After the meeting on Thursday, I went home with a guy from the alien encounter support group.

There was no attraction between us. We sat on the edge of his queen-sized bed, sipping extra-chilled cans of beer and watching his fish tank like it was a TV. He told me about the fish, their countries of origin, things like that. It was difficult for me. I wasn’t used to interacting with men who weren’t my college ex-boyfriend.

“What’s your experience with extra-terrestrials?” I asked, after finishing my first can.

“I don’t have any,” he said. “My ex was seriously into that stuff, though. She believed she’d been abducted and everything.”

“No kidding.”

“Apparently those guys use a lot of recreational drugs.”

I’d never seen him with a woman, and I’d been going to meetings for six months. From the first time I saw him, I’d wanted to find myself attracted to him. I’d had visions of us stumbling into a hotel room kissing and gripping each other’s faces, and me later, trying to explain the relationship to everyone I knew.

“Do you not believe her?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I know those guys exist. I’ve watched a lot of alien dissection videos.”

“Is she okay now?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, she’s fine. She went to teach English in China.”

“Oh.” I’d half expected him to tell me she’d overdosed on highly restricted alien drugs.

He handed me another beer from the twelve-pack on the floor.

“We weren’t right together,” he said. “She was always telling me I should be with a man, instead.”

“She thought you weren’t into women?”

“She thought no man could feel real love for a woman.”

“Oh, okay.”

I wondered if my ex had felt real love for me. I doubted it. Did I feel it for him?

Things pretty much fell apart after I dropped out of college. I was on new medication, doing nothing but sleeping and taking one twenty-minute walk each day where I’d roam round the block in sweatpants, watching people walking towards me, overtaking me, dressed in all kinds of outfits; then one night I was lying awake in bed and I said, “I don’t think I want to be a lawyer anymore” into the cool semi-darkness of the room, and he said, “Okay.” I didn’t know what I wanted, then, but I knew that the relationship was over. We were going to be a lawyer couple, we didn’t have one of those together-through-whatever-life-throws-at-us relationships.

I finished my beer and tried picturing my ex with a man until my vision blurred. I lay back on the bed, my feet still touching the floor. When my doctor had asked me why I’d given up on law school, I’d tried to explain that I was no longer interested in the options it opened up for me. I was a fundamentally jealous person, and I couldn’t see anyone with a life worth being jealous of anymore. “There are more options than you seem to be aware of,” he’d said, and I’d said, “Thank you, that’s something to think about,” but I’d never listened to a doctor’s words in my life.

“What’s your alien experience?” the guy asked.

“It’s second-hand, like yours,” I said. “My sister married one.”

“Seriously? I had no idea they did that kind of thing.”

“Yeah. She’s pregnant now.”

“Wow.” His eyes were clear and sharp now. “How’s she holding up?”

I shrugged. “We haven’t spoken recently.”

“Yeah.” He hesitated. “She must have a lot to take care of.”

I knew what he was thinking, but he was wrong. I could feel heat radiating off me in slow waves. The doctor was right, though it was really only when my sister ran off with an alien, and I saw the excitement in her eyes, that I realized there maybe were still some lives out there worth envying.

“My sister’s a smart person,” I said, unsure if this was true even as the words left my mouth.

“My ex was smart too,” he said. “Maybe that’s what attracts the aliens.”

I looked over and he met my gaze, eyes cloudy. I counted five beer cans at his feet. I was still on number three.

“Your hair is very beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said.

Someone in the next flat started playing an instrument, maybe the cello. Slow and hesitant scales. I let my eyes fall shut again and listened to it with every cell in my body, and by the time the music stopped, I felt drunker than I’d ever felt in my life. The whole room was trembling. Like I’d taken something more complicated than alcohol. The guy had rolled his desk chair right in front of the fish tank. His skin was greyish now and he was sweating.

“You know, I’ve tried, but I’ve never met a woman I could respect,” the guy said.

The sun had set at some point in the last half hour. I should have left a while ago, but I couldn’t find the energy.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Maybe one day.”

I understood why he was lashing out, he had no clear vision, nothing to work towards. I’d been there, but my mind was clear now.

“You know if you’d told me you were an alien, I probably would’ve been attracted to you,” I said.

He laughed and said, “Yeah, I can tell.”