When the assist is off and the ego kicks in: the curious case of men who never ask questions.
I went to rent an e-bike today. Easy plan, easy morning. While I was waiting, an older guy wearing a Navy cap showed up, heading the same direction. He asked if I’d like to ride along with him. I said sure. Why not?
Ten minutes in, I knew his entire life story.
He was sailing by the time he was eight. Straight out of high school into the Navy. Out of the Navy into firefighting. From firefighting into EMT work. Someone suggested he go to med school but no, he became a nurse instead. Sixteen years in emergency rooms, bouncing around as a traveling nurse. “You should have seen the ER in the U.S. Virgin Islands,” he said. One towel and one bar of soap used between every patient. Infection control? Not so much.
It didn’t stop there. Five kids. Nine grandkids. Builds houses for them. Can fix anything. And on and on and on and on and on.
I nodded, I smiled, I pedaled.
And after a while, I started wondering: what is it about the average white guy that makes them so profoundly incurious about the people they’re talking to? Do we as a culture teach them to share all of their info and they simply expect everyone else to do the same.
Ninety minutes went by. Ninety. Not one question about me.
Is it self-centeredness? Some kind of assumption that eventually we’ll just blurt our life stories out too? A blind spot? I still don’t know.
It was a pleasant enough day, though. We cycled around, swam a bit. He played tour guide, this was his island, after all. He’d been here “so many times.”
As we turned around to head back through the rolling hills of the island, Mike asked me how much battery I had left on my bike.
“I’m still at full,” I said.
“How much battery?”
“Full.”
“How many bars do you have left?”
“All of them.”
He seemed unwilling to believe it, so I added that I hadn’t used the assist much – free exercise is my motto, after all.
So, of course, the next thing you know, he switches off his assist completely and starts pedaling old-school. Shifting gears, grinding up the hills. Now, I’m sure Mike wasn’t in bad shape for a 69-year-old, but he wasn’t exactly in pedal-the-hills shape either. And because guys like this always seem to have something to prove, suddenly the bike started being the problem.
“The derailleur isn’t derailing properly,” he grunted. “I’ll have to show the mechanic how to fix it when we get back. You know they don’t maintain these bikes properly,” and so on.
The myth of endless competence must be maintained, even when the gears are screaming otherwise.
But back to the day.
As we got ready to part ways at the end of the day, he casually mentioned a restaurant I’d never heard of. Later that evening, I headed to my “usual” spot only to realize it was the very place he’d suggested. And there he was, seated with his son and a woman I didn’t know. I walked over, offered a brief hello, and then slipped away to enjoy a quiet dinner on my own.
Towards the end of my meal, he popped over. Stood just off my right shoulder, close enough that I had to crank my head back to see him. Hands folded over his little Buddha belly, he said, “If you have any concerns when you leave here, you let me know.”
Concerns? I figured he meant walking home alone in the dark past roving gangs of 16-year-old German exchange students. Terrifying.
But no, he meant concerns with the restaurant. The food. The service.
Okay then.
I watched as he proceeded to wander the restaurant, checking in on tables like he was the father of the bride checking on his guests. “How’s everything?” “You doing good?”
I half expected him to start comping meals.
When he stopped by my table – again – he pointed out a speedboat anchored nearby. “See that boat?” he said. “If you want to go anywhere, just tell them Captain Mike sent you. They’ll take you. It’s safe. It’s fast. It’s mine.”
Um. Ok.
Curious now, I asked the waiter who this guy was. Did he own the place?
The waiter shrugged. No idea.
Was he an investor? A manager?
Nope. No connection at all.
Just another day in paradise, ruled by Captain Mike and the legend he built for himself in his own mind.