I Saw Charisma

Charisma is a word that gets thrown around a lot. People associate it with charm, confidence, or the ability to command attention in a room. But its almost like until you see real, effortless charisma in action, you don’t really understand it.

I've never seen it. I've met rare people who were charming. Who were at ease with themselves. But never really anyone I'd consider charismatic or seen something I'd call charisma until recently. And it was with a guy doing lines off coke of a plate

I was at Flash, a nightclub I frequent (though I’m trying to stop). It had been a long night. I wasn’t particularly interested in going out that weekend, but I had nothing to do, and my mind was kinda restless. So I went.

The music was great, and I had been chatting up a girl. Eventually, though, it seemed she wasn’t interested, so I went downstairs as the club was closing. I started smoking a joint (despite my efforts to stay sober) and struck up a conversation with one of the DJs. As people filtered out, I saw the girl leave with some new friends who invited her to an afterparty. I stayed back, but eventually, one of her friends started talking to me, and we made conversation.

She invited me along, worried that no one would show up to her friend’s party. And then he came out.

"I think I may have overdone it," he said. "I invited a couple more people."

I started talking with two of the other girls there, one of whom took a bump of coke off the guy. They asked me about my life, but I was shy and didn't know how to answer to "tell me about your life." We walked to the guy’s place, and it wasn’t what I expected. Not a packed party, just a handful of people, a somewhat dingy apartment, and a speaker playing standard house tech. I felt a bit out of place and didn't have a place to sit. The only other chair is in a corner behind one of the girls and I feel awkward asking for it but I'm afraid of simply standing there the whole night. We conversate a little bit and the guy starts pouring out coke and starts to take some bumps.

The "party" wasn't what he'd expected. Only we had showed up. He kept apologizing, over and over. But it wasn’t what you’d think.

He wasn’t jittery, he wasn’t talking with exaggerated importance or urgency. He was just himself, a calmness and ease that my words can’t really capture. He apologized, talked about the party scene in Richmond, and just the way he apologized. He navigatied the situation so well. And I looked at him. I realized I'd finally seen charisma.

I know, what's happening in my mind the same time people are in this house drugged and drunked up.

The night ended quickly. He bought three of the girls Ubers home and apologized and conversated with the same ease I'd seen earlier. The first time I saw charisma wasn't from a politician.

It was from a guy doing lines of coke off a plate. I turned back and and he saw him walking back home. The way he walked. I remember he'd said nothing to me, and I to him. I already saw him as a potential addict. But what was going on with him? Was he alone? Was he depressed?

And that was it. I was the only one left. In this empty street at 5 AM I walked back to my car hoping one the girls in her Uber I'd been talking to didn't think I was weird for walking back alone.