"Honestly, there're probably worse traits I have, too, but most people don't recognize their own worst traits. People say I'm rude, I'm thoughtless, I'm crazy..."
He shrugs and takes another bite. It's obvious he's heard those things so many times that they're practically part of the backdrop of his life, now. Completely unavoidable, but no longer as hurtful as they used to be. You get insulted enough times, you eventually stop listening to it. He'd been more sensitive as a kid, but these days, he didn't take things as hard as he used to. That didn't mean he wasn't unbearably soft-hearted, though. That much was already probably evident.
"Most people don't speak their minds," he agrees, and he knows Ned is referring to himself here, "But at least you're capable of being polite. I speak my mind too easily, with no thought about the consequences at all. And then I've said something, and, well, someone throws something at me. It's an endless cycle."
He does think that Ginsberg rattles through that list of traits quickly, like they are things he is used to hearing about himself. Interesting, too, that he frames it as accusations from outside. For all that Ned has been called bad things by others, they never managed to reach his levels of self-reproach.
"People can be wrong," Ned points out. In this case, he thinks they are. He could see Ginsberg being rude, but never in a malicious way. And thoughtlessness, well, everyone is bound to miss a detail here or there. As for crazy, that's just the insult that gets thrown at anyone who thinks for themselves, who doesn't conform perfectly.
"...you did practically give me a heart attack last night, when we were at the bar and you just looked right at me and asked if I was a homosexual," Ned admits, with a self-deprecating smile. "I thought you were gonna storm out or who even knows."
"Yeah, and the second I said it, I thought you were going to punch me, or make me two for two on the having food thrown at me front. I mean, I asked you because I wanted you to be, but that kind of question doesn't always translate with that intent so well. It would've been worse if I hadn't asked, wouldn't it? I mean, I never would have realized we were on a date. Unless you'd asked me if I was a homosexual. And I'm not sure how I would have answered it, because I'm not actually sure what I am. Is that possible? How do you know?"
That's a question that's been rattling around in his brain for a long time, too. It's not like there's anyone else to talk to about it. Anyone else at the office that he suspects of having those interests isn't someone he wants to talk to about it, and he definitely can't bring it up with his father. His father already suspected that he might not like girls, and that was bad enough. There'd been a couple other guys, guys he'd been interested in, but that had never gone anywhere, just like his dates with girls had never gone anywhere.
He pokes his omelette again, feeling a little embarrassed for that sudden outburst. Maybe another long sip of coffee will help him feel a little less silly.
"I'd have gotten the point across sooner or later. You just... simplified matters." Ned wouldn't have taken an approach that direct, but he's been with guys before. He knows some of the subtler ways to communicate about that kind of thing, the signals and innuendo. He kind of likes that none of it had been necessary, that they'd sailed right past it with such speed and (relative) ease.
"It's possible," Ned reassures. He knows all about not knowing what he is, in a variety of different ways. Ginsberg's restless playing with his food and uncomfortable demeanor don't surprise him all that much. He's been there, felt that. "I think a lot of people don't know. For me, anyway, I sort of stumbled into knowing by accident. I-" he stops, trying to think of the right way to put this, "-I don't know what it is, but there's something about me tends to attract a certain type of person. Really, um. Forward people, who know what they want and aren't afraid to pursue it. Sometimes it was women, and sometimes it was men. It never really made much difference to me."
Ned is the one staring intently at a dent in the table as he sips his coffee, now. He realizes that, particularly to someone like Ginsberg, that probably makes him sound some mix of promiscuous and weak-willed, maybe even desperate. He had been at times. Not desperate for sex so much as validation, affection in whatever form it was offered. He's not really in that place anymore, mentally, and he's glad of it. But talking about it does make him wince, a little.
"Well, that's one of the things I'm good at, simplifying matters. Either that or making them more complicated. I guess if I'd asked that and you hadn't been interested, things would have been a lot more complicated. I got the best possible outcome, I think."
And he's still amazed at how relatively smoothly it had gone. The whole time, he'd been convinced he was going to ruin something, say something inappropriate, drive Ned away for good, but Ned had enjoyed talking to him, and had enjoyed being intimate with him, too. That was unheard of, and it made him feel bizarrely attached to Ned, perhaps too attached.
He doesn't think Ned's comments make him sound promiscuous or weak-willed, but even if they did, he wouldn't judge him for it. There had been a time when he might have considered himself desperate, too, but it had never worked out. Now, he tries to take things as they come, and it seems to be going better, considering that he's sitting there with Ned, in his underwear, eating breakfast.
"I'm glad it's possible. I mean, I know it's possible, because obviously that's how it is for me, but knowing that it's possible for someone else. How old were you when you lost your virginity?"
Another one of those awkward, blurted, embarrassing questions. Dammit, and here he'd thought he was beyond that point.
All in all, Ned thinks it was the best possible outcome for him, too. He's glad providing his perspective seems to be some small reassurance for Ginsberg. Ned thinks that one of the unexpected consequences of last night, particularly since it was Ginsberg's first time, is that he's feeling uncommonly protective, now. Wants to keep doing what he'd done before, guiding him through and making things as easy as possible.
When Ginsberg asks his rather abrupt question, Ned laughs, clearly surprised. Ginsberg doesn't say it in a way that sounds like he's passing any judgments, so he doesn't hesitate to answer, though it takes him a moment to think back and calculate how old he would have been at the time.
"Sixteen, just barely." It had been over the Christmas holidays, he remembers, after most rest of the boys disappeared to go back to their respective homes. He adds, in a meaningful sort of way, "Boarding school," as if this is explanation enough.
"See, I knew I should've gone to boarding school. My dad wouldn't let me. He never wants to let me out of his sight. From what I hear, people get up to all kinds of things at boarding school. At least, that's what I've been lead to believe. You're just corroborating that belief right now."
Of course, then he wouldn't have had his first experience be with Ned, and now that he looks back on it, he's awfully glad it was. He wonders if he's turning red again, just from thinking about it. It's hard not to, when he can picture it all so vividly in his mind, and when it had just happened so recently. He has to admit, too, that he's hoping to have the chance to do that -- or some variation of that, anyway -- again.
"I went to normal high school. Everyone was losing their virginities in the back seat of uncomfortable cars or on prom night or whatever it is normal kids do, and I was, well..." He shrugs, laughing, not looking bothered by it, not now that it's all a thing of the past. "You know. Doing what abnormal kids do."
He realizes that Ginsberg is mostly kidding, but he can't let him get the wrong impression, has to correct him right away, speaking quickly, "Oh, no, don't believe that, please. Your dad made the right call, boarding school is horrific. Better your dad never letting you out of his sight than a couple dozen teachers and priests never letting you out of theirs. And the 'things' that people get up to at boarding school are mostly just... vicious pranks and bullying and bullshit. You didn't miss out on anything, there."
It's a curious feeling, listening to Ginsberg talking about all those milestones, the common narrative of the American teenager. He might not volunteer this on his own, but it's different, if Ginsberg goes first. If, by talking about himself, he's offering a degree of solace or solidarity to a man that he really rather likes, so far. "I do know. I didn't do any of those things, either, or any of the things that normal kids did at Longborough- at the school where I grew up. I was about as abnormal as they came."
"I'm sure you're right about all of that. I think it's pretty common, though, to wish we'd had a different experience than we'd had, no matter how we grew up, right? Is anyone ever really satisfied with the things they did as a teenager?"
It's almost a rhetorical question. There have been times that he's thought he'd've been a lot happier if his dad had occasionally let him out of his sight, let him have a little bit of freedom, but in actuality, he's sure he would have been unhappy with whatever reality he'd lived. Maybe it's just in his nature, to be dissatisfied by things, or maybe that's in every teenager's nature. Things are better now, he feels more settled, even though he's pretty certain he doesn't want to live with his father forever.
"You were abnormal because you were nice. Are nice. That's a good kind of abnormal. People take advantage of that, I know, but better you be nice than the alternative. I didn't have any friends in high school. I don't have many friends now, either. If I were nicer, I might have had some."
He realizes, with some surprise, that he could probably count Ned as a friend now. It seems only fair, after all.
That is certainly one way of looking at it, and Ned's consoled himself with a similar thought process before now. Sure, he might have had a miserable and loveless span of teenage years, but if no one enjoyed it, that didn't make him completely different, did it? He finds it interesting that Ginsberg mind works in the same way, follows the same logical route.
"I was abnormal for a lot more than that," Ned mutters, but he doesn't elaborate any further. "I didn't have any friends at school. At least... not really. Not for long." There had been Eugene, for a little while, and he'd clung to even that failed example of friendship as a sign that it was possible, for him, if he was just careful enough. "And I don't think it's only down to niceness, because you keep saying I'm nice but I don't really have any friends now, either."
At this Digby perks up his head, makes a small noise of complaint in his throat. Ned, as if anticipating this, immediately says, "Digby, you don't count. I meant human friends." The dog, appeased in this finer point, lays his head down once more, staring up at them once more with soulful eyes.
"I was abnormal for a lot more than that, too," he says, seeing a certainly solidarity between the two of them, although of course he's not nearly as intimately familiar with Ned's oddnesses or lack of normalcy as he is with his own. He could give a long speech about all the ways he'd failed to be the normal person that his father had wanted, that his classmates had wanted, even that his work had wanted. "I was born abnormal. I don't actually know what normal is. I mean, I know it when I see it, but I know I'm not it."
He looks down at Digby, smiling slightly, marveling again at just how smart that dog is, how much he seems to understand human conversation, how Ned talks to him like he's a real person. It doesn't strike him as strange at all, really. If he had such an intelligent dog, he'd probably talk to him, to. To be fair, Ginsberg talks to everyone and everything, including inanimate objects.
"I can be a human friend. I mean, if you want. I mean, I'd like to be."
Born abnormal sounds about right, Ned thinks, though he doesn't say that aloud. Instead he just files it away, along with the bitter mental footnote that out of the pair of them, he is probably the more abnormal. Not that it is a competition, and he certainly wishes it weren't the case. He's simply failed to meet anyone in all his years who can top being born with an unexplained power over life and death. But Ginsberg doesn't need to know about that. No one does.
"You don't think abnormal can pass for normal? Given the proper amount of routines, and strategies, and attention to detail?"
An abstract kind of a question, for a simple piemaker, but he's curious to hear Ginsberg's answer. His offer to be Ned's friend makes him smile, radiantly. "I'd like that. I guess it only makes sense. Us abnormal kids should stick together."
"I do think abnormal can pass for normal. I think if you put on the right clothes, and never deviate from the right script, and pay attention to every little thing you do down to the way you breathe and the way you blink, abnormal can pass for normal. I spent a long time trying to do that. I was miserable. More miserable, I mean."
He takes another sip of his coffee, although it's cooling off quickly. "If you want people to think you're normal, you can. It just takes a lot of work. And I don't think the work's worth it. I may be a freak, I may be crazy, but if I hadn't been a crazy freak, I never would have met you, right?"
Because if he hadn't been a crazy freak, nobody would have thrown pie at him, and even if they had, he never would have been so talkative and bold with Ned. There's a sense of freedom in abnormality that he's only just started to embrace. For years, he'd tried desperately to fit in, despite feeling displaced wherever he went. Now he's started to accept that, perhaps, he's just not meant to fit in. Maybe Ned's like that too.
Ginsberg makes it sound so simple, to stop pretending and be comfortable in his skin. But Ned has already seen some of the qualifications to that narrative, the flashes of uncertainty and self-doubt in Ginsberg the night before, and this morning. It's not entirely possible, perhaps, for people like them to entirely own and accept who they are, give up the act and be happy and confident.
"It takes a lot of work to pass," he agrees, with the air of someone who does it on a daily basis, "but it takes a lot of bravery to decide not to."
Bravery that he doesn't currently have at the ready. He'll take the fear of being noticed - with its costumes and scripts and occasional despair - over the uncertainty of what might happen to him if he did start to own his freakishness. But he likes that Ginsberg doesn't. He's glad of it, and glad they met, and glad they are speaking like this. Glad enough that he caves into a moment of impulsiveness and leans across the small table, kissing Ginsberg quickly.
The smile that breaks across his face when Ned kisses him is nothing short of overjoyed, and he kisses him back quickly, barely unable to believe his luck. He feels oddly comfortable with Ned -- because for all his talk of being fine with not fitting in, he often has a hard time relating to people, but there isn't the same problem with Ned.
When he draws back from the kiss, the silly grin doesn't dim at all. "Can we do this again sometime? All of it, I mean. I don't know how to ask someone on a second date because I've never gotten that far but this is me trying to be brave and do my best."
Somehow, he thinks Ned will probably agree, but that doesn't stop him from feeling nervous as he asks.
"Anytime you'd like," Ned says, without a second of hesitation, grinning to match. He grabs a pen from a cup on the counter, jots something down on a napkin and pushes it across the table to Ginsberg. "My number," he explains, perhaps superfluously, "Or you can just come by the Pie Hole. I'm not a hard guy to find." He's there anytime the shop is open, after all, and it's open most of the time.
Ned finds himself hoping Ginsberg doesn't wait too long; he doesn't ask for his number, doesn't want to presume. It's probably easier this way, anyway. Calls to his workplace might seem suspicious - ad agencies probably have secretaries who would ask why he's calling. Calls to him home would probably be similarly frustrated by the fact that his father, from the sound of it, is a nosy type.
"Well, I'd like it to be soon," he responds, completely honesty, sliding
the napkin the rest of the way across the table to him and holding onto it
like it's priceless. And to him, it is. This is the promise of there being
something more than just that evening. And he's pretty sure he'll be
stopping by the Pie Hole again.
He picks up the pen and writes something down on a napkin, too, his
handwriting surprisingly neat for someone so offbeat and creative. "That's
my office number," he explains, because Ned would be right in his
assumption that Ginsberg isn't inclined to give out his home number, not
when his father monitors calls so intently. "I share the office with a
couple people, but most of them won't ask weird questions. Okay, Stan might
ask weird questions, but he asks everyone weird questions. And our
secretary's okay, too. She won't suspect anything, and if she asks why
you're calling, just say you're a friend of mine. She'll be so surprised
that I have friends that she'll forget to be suspicious."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He shrugs and takes another bite. It's obvious he's heard those things so many times that they're practically part of the backdrop of his life, now. Completely unavoidable, but no longer as hurtful as they used to be. You get insulted enough times, you eventually stop listening to it. He'd been more sensitive as a kid, but these days, he didn't take things as hard as he used to. That didn't mean he wasn't unbearably soft-hearted, though. That much was already probably evident.
"Most people don't speak their minds," he agrees, and he knows Ned is referring to himself here, "But at least you're capable of being polite. I speak my mind too easily, with no thought about the consequences at all. And then I've said something, and, well, someone throws something at me. It's an endless cycle."
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"People can be wrong," Ned points out. In this case, he thinks they are. He could see Ginsberg being rude, but never in a malicious way. And thoughtlessness, well, everyone is bound to miss a detail here or there. As for crazy, that's just the insult that gets thrown at anyone who thinks for themselves, who doesn't conform perfectly.
"...you did practically give me a heart attack last night, when we were at the bar and you just looked right at me and asked if I was a homosexual," Ned admits, with a self-deprecating smile. "I thought you were gonna storm out or who even knows."
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That's a question that's been rattling around in his brain for a long time, too. It's not like there's anyone else to talk to about it. Anyone else at the office that he suspects of having those interests isn't someone he wants to talk to about it, and he definitely can't bring it up with his father. His father already suspected that he might not like girls, and that was bad enough. There'd been a couple other guys, guys he'd been interested in, but that had never gone anywhere, just like his dates with girls had never gone anywhere.
He pokes his omelette again, feeling a little embarrassed for that sudden outburst. Maybe another long sip of coffee will help him feel a little less silly.
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"It's possible," Ned reassures. He knows all about not knowing what he is, in a variety of different ways. Ginsberg's restless playing with his food and uncomfortable demeanor don't surprise him all that much. He's been there, felt that. "I think a lot of people don't know. For me, anyway, I sort of stumbled into knowing by accident. I-" he stops, trying to think of the right way to put this, "-I don't know what it is, but there's something about me tends to attract a certain type of person. Really, um. Forward people, who know what they want and aren't afraid to pursue it. Sometimes it was women, and sometimes it was men. It never really made much difference to me."
Ned is the one staring intently at a dent in the table as he sips his coffee, now. He realizes that, particularly to someone like Ginsberg, that probably makes him sound some mix of promiscuous and weak-willed, maybe even desperate. He had been at times. Not desperate for sex so much as validation, affection in whatever form it was offered. He's not really in that place anymore, mentally, and he's glad of it. But talking about it does make him wince, a little.
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And he's still amazed at how relatively smoothly it had gone. The whole time, he'd been convinced he was going to ruin something, say something inappropriate, drive Ned away for good, but Ned had enjoyed talking to him, and had enjoyed being intimate with him, too. That was unheard of, and it made him feel bizarrely attached to Ned, perhaps too attached.
He doesn't think Ned's comments make him sound promiscuous or weak-willed, but even if they did, he wouldn't judge him for it. There had been a time when he might have considered himself desperate, too, but it had never worked out. Now, he tries to take things as they come, and it seems to be going better, considering that he's sitting there with Ned, in his underwear, eating breakfast.
"I'm glad it's possible. I mean, I know it's possible, because obviously that's how it is for me, but knowing that it's possible for someone else. How old were you when you lost your virginity?"
Another one of those awkward, blurted, embarrassing questions. Dammit, and here he'd thought he was beyond that point.
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When Ginsberg asks his rather abrupt question, Ned laughs, clearly surprised. Ginsberg doesn't say it in a way that sounds like he's passing any judgments, so he doesn't hesitate to answer, though it takes him a moment to think back and calculate how old he would have been at the time.
"Sixteen, just barely." It had been over the Christmas holidays, he remembers, after most rest of the boys disappeared to go back to their respective homes. He adds, in a meaningful sort of way, "Boarding school," as if this is explanation enough.
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Of course, then he wouldn't have had his first experience be with Ned, and now that he looks back on it, he's awfully glad it was. He wonders if he's turning red again, just from thinking about it. It's hard not to, when he can picture it all so vividly in his mind, and when it had just happened so recently. He has to admit, too, that he's hoping to have the chance to do that -- or some variation of that, anyway -- again.
"I went to normal high school. Everyone was losing their virginities in the back seat of uncomfortable cars or on prom night or whatever it is normal kids do, and I was, well..." He shrugs, laughing, not looking bothered by it, not now that it's all a thing of the past. "You know. Doing what abnormal kids do."
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It's a curious feeling, listening to Ginsberg talking about all those milestones, the common narrative of the American teenager. He might not volunteer this on his own, but it's different, if Ginsberg goes first. If, by talking about himself, he's offering a degree of solace or solidarity to a man that he really rather likes, so far. "I do know. I didn't do any of those things, either, or any of the things that normal kids did at Longborough- at the school where I grew up. I was about as abnormal as they came."
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It's almost a rhetorical question. There have been times that he's thought he'd've been a lot happier if his dad had occasionally let him out of his sight, let him have a little bit of freedom, but in actuality, he's sure he would have been unhappy with whatever reality he'd lived. Maybe it's just in his nature, to be dissatisfied by things, or maybe that's in every teenager's nature. Things are better now, he feels more settled, even though he's pretty certain he doesn't want to live with his father forever.
"You were abnormal because you were nice. Are nice. That's a good kind of abnormal. People take advantage of that, I know, but better you be nice than the alternative. I didn't have any friends in high school. I don't have many friends now, either. If I were nicer, I might have had some."
He realizes, with some surprise, that he could probably count Ned as a friend now. It seems only fair, after all.
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"I was abnormal for a lot more than that," Ned mutters, but he doesn't elaborate any further. "I didn't have any friends at school. At least... not really. Not for long." There had been Eugene, for a little while, and he'd clung to even that failed example of friendship as a sign that it was possible, for him, if he was just careful enough. "And I don't think it's only down to niceness, because you keep saying I'm nice but I don't really have any friends now, either."
At this Digby perks up his head, makes a small noise of complaint in his throat. Ned, as if anticipating this, immediately says, "Digby, you don't count. I meant human friends." The dog, appeased in this finer point, lays his head down once more, staring up at them once more with soulful eyes.
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He looks down at Digby, smiling slightly, marveling again at just how smart that dog is, how much he seems to understand human conversation, how Ned talks to him like he's a real person. It doesn't strike him as strange at all, really. If he had such an intelligent dog, he'd probably talk to him, to. To be fair, Ginsberg talks to everyone and everything, including inanimate objects.
"I can be a human friend. I mean, if you want. I mean, I'd like to be."
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"You don't think abnormal can pass for normal? Given the proper amount of routines, and strategies, and attention to detail?"
An abstract kind of a question, for a simple piemaker, but he's curious to hear Ginsberg's answer. His offer to be Ned's friend makes him smile, radiantly. "I'd like that. I guess it only makes sense. Us abnormal kids should stick together."
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He takes another sip of his coffee, although it's cooling off quickly. "If you want people to think you're normal, you can. It just takes a lot of work. And I don't think the work's worth it. I may be a freak, I may be crazy, but if I hadn't been a crazy freak, I never would have met you, right?"
Because if he hadn't been a crazy freak, nobody would have thrown pie at him, and even if they had, he never would have been so talkative and bold with Ned. There's a sense of freedom in abnormality that he's only just started to embrace. For years, he'd tried desperately to fit in, despite feeling displaced wherever he went. Now he's started to accept that, perhaps, he's just not meant to fit in. Maybe Ned's like that too.
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"It takes a lot of work to pass," he agrees, with the air of someone who does it on a daily basis, "but it takes a lot of bravery to decide not to."
Bravery that he doesn't currently have at the ready. He'll take the fear of being noticed - with its costumes and scripts and occasional despair - over the uncertainty of what might happen to him if he did start to own his freakishness. But he likes that Ginsberg doesn't. He's glad of it, and glad they met, and glad they are speaking like this. Glad enough that he caves into a moment of impulsiveness and leans across the small table, kissing Ginsberg quickly.
"Right," he says.
no subject
When he draws back from the kiss, the silly grin doesn't dim at all. "Can we do this again sometime? All of it, I mean. I don't know how to ask someone on a second date because I've never gotten that far but this is me trying to be brave and do my best."
Somehow, he thinks Ned will probably agree, but that doesn't stop him from feeling nervous as he asks.
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Ned finds himself hoping Ginsberg doesn't wait too long; he doesn't ask for his number, doesn't want to presume. It's probably easier this way, anyway. Calls to his workplace might seem suspicious - ad agencies probably have secretaries who would ask why he's calling. Calls to him home would probably be similarly frustrated by the fact that his father, from the sound of it, is a nosy type.
no subject
"Well, I'd like it to be soon," he responds, completely honesty, sliding the napkin the rest of the way across the table to him and holding onto it like it's priceless. And to him, it is. This is the promise of there being something more than just that evening. And he's pretty sure he'll be stopping by the Pie Hole again.
He picks up the pen and writes something down on a napkin, too, his handwriting surprisingly neat for someone so offbeat and creative. "That's my office number," he explains, because Ned would be right in his assumption that Ginsberg isn't inclined to give out his home number, not when his father monitors calls so intently. "I share the office with a couple people, but most of them won't ask weird questions. Okay, Stan might ask weird questions, but he asks everyone weird questions. And our secretary's okay, too. She won't suspect anything, and if she asks why you're calling, just say you're a friend of mine. She'll be so surprised that I have friends that she'll forget to be suspicious."