Page 35 of People Skills

‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘Eat with your hands.’

‘I feel like a slob now,’ he says.

I pick up the pizza in my hands. ‘We can both be slobs,’ I say. ‘Where did you go for dinner last week anyway? You were never home.’

‘I don’t want to tell you.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s too sad.’

‘Tragic sad or pathetic sad?’

‘Pathetic sad.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I drove to the lookout over the beach and sat in my car eating a pre-made salad I bought from the supermarket, with a can of tuna dumped into it, and listened to a playlist of old Oasis songs.’

‘You’re right, you shouldn’t have told me.’

‘I’m a metaphorical dog crawling under the house.’

‘No, no, it’s just…I’m picturing the tuna mess.’

‘There was no tuna mess.’

‘How did you drain the can?’

‘I opened the car door and drained the water onto the ground.’

‘That’s so grim.’

‘I know.’

‘But, you know, I was doing so much worse after my last breakup,’ I say.

‘What were you doing?’

‘I moved home with my parents, and I wore the same pair of trackpants every day, even though they had this weird stain on the front. There was something about those pants that I became very attached to, and I didn’t leave the house and, well, I guess I was depressed,’ I say. ‘Sorry, that was meant to be a funny story.’

‘The trackpants bit was funny,’ he says.

The pressure to be funny, to be entertaining him, is strong, because I’m the one who has created the digital detox and put us in this scenario, and I need to prove it’s worth it.

I resist the urge to ask him if he’s feeling more creative yet. Has an idea popped into his head? Any notes he wants to jot down? Maybe he can use the tuna stuff, turn it into a short story? ‘The Tuna Can’. Or a poem: ‘Eating Tuna Alone in My Car, Listening to Oasis’. No. Calm down. It’s only been an hour.

‘Wine?’ I say, getting up.

‘Yes please,’ he says.

I look in the fridge, but the bottle I thought was there isn’t. I look in the cupboard and find a bottle of white.

‘We can drink it warm, or put ice in it, or wait an hour for it to cool in the fridge,’ I say, brandishing the bottle. Or not drink at all, but that doesn’t feel like an option. ‘Or…’

‘Or?’ he says.

‘We could go out?’ I don’t want to go out but I’m starting to think it will be much easier for us to be phoneless out in the world than in my claustrophobic lounge room.