From the Notebook

I recently stopped at the pretty little welcome center on the highway to the Carolina mountains. When I pulled into the parking lot, I immediately recognized his car: a beaten-up old Subaru covered in bumper stickers.

We passed each other as I walked into the restroom. I looked into his pretty eyes, smiled, and said, “Hey, man!” in as friendly a tone as I’ll ever use.

His puzzled look suggested he couldn’t place me, but he politely smiled, nodded, and said, “Hello” softly.

Truthfully, if I hadn’t seen his car, I wouldn’t have recognized him either: his hair is long and shaggy now, as is mine, and he has a full, thick beard, slightly graying in spots. When we worked together six or seven years ago, we were smooth-shaven and clean-cut—I guess we both rebelled against the corporate world.

The moment was awkward but entirely in keeping with whatever our relationship had been before.

On paper, it should have worked: we were both introverted, although he was even quieter than I was. He was always polite, smiled a lot, and seemed to have no beef with anyone, although no one really knew much about him either. The same could have been said about me—except for the polite and smiling part.

I’d worked with plenty of deep introverts before, and we usually fell into a nice, silent rhythm with each other. We might not have talked our heads off, but we often developed an unspoken rapport.

For some reason, he and I never found it.

He was physically beautiful: piercing blue eyes, blond hair, lean and muscular. His only interests seemed to be the mountains, or at least, that’s all he ever wanted to talk about. He apparently spent his weekends climbing and solo hiking in the Appalachians—and not much else.

I appreciate the mountains, but mostly from roadside overlooks, and I don’t need to form my life around them as some people do.

It wasn’t just our lack of shared interests, though: everything about our dynamic was mismatched. We never had in-depth conversations, but we often had a strange habit of speaking at the same time, looking at each other with confused faces, and saying, “Wait, what?”

I never understood his thought process: he’d blurt out a random question or comment with no obvious connection to the subject at hand, which frequently threw me off track.

He was placid, gentle, and seemed utterly without guile. Sometimes he appeared visibly shaken by my way of barking orders, misinterpreting my direct, forceful demeanor as a personal attack.

Our approaches to work were also fundamentally different: he meandered along without any obvious plan and savored the moment; I just wanted to get shit done.

I tried to make him laugh, but it was nearly impossible; he certainly never picked up on my sarcastic humor. I concluded that he was both sincere and sincerely boring.

Sometimes I’d see him with an airy, dreamy look in his eye, and then he’d quietly chuckle to himself, recalling some memory that I doubt he could even crystallize into words—I’m not sure he’d want to, either.

In truth, it appeared he was blissfully content in a bubble of his own making. I’ve lived a life of near-solitude, but it hasn’t been for lack of trying—he seemed entirely enchanted by the reclusiveness of his mind.

I felt like I should know the guy because he seemed fundamentally decent, but that magic spark of connection was missing, and I gave up on the idea. Another co-worker told me later that he, too, tried to connect with him, but had no success—I was glad I wasn’t alone.

I imagine he still visits the mountains every weekend, and I wonder if he’ll ever find someone who can draw anything from him—or maybe he’s truly content to wander the earth alone.

Are all human beings wired for connection, or were some of us born with a missing link?