On Friday, there was Neuroscience Day. I had a 30-minute talk as the afternoon faculty lad. Predictably, I did a fantastic job because I have a talent for performance. The day winded down with a poster session, that by-gone custom of silent hope dashed with dread and the inevitable disappointment of not much happening.

At least, not much usually happens. I had gotten 4 posters in or so. A Ph.D. student, who had an M.S. and an RN, was showing data on executive function deficits in kids with coordinated motor disorder. Not at all my field, but the technique for gauging brain oxygenation, NIRS, was different enough that it intrigued me.

We talked for the better part of 90 minutes. She had an interest in integrative neuroscience, psychoneuroimmunology, all of the holistic fields that try to embrace the complexity of medicine. She said a few times that I could just leave if she was boring me, but this was rare. This was a meaningful professional interaction instead of speed digesting posters. She brought up some interesting stuff about bleached flour and type 2 diabetes, which I hadn't known but apparently the animal literature suggested it. So when it came time to a near close, it came up that we could talk more at the informal event at Alluvial. It took about a half dozen tries to explain where that was. She said she'd see me there.

J and G were at a wedding in Wisconsin. I had no idea when they were getting back. Thus, drinking and talking neuroscience seemed like a great evening activity. All of the students and the handful of faculty that attended filtered in. I ordered the imperial stout, sat around, ate another of those kick ass sandwiches from The Cafe, and shot the shit with people. One dude had a 4-year old. A Ph.D. student had some clarification questions. There was one woman from Africa that had never had beer before.

I headed back in for a second beer. This thing was 9.5%, and being accustomed to the not at all light shit I was doing just fine. Who should I see chatting up a pair of Canadians in town than her. She was happy to see me, and explained that talking with the couple was more interesting than the usual gab outside. I had to agree and joined them. That convo winded down after awhile, followed by a dude with an earring in his right ear who wrapped us in a conversation about Norweigians, specialty fish dishes, and regional variations that made family go nuts.

For the next few hours, though, it was just her and I talking. It was hard to follow at times, but she has two kids, somewhat recently divorced, and takes care of/lives with her best friend who is disabled. What struck me the most during our conversation at the poster, and especially there outside alone, was the probing quality of her questions--how she got beyond my usual defenses of vagueness and actually really wanted to know stuff about me. My birthday (which no one but HR, my wife, and immediate family know), if I believe in God, why my relationship with my mother is strained, how it got that way, why I look off into the distance so often when I talk to people (because the social information distracts my thought process), and so on.

What was more surprising to me was her candor and how open--painfully open to the point of tears--she was about some of the good and bad things that'd happened in life.

And it struck me: I was having a real conversation and making a meaningful connection. I was relating to someone as an actual human being, and realizing a few limitations about myself. I was reaching out to someone who was reaching back, who gave a damn about who I was, how I felt, and not taking my usual convenient obfuscation for an answer.

So at the end of all that, a little before 9, I was convinced I would go home, and J would be there, and she would scold me for being out late and not being around when she'd gotten back home from the wedding with our son. Despite that fear, I didn't want to go. She didn't want to go either. Finally, she needed to.

She reached out and embraced me tightly. "I really want to be your friend," she said, with a depth of sincerity that hurt me.

We were both honest then: we had come to that event to talk more and make an emotional connection. It wasn't sexual. It wasn't suggestive. It was two people in their late 30's with kids who have the weight of the world on them, deriving some odd degree of comfort. We talked for 10 minutes longer by her giant mini-van. She wanted to know if being my friend was going to drive a wedge between J and I. I told her in all honesty that that was a choice one had to make. That while some people could be tempted, or that a close friendship with someone of the opposite sex could be seen as a threat, the person in question ultimately decided how it was going to play out. She seemed to like that answer. We hugged tightly again and she said she would get a hold of me.

I cried lightly on the way home. I cried because I had not had a connection like that in a long time. I cried because despite my best efforts, every now and then someone comes along who gets past my defenses, and I develop a bond, and I care about them and I cannot help it for the life of me.

I cried because, in all good likelihood, I will never talk with her again.

I need people like that in my life, now more than ever. But I've heard this song before, and danced to this tune. But even if I knew what the likely outcome was going to be, I didn't care. I made that bond anyway. I needed to.

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