But now shrinks the place where you stand: Where now, stripped by shade, will you go? — Paul Celan

Discussing Claude Lévi-Strauss with a girl

I once met a girl at a cafe who gave me her phone number. I looked her up on the internet and learned that she had studied anthropology at a nearby university. I liked the girl and wanted to impress her with my knowledge of anthropology, especially of Claude Lévi-Strauss. A few years prior to meeting this girl I had gone through a Lévi-Strauss phase and even fancied myself a Structuralist.

Back to the girl. We texted each other back and forth. We planned to meet up but it always fell through. I invited her to a popular physics talk that I was supposed to give. She said she would be there but never showed up. I suspected she had another date she had decided to go to. She also missed a breakfast appointment we had made.

Time passed and I stopped thinking about her. One day I got a text from her advertising a room in an apartment she was renting. Quickly, I realized that it was part of a mass text.

Almost a year later I ran into her again in the same cafe where I had first met her. It was our second face-to-face meeting. During our brief conversation, she told me that her boyfriend had asked her to move in with him. As I write this today, I imagine that she is married now and has a couple of children.

I never saw her again and never got to discuss Claude Lévi-Strauss with her.

Leave a Reply

Basic HTML is allowed. Your email address will not be published.

Subscribe to this comment feed via RSS

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.