I've seen the doppler and the damage done

What first seemed like a dark but still funny post-script to my signature coctail party story in my former hometown has become much darker and sadder. While it's no longer cocktail party worthy, it's actually much more compelling. So thank you, troubled weatherman for your part in helping me make friends in my then new, now old city. Sorry you've run into problems, and I'm really sorry I never attempted to engage you in a conversation when I had an opportunity to do so.

My first contact with the Troubled Weatherman (TW) was a few months after I had moved to Roanoke (Even though I've linked this to his true identity, I'm not going to use his name in the story). I was 28, my boyfriend lived 3 hours away, and I was lonely. It seemed like the people my age in the area were at completely different points in their lives, and the person I had connected with the best was my 19 year old intern. She joined me for a month during her winter term at Oberlin. She could do anything she wanted for credit, and rather than joining the ranks of the mythical "Here's what happened when I got drunk for 28 days straight" crowd I had imagined when I considered applying to Oberlin 10 years earlier, she decided to join me knocking on doors of homes that had been determined to be a lead poisoning hazard a decade earlier to find out if there were any kids or pregnant women living there.

We were a block away from my house when we knocked on TW's door. He answered in his boxers with this huge grin on his face. Did I mention that it was approximately 10 degrees outside? And he answered the door in his boxers? Well, it was and he did. I ran through my set of questions, looking past his grin and focusing on the guitar leaning against the wall in his hallway. "No kids here? Great. No pregnant women? OK. Here's some literature, bye!" After he closed the door, my intern looked over at me and said "I had to stop myself from saying 'Storm Team 10 meteorologist 'TW'."

Having no interest in local news, I had no idea what she was talking about. She explained who she thought our scantily clad friend was. I was incredulous--what kind of weatherman opens his door wearing only boxers when it's only 10 degrees out? And windy! So I didn't believe her.

Fast forward to a few weeks later. I receive an e-mail from TW, which I just happen to have in my eternally archived inbox. (My card was stapled to the literature.) Italics are mine, changed to avoid identifying information.

Hi there Bobloblaw
I think you stopped by my place in our neighborhood the other day passing out your prevention info! :) Which one were you? Are you single?
Hope you have had a good Valentine's Day and a good weekend
Hope to hear from you,
TW

Eek! Which one was I? it was sent on Valentines day which I found so depressing. I wasn't single, and I really should have just ignored it and forwarded it to my coworkers for a giggle, but there was something about the e-mail that made me sad. And seeing how he lived less than a block away from me, I was likely to run into him again. So I responded. Unfortunately the rest of the exchange is not in the eternal archives, but it went something like this--I told him I wasn't single and that my intern had returned to finish her freshman year in college. Thinking that would clue him in that she's close enough to jailbait for a 30something. I got an e-mail back from him to have my intern drop him a line if she wanted to get together when she was back in town.

I was totally skeeved by that, but whatev.

We did bump into each other several times while I was living in the 'noke, but I doubt he recognised me, and I didn't make any effort to clue him in to our first meeting. I just kind of wrote him off as a skeezy dude who would hit on anything that didn't move out of the way.

Turns out, maybe I wasn't the only one living on my street who was lonely. I just assumed that he was on TV! Certainly he had a lovely life and plenty of friends. He didn't need me to say hi to him in the grocery store or smile at him on the street.

Now I'm not under any kind of delusions of grandeur that had I struck up a conversation with him when I had the opportunity that he wouldn't have overdosed on heroin and almost died, but this situation made me think about all the assumptions I make about people. You know what? Everyone needs kind words. Everyone needs for you to say hello to them on the street. We need human connections. Be nice.