An elderly gentleman who remarks on your license plate, one rarely seen in his rural Northeastern neighborhood. You happen to grab a coffee at the same cafe. He perseveres through your extended effort to ignore his hovering, thrusting the local paper at you, suggesting several regional events that will surely enliven your visit. In an effort to gain peace, you give him an e-mail you have not had occasion to check for years. You discover later that he sent several increasingly discouraged emails, upset that you did not contact him to meet up at the county fair.
A septuagenarian art fair vendor you dismiss politely, until you notice his wares: photographs from across the world. He has frizzy gray hair like cat whiskers. He asks about your journey and is the first person besides your closest friends to say you are brave. He describes hitchhiking from Seattle to Alaska in the 70s, and you say a silent prayer of thanks to your Prius.
A man with a southern drawl who sells grass to golf courses in Oceania, a job description that sounds like it belongs to someone on Caprica. He abandons the bachelor party he walked in with to ask about the postcards you are addressing at the bar. He says, “you are a very interesting woman,” and means it kindly. Perhaps he’s never met one before.
The between-deployments military man who took a temporary gig in his teeny-tiny hometown. He gets you in with the best bartender at the scuzziest dive bar in the desert and doesn’t laugh when you can’t figure out how to use your hotel key card.
The handsome attendant at a beach town craft beer store that also has a deli fridge full of artisan cheeses. He is genuinely interested in the obscure cider you mention that doesn’t ship across the country. He informs you he’s a Leo; it would never work.
The tall drink of water you meet at a lesbian bar who tells you he’s engaged, then begins to cry quietly when you say you’ve read The Silmarillion, because he appears to have genuinely believed no other woman on earth shares his love of Tolkien. You turn your back to him and let a fetching young woman buy you a beer. You are immediately 25 percent more gay.
The short-film director who suggests you meet at a very chic bar. You arrive early and it’s such a scene, you start reading Twilight fan-fiction on your phone in a very, very quiet act of rebellion.
The waiter who takes you out after his shift to dance in the VIP room of a secluded bar. He knows you don’t remember his name. The next morning he takes a Polaroid of the two of you and asks for your number. When he texts you later your heart breaks because you have, again, forgotten his name.
The recent USC grad who renounces his fraternity and has eyelashes for fucking days. He pays for things and his jeans are a little too tight. He rolls his own joints, gives you the first decent high of your life and takes you to see an all-girl surf-rock band. The sex is eager and fun, if a little impatient. He watches Orphan Black on your suggestion and you think maybe his life has been enriched.
The blue-collar guy at a steak bar who watches you ask for a specific game to be played, then talks through it. He asks a question about football rules that you know the answer to; later he will reference the fact that he asked, basking in his virtuous humility. He orders something called a gummy bear, and tells you about his ex, who wanted to be a surrogate and keep all the earnings.
The rookie cop who has an off-kilter Midwestern charm, but tells you a story about his brother in which the punch line is one calling the other a f-g. When you don’t laugh he says the punch line again, and then again, assuming you don’t understand. “F-G. F-G. F-G.”
The older man at the secret winery bar who is there for a family birthday party and watches you get shot down by a cute guy with an absent girlfriend. He has a world-weary kindness you think real life wizards would have. He is the first one to get you to talk about who, and what, you’re running from. You cry. At dusk, when the lit-up birthday cake is carefully carried out and all the family is singing, you take your chance and escape.
Tags: men, sarah enni, travel, writing
I am thinking I would not have met any of these men on my cross-country road trip, and I’m going to reflect on why that might be. (I mean, besides Grindr.)
On all my road trips I’ve only ever met fellow Denny’s patrons and docents at small-town history museums.
I’ve mostly just met people through Grindr. But that’s mostly because I’m Norwegian and don’t actually Talk To People.
That was my thought too. “Men you will meet on a cross-country road trip: None. You will use Tinder only to have it confirm your suspicion that men are terrible across the country. You will meet no one in real life.”
Dang, this makes me wish it was road-trip season in this hemisphere. Although probably for the best that it isn’t, because I am Old And Boring and my North-American-roadtrip days are probably behind me.
One time my friends and I had a car break down in Tennessee and got it fixed by a guy who claimed to have fixed Elvis’s car or something like that. Elvis was involved, anyhow, although the details of the story are fuzzy for me.
Surely that’s worth something?
Otherwise men figure in my road trip narratives not at all. I’m not sure if that’s awesome or disappointing.
I love you so fucking much, Sarah Enni.
I am the cheerful befriender of elderly gentlemen with local suggestions! I will go to the county fair with him so you don’t have to!
I am the cheerful befriender of elderly gentlemen with local suggestions! I will go to the county fair with him so you don't have to!
The elderly national park volunteer who condescendingly explains to you that despite the fact that the three letters c-a-t appear in the scientific name of the fossil skeleton you’re looking at, the animal in question was in fact, not a cat….
The elderly resident of your home state who speaks with such a deep and archaic version of the local accent that you you cannot understand him. At. All.
I have both met and been the limited-distribution beer aficionado.
Is it just me or do some (not all) of these men just seem friendly, curious and perhaps undeserving of the condescension with which they are treated here? Men who think they “deserve” to be treated with smiling submissiveness when they’re trying to hit on you can p**s off but this doesn’t seem to be what’s going on in the majority of these situations. It seems like some of them were interacting quite normally and inoffensively yet there’s a rather lofty, often disdainful tone that’s maintained throughout. (Edit: Except the end, obviously.)
But perhaps, unlike most Toast articles in this sort of vein, you’re not necessarily meant to agree with the person’s behaviour. Certainly I sympathise in that I get bouts of misanthropy. I don’t know, perhaps I’ve misread it? (In any case the piece is very well-written.)
Maybe they were not that interesting? Also since she’s road-tripping, it’s inconvenient to get to know these people deeply.