I always knew the time would come to talk about the empty man. I am not ashamed because the embarrassment passes, but the anecdotes and stories remain forever. As a writer – it is ridiculous, but it is true – one lives with a certain tendency to risk, to the unknown, more than to the security of what is already known, what has already been done. And the most interesting thing comes when you make a mistake. For history, the bigger the error, the better.
We met in a bookstore when I was a student. The empty man was a few years older than me (error), he called himself a political party (error) and confessed literary aspirations (error). But he was physically attractive, he had the straightest teeth I had ever seen. I accepted the appointment.
He took me to a well-known cocktail bar in Eixample. As soon as I entered I knew I was wrong. I was younger then, but I wasn’t an idiot, I am even more of an idiot now. Young people perceive deception and manipulation with an immediacy that those of us who enter the adult world lose, which consists of getting used to – and exercising – deception and manipulation.
I continued the cajoling conversation, but when they asked us what we wanted to drink I went blank. I was barely of age, I had never liked alcohol, and I had no idea “what cocktail I was in the mood for.” I said, because it sounded like something out of a movie: an Aperol Spritz. He looked at me strangely and said that was “too soft” and too “daytime.” He ordered two Martinis for both of us, and then he asked me how I wanted it.
I went blank again. The waiter listed the types of Martini and I didn’t understand how they were different. Desperate, the man then proposed that we do a wine tasting. What is a tasting?, it occurred to me to say. Rather than acting like an adult, I realized that I had to act like an idiot. When he saw that no, that he was not going to take me to the garden, he paid the bill and left me with extensive knowledge about glasses, wines, types of Martini, which I now apply with my friends and which I use, when I hear it, to detect the empty men who roam the city filling girls’ glasses.
