I meet someone. I have James with me. He’s a stuffed salamander. They think it’s funny.
They follow me on Instagram. James is there too.
Oh he’s serious.
They check my stories. It’s James. Different day. Different location. No indication that this is wrapping up.
They ask to see pictures. There are hundreds.
Oh it’s nowhere near a joke.
At some point the explanation changes. They stop trying to figure out what I’m doing with a stuffed animal and accept that they’ve met two people.
Fuck it. This is his good friend.
Some people get there immediately. What’s his name. Can I hold him. We’re already doing something together. Nobody needed to establish the appropriate level of irony before picking up the salamander.
I like how quickly this can happen. You know almost nothing about someone and suddenly you have a mutual friend.
If you get James, the rest tends to go pretty smoothly. The clothes make sense. The things I post make sense. You might not like any of it yourself, but we’re not starting from zero every time I show you something.
If you don’t, there’s more bad news on my Instagram.
You thought the stuffed animal was an isolated incident. Now there’s a website. I’m explaining a gun that doesn’t exist. You’ve learned how much the gloves cost. Every new piece of information requires a small recovery period.
At some point you tap out. Fair enough. This would have been an exhausting friendship for both of us.
I think people spend a lot of time making themselves easy to meet and then slowly revealing everything that makes them difficult to know. Sometimes it takes six months to discover how strange someone is. I brought a visual aid.
James also makes me easier to talk to. There’s something to ask about. You don’t have to come up with an opening. He’s right there. A considerable amount of social work from someone who has never said anything.
And I get to find out whether you’ll join in. You can laugh. Obviously it’s funny. I have hundreds of pictures of a stuffed salamander. I’m showing them to you.
People ask to take pictures with him a lot. Which means there are pictures of James in phones I have never seen. Somebody else is now explaining him to somebody else.
Good luck. There’s a lot of material.
Eventually you stop asking why I bring him.
You start asking where he is.