Eight

Justin telephoned me again today, as he does every three or four days now; and as he was speaking I realized something that makes me wonder yet again what satisfaction he gets from our conversations.

I already knew he prepares for our conversations by researching whatever subject he intends to suggest we talk about; but I didn’t realize until today that he doesn't just make notes. He writes scripts.

Until today I’d assumed, when I bothered to think about it, that Justin speaks the way he does – in long sentences filled with details and statistics, and long pauses after each time I interrupt him with a comment or a question – because he has a very good, but not a perfect, memory. I thought he had all these facts in his head, but can’t always summon them up immediately, and sometimes has to pause and wait for them to come to him. I now realize that he’s not remembering what he’s read. He’s actually reading it to me. He writes a script, and when I interrupt what he’s saying/reading with a comment or a question, he falls silent because I made him lose his place in that script.

I didn’t realize this until now because I don’t usually bother to think about Justin.

Why does he keep calling me? Is he one of those people who don’t know how to end a relationship? Apparently I’m one of those people.

At least he no longer makes Uriah Heepish expressions of gratitude to me for getting him his job. When I asked him to stop doing it, he asked what he could do instead to show his gratitude. I told him he could provide me with intelligent conversation, and this is his attempt to do that, so I have no one to blame for this situation but myself. 

He feels he has nothing interesting to say (and now that I know him better, I agree with him), so he reads me what others say – even plagiarizing them, pretending their words are his until I caught him doing it and told him to stop. I’d feel sorry for him if I were still capable of feeling sorry for anyone.