An Arm of One

Story Sent in by Lydia:

I was on a dating site and Kristen messaged me. She seemed smart and fun and we ended up writing longer and longer emails to each other (always a good sign). She had great photos and we wrote to each other for almost two weeks before we met in person.

When we met I couldn't help but notice that she was missing her right arm. She had never mentioned that in any of her messages and her photos were all taken from angles that, in retrospect, didn't make that clear. It was definitely a surprise, but it might have been a sore subject and so I didn't breathe a word about it to her as we sat in a cafe and talked over tea.

It finally came up when she said, "So I'm missing my arm."

I asked, "Are you okay?"

She said, "Would you have asked me that if I was missing my other arm, instead?"

"Would I have asked if you were okay? Probably. Is it something you want to talk about?"

"No."

So we didn't talk about it. It didn't come up again until a little later when she said out of the blue, "Life would be a lot easier with two arms." Then she gave a big sigh.

What does one say to something like that? Yes? No? Nothing? She really seemed to want to talk about it despite her words to the contrary. So I asked again, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

Frustration! Then stop bringing it up! We talked for a little while longer until she let out another big sigh and said something like, "You know what I'd love more than anything?"

"What?"

"My right arm back."

I was done. I said, "I hope you find it, someday."

She gave me a disgusted look and said, "That's rude."

It was, but I had thrown in the towel. For the rest of the date I used both hands to pick up my drink just because I could. The date ended and we never contacted each other ever again.