The streets were crowded, but not unbearably so. Families of tourists walked slowly, single-file along the San Antonio Riverwalk, keeping their children closer to the wall to prevent an accidental swimming lesson. Groups of teenagers shouted, laughed and cursed at various passersby, enjoying the oyster that was their world on a Saturday evening.
I assumed my identity as a tourist was fairly obvious; I was a lone, white man, dressed in khakis and a blue and white striped button-down shirt, carrying a plastic bag from a souvenir store. I figured people looked at me and thought to themselves, “Oh, he’s not from around here.” I didn’t speak to anyone, aside from the tired high school junior at the store who sold me the books for my children, but no one tried to engage me in conversation either.
Which was just fine with me.
I had just finished dinner with a group of people I’d met at the Dad 2.0 Summit, an annual conference about blogging and modern fatherhood. The meal had been enjoyable – brisket enchiladas, rice and beans, chips and queso dip, a local beer and wonderful conversation with a fellow mental health professional, another dad with Chicago roots and a group of black and Latino men who I likely never would have met without the connections from the conference.
But I declined the invites to continue on to a different restaurant. I had finally begun to descend from the emotional high of being around some of my favorite personalities. We shared stories of parenting and participated in the most stimulating conversations about children, brands, gender identity, writing styles and a host of others. After a day of air travel that ended up more stressful than it should have been, followed by two full days of content sharing, panels and presentations, my inner introvert had begun crying out for quiet.
The group disbanded, each going their separate ways, and I struck out on my own. The river in San Antonio was fairly narrow, especially compared with the Hudson or the East River, but wide enough to accommodate small boats decorated with various fluorescent lights transporting tourists through the city. I made my way along the water, doing my best to avoid bumping into the restaurant seats that sometimes butted right up against the sidewalk, and listened to the snippets of conversations as I passed. The crowds reminded me slightly of walking through New York City, except without the impatience and urgency of needing to be somewhere. I forced my legs to slow their usual rapid pace and did my best to actually look at the buildings and the people around me.
I glanced into each restaurant, almost in spite of myself, to see if I recognized anyone from the conference. It would have been easy enough for me to find people; I had the phone numbers of a few friends and could have reached out with a direct message to any number of others. But I knew that any group of people was likely at one of the bars or clubs a few blocks away, as opposed to the sit-down establishments along the river. The perfunctory searches were more out of habit and happenstance than actual desire to find the others.
Even during dinner, I’d found myself struggling to navigate the dichotomy between my desire for solitude and my yearning for a shared experience among my community of parents. I knew that my decision to stay on my own had been the correct choice from a practical perspective; I needed to organize and pack up my belongings to prepare for an early-ish flight the next morning and I knew it was smarter for me to get to bed than to stay up later. But there was also a tiny voice doing its best – and almost succeeding – to convince me that I was making a grave mistake by missing out on one of my only chances of the year to see some of these people.
I’ve been stuck, as I imagine many have, in the space between searching for companionship and prioritizing independence for as long as I can remember. I create friendships, facilitate connections and build relationships as I work to find “my people,” but then I hesitate in deciding how much information I should disclose, how much of myself to reveal. I fight the internal battles between the feelings I associate with each of the Three Bears, all the while hoping that the visitors won’t run away screaming because they’re terrified of or disappointed in the animals they find inside.
I made my way through the streets of San Antonio for about a half hour, snapping photos along the way to chronicle my journey. I chuckled at the verbal jabs the teens threw back and forth at each other, weaved through parades of adults in search of the next watering hole and made notes of the tourist carriages lit up brighter than Cinderella’s coach. The voice continued to tell me that I should send a message to find the nearest pack of dad bloggers but I fought it back down. I had started yawning and knew that I was better off heading back, rather than forcing myself to rally to spend more money I didn’t have or drink more alcohol I didn’t need. I stopped briefly to listen to a street drummer and dropped a dollar in his bucket with a slight nod of acknowledgment. He bent his head lower and smiled warmly, never losing his rhythm, and then played the beat for my footsteps back to my hotel.
