2026/05/09
After High School, I met a guy. Inn his 40s or so.
A hermit.
He liked to smoke quite a bit. I can't quite remember how many of them, but I'm pretty sure that every time I saw him during breaks, he was always smoking a cigarette. Though sometimes he just held it between his fingers, letting it consume near his face.
The only times he left his hhouse was to go to work, and even then, he went to great lengths to avoid being with other people. I don't think I ever saw him with any other person. From what others told me, he rarely spoke to anyone.
Other than me, I suppose.
Honestly, I used to see him as a miserable man. But looking back now, I realize we weren't that different (as cliché as it is).
Quite poetic, but also a bit sad.
Despite his antisocial nature, he wasn't bitter against society or anything like that. He wouldn't criticize the current or past generations.
He would often reminisce about old times.
He used to be a photographer, and was particularly infatuated with how the city looked back then.
He'd talk about how he used to just take walks outside, appreciate the urban scenery and take pictures of whatever caught his attention. Despite that, he also complained about how he felt like he didn't really make good use of his time.
I used to wonder why that was the case. Someone who spent a good chunk of his life doing what he wanted and yet felt unfulfilled.
He said it wasn't a sense of unfulfillment because of what he chose to do, but rather because of what he didn't get to have. Which was friends.
He felt like there was a sense of void because there was no one for him to share his hobby with. And when I met him, a good part of our conversations were exactly about that.
He taught me a bit of cameras, pictures, framing, lens.
It was an interesting dynamic, though I mostly listened and asked; I didn't really add too much to it, but at least he seemed to enjoy the little company I could offer.
A very sad man, indeed.
I didn't think too much about it then, but now, looking back, I was pretty much looking at... some sort of reflection fo what could've become of me.
And it did.
Difference being that I don't have anyone else to share my ownn misery. Not yet, at least.
Such is life.