would usually stop, listen, and share Dean’s morning chuckle. Even I’ve played along a few times, because I pity the fool more than hate him. But with a bus to catch and a billion better things to do, I only offered a hearty fake laugh, “Ha Ha!” and continued toward the front door.Dean followed me across the kitchen into the living room all the way to the door, doing characters from the sit-com. Then I was on the porch and sidewalk and gone, but Dean couldn’t follow. He wasn’t wearing shoes. ♦ ♦ ♦That wasn’t an ordinary morning with Dean. Some days he’s still asleep as I’m getting ready, other days he’s already gone to his job. It happens often enough, though, to be far too often, and makes me wonder what goes on inside that man’s head.How tragically alone and lonely he must be, to reach out for even the shallowest, most rushed conversation with a stranger down the hall, after I’ve made it clear — in these exact words, a few times — that I’d rather be a stranger down the hall.12/23/2023