David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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When strangers tell us things we want to hear, we want to believe

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I’m having a late lunch at a McDonald’s near my house. There aren’t many people in here at this time of the afternoon. I noticed a woman come in and head to the restroom near me. She was talking on her iPhone, so I didn’t pay much attention to her.

As she left the restroom and walked near my table, she asked the person on the phone to hold on. She walked right up to my table and I started wondering whether I knew her and she was coming to talk to me. But she stooped right next to my table — about 18 inches from my feet — and picked up a penny from the floor.

“You have an angel thinking about you,” she said as she extended her hand with the penny.

I smiled and gave a friendly little laugh as I said, “Thank you.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “I felt it as I walked past you and this is confirmation. You need an angel today and she’s thinking about you.”

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Our self-deception is attempt to justify whatever we do to others

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The lies we tell each other are nothing compared to the lies we tell ourselves.

Why do we do this? We have to lie to ourselves to justify the things we’ve done, especially the things we’ve done to other people. So one self-deception leads to another. Then when people go their separate ways, the lies and self-justification become more intense.

The longer two people are away from one another — and away from whatever happened between them — the more their internal narratives diverge.

Have you ever listened to two people — two people who once loved each other or two people who were once business partners, for instance — tell their stories about what happened to the dead or dying relationship? If you just listen and don’t challenge what you’re hearing, you would think the two people are telling entirely different tales.

I wonder whether two people can ever see the truth of what has happened between them as they drift apart — with someone slowly becoming “somebody that I used to know” to the other.

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Romantic interest no easier now than it was for me in sixth grade

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It was just after Thanksgiving of my sixth grade year. For about a year and a half, I had had the worst sort of crush on a girl in my class named Wendy Ford. When I was 11, she was my dream girl.

I was terrified for anybody to figure out that I “liked” Wendy, of course. And the absolute worst thing would be for her to know it. This is confusing to adult logic, but it made perfect sense back then. Somehow, she was going to “like” me first and let me know — and then I could confess that I “liked” her, too. And then we would get married. Or something like that.

Instead, one of her friends came over to me — in music class — and asked, “Do you like Wendy?”

My face must have turned bright red. I felt as though everybody was looking at me. My heartbeat raced. And I denied it. I assured her that it wasn’t true, but I doubt I was convincing. I just wanted to be anywhere but there.

“You should have liked her,” the friend said, “because she likes you.”

Thursday evening, I remembered what that sort of conversation felt like — and I didn’t like it any better than I did when I was 11.

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