Skin
February 15th, 2006
After the Fashion Whore show on Saturday, I met up with Frenchie and Lutz and The Pub to hang for a few. It was already late, closing in on midnight, and the two were already well on their way to blotto. I’d had a couple beers over the last few hours, but was otherwise sober and starting to tucker out. Lutz nudges my elbow.
“Yo, Barclay, go talk to those girls. Those four over there.”
I make a quick scan. Two reasonably cute girls and two not so cute girls. “Me? Why me?”
“‘Cause you got game, man, you got game.”
“No, I don’t have game. I have anything but game.”
Lutz is swaying, and slurring a bit. “No, you’re right, you don’t have game. But you know what? You’re comfortable in your own skin. Girls like that, you’re comfortable in your own skin.” He says it simply, without production or drama, just his own little observation.
I was immediately swept back to the first time I met A–‘s father, who, contrasting me with A–‘s previous boyfriend, said to A– that “Barclay’s comfortably in his own skin, isn’t he?” The exact same words. Something poignant about that, hearing it again from a completely different source, someone antipodal to A–‘s father’s personality.
But I don’t usually think about it. It took someone, or two people, to remind me that with a little luck and a lot of work, I actually _am_ comfortable with myself (or the evolution thereof). So next time you’re thinking some kind thought about someone, tell them, plainly and simply, and it’ll probably penetrate farther than you expect.
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