white sneakers

Last night, I took myself home at a decent hour. I'd had all the fun I wanted to have and I wanted to be able to wake up the next day (today) and go work out without feeling like I might keel over. While I was on the train, I found myself staring at these insanely white converse sneakers. I looked up to see whose feet they were on. They were on the feet of an attractive Latina woman who looked a little bit younger than me. She was standing in front of the door staring off into space. Then the funniest thing: another pair of insanely white converse caught my eye! They were on the feet of a man a little bit younger than me. He was standing on the other side of the same door staring off to the side.

I thought to myself, not only do you not see WHITE (not off-white, but white) converse very often these days, but to see two pair is strange and I wondered if they knew each other. But they weren't talking or looking at each other or anything. Then, before I could think about it anymore, here's what happened:
-he quietly and slowly turned his body toward the girl's
-he steps on her perfectly white converse with his mostly perfectly white converse
-she ignores him and continues to stare into the same non-space she'd been staring into since I noticed her
-he steps on her sneaker again
-barely breaking her trance-like stare, she mouths "stop!" to him
-as she's doing this, doors open up and people get off.
-she walks over to sit on a seat near me
-with a really sad look on his face, he follows her
-they continue to sit there, for the duration of the ride, him with his body turned slightly toward her, a twisted, confused, and miserable look on his face; her exactly the same stare into nothingness, blank look and "you don't exist" body language

This is like, literally, a minute or two view into these people's lives. For some reason, that moment has stuck with me since last night.

My first thought was that they were a couple and she was just over him; not into it. I don't know if everyone experiences this, but when you are in this place of "I'm just over you and we are still together," the other person can't do anything right. No matter what they do or say, it is annoying and terrible. And this is saddest space in any relationship for two people to be in. If this were the case for them, then I saw him just completely still in love with her, making this elementary school, "please pay attention to me!" scene heart-breaking. Because she never even broke her space-gaze to look at him for one second.

My other thought was that, maybe they were a couple and that they just found out something terrible (a family member or close friend was terminally ill or their house had burned down). He wanted to bring about some sort of playfulness and she was having none of it.

The other thought was that they were a couple and they were in love, but she just found out that he had done something terrible, like he'd been cheating on her throughout most of their relationship or this was the first time and she didn't know if she wanted to stay with him or not because he swears it meant nothing and he LOVES her and would never do it again. And maybe I was catching this volatile situation in the moments where they were both just checking-out and silent, where he wanted to feel some type of connection between them again and didn't know how, so he tried to dirty up her perfectly white sneakers for her because perfectly white converse look better when they're not perfectly white.

Of course, and some people might be thinking this: maybe they were simply tired...

I'll never know what has come of this couple. I'll just be left here to speculate based on my two-minute-long observations. I do know that what I saw, for some reason, was intense to me. Of course, everything we see is through the lens that is shaped by our own worlds and experiences. I know that I almost wanted to run up to her and say, "he really loves you! don't you see that?" and had to stop myself because it is none of my business and this isn't an episode of Sex and the City.

All I know is that I went home from spending a few hours with my family and then having some drinks and doing a little improv with my friends, to watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, eat ice cream, and fall asleep. And somehow, to me, this seemed magical compared to the weirdness that happens when you're in a relationship.