Martijn Winkel

‘Can I borrow your lighter?’ I asked the man standing next to me. I have a lighter in my pocket myself, but it provides a starting point for a conversation. The man turns his face towards me, and the corners of his mouth turn upwards. ‘Of course,’ he says as he searches his pocket with his hand, as if it were a bottomless pit full of interesting stuff. His fingertips slide over his house keys and his debit card. Maybe some change or a condom? Do people still carry change these days?

Finally, he hands over his lighter. It is a black lighter with a naked woman on it surrounded by snakes. I look at it and then back at the man. He probably bought this lighter precisely to get this reaction. I smiled at the man and, without thinking, took my lighter out of my pocket. I showed the lighter to him. It is a black lighter with a naked woman on it with some scorpions. The man bursts out laughing and raises his left eyebrow after he has calmed down. ‘Why did you ask for my lighter when you already had one yourself?’ the man asks. I give the man a badly executed wink because I am too tipsy to act tough and take a drag of my cigarette.

The first drag of a cigarette always feels the best on a night like this. As if my body was put on pause from the hustle and bustle of the night. The music is still pounding behind me in the club, and the stamp on my wrist to get back in is already starting to fade. The security guard didn’t really care. He probably recognizes my happy face anyway. I’m not famous, just cheerful. The man picks up the thread of the conversation again. ‘I actually don’t feel like going back in at all,’ he says with a sigh. And I totally get it. Going back to the club suddenly feels a bit like a birthday party that you attend too late. Everyone has already had their cake, and I lost my appetite. Despite the fact that we have probably been smoking outside for less than ten minutes.

‘Would you rather leave now?’ I asked the man. The man thinks about this for a moment and takes another drag of his cigarette. He blows out the smoke and then gives his answer. ‘I think I’ll stay here for a while. This is a bit more interesting than my bed for now.’ A bit more interesting for now. I get stuck on these three words. A bit is temporary. More interesting than inside? Is that because of that weak excuse for a wink I gave or because everything still seems possible? Maybe both add something and make it more interesting. ‘What makes this more interesting than what you can experience in the club?’ I ask.

The man lights another cigarette, and I offer my lighter. The man nods, and I light his cigarette. Then I lit a second one for myself. He has my attention, so I stay outside. ‘Because you’re the first man whose intentions I can’t read,’ he finally says. We have now exchanged nine sentences with each other. Are nine sentences enough to figure out someone’s intentions? Sometimes you don’t even have to say anything, and body language says enough. But it’s not the first time that someone has known exactly what my possible intentions are. The night is still young, and there is plenty of time to put my cards on the table. But for now, he has to play along or give up.

Maybe because there was no immediate follow-up to the wink from my side. But the conversation has just started. Maybe this man is impatient. I asked the man why he came to this club tonight. He tells me that his regular group of friends dragged him here, but that he would have preferred to stay home and play games. I tell him that I also like gaming, and we immediately tell each other enthusiastically which games we are currently playing. He mainly plays on his PlayStation 5, and I am on my laptop. The common ground is fantasy roleplaying games. Now we are twenty sentences further, and we have two things in common. Smoking and gaming.

The man asks why I came to the club today. A repetition of my question that keeps us at a distance from the unanswered question of what my intentions are. The cigarettes have been smoked, and we both notice this. Without saying anything about it, we remain here, standing outside the club. Bound to the conversation that has arisen. ‘I came here to see my friends again,’ I say, ‘but I didn’t come here to sweat excessively on expensive gin tonics that barely contain any gin.’ The man laughs a little too hard. This sentence wasn’t that funny. Maybe he does it so I’ll like him. ‘If my friends didn’t like coming here, I wouldn’t have come here either, I think.’ I gave the man an opening to continue embroidering.

‘I actually don’t have anything to do with this club at all,’ the man says. This is an opening for me to say, ‘Shall we go?’ But is that what the man wants or what I want? The shared social obligation has led us both to this club. I turn my face towards the man and almost expect him to wink back, but he doesn’t. And there is a moment of silence. ‘I have to shit,’ I say. Maybe not exactly what the man wanted to hear, but this is the first thing that comes to mind. The man starts laughing again until he realizes that I am not laughing. ‘Oh, you mean it?’ he says. ‘The men’s room can’t be locked,’ I reply.

‘You can take a shit at my place,’ the man says. This is the most romantic thing anyone has said to me all evening. We leave the club and our friends behind and head to his house. He offers me another cigarette, but I decline. I have no intention of shitting my pants in his presence.