The man in the woods
My friend took me out for drinks to celebrate my graduation from the psychology program. I hadn't seen her in ages, and I was really looking forward to catching up.
We went downtown for a beer, and the conversation went smoothly as it tends to do when two friends haven't seen each other for a long time.
Suddenly, a group of three older men asked nicely if they could sit at the table next to us.
"Sure", we said, as they took their seats.
"Are you on vacation?" one of the men asked.
At first, we were a bit annoyed at their intrusion - they could clearly see that we were in deep conversation and didn't want to be interrupted.
"Yeah, I am," my friend replied, trying to keep it short and sweet.
But the men didn't take the hint. Out of the blue, one of them said:
"Our friend here has lived in the woods for seven years. I think that's really cool."
At this point, me and my friend looked at each other and expressed our skepticism. Are these drunken men making fun of us?
But the man opened his mouth and spoke of his experiences with such detail that he convinced us both. (We also looked it up on Google, and there had been several articles written about him in the newspapers.) This was a very cool and strange encounter!
We paused our current discussion and turned our attention to the man who had lived in the woods for so many years.
"What did you learn?" I asked. "I don't think I could survive a week, yet alone seven years," I laughed, thinking how ill-suited my 21st century skills were to living a life in a remote forest.
"Loneliness is the worst," he said. "Attitude is everything."
He didn't need much. He had shelter, food (he ate a lot of roadkill and plants), and some spare money. But no man can live without human connection. Those were his biggest takeaways from his life in the woods. Without his phone, he couldn't have done it for so long.
When he got back to civilisation, he craved ice cream more than anything. "People don't realise how good it is."
We were so fascinated by this strange encounter, it became the highlight of our evening. The man in the woods with a story to tell.
When I got home that night, I enjoyed three scoops of ice cream. Life was good.