Last night I had the pleasure of going to a party of nearly every and only persons I work with. Being in a male dominate work place and being the ****** up little flower that I am, I found myself caught in who to pay that special attention to at this party. Consistently flirting with two of my immediate coworkers, I excused myself from the space in between them this night. Instead, I spent the night talking to Dan, who I had never much to before, as to keep away from some dramatic situation. Dan, though, proved to be maybe the worst idea of them all. He always had something strange to bring up, maybe about hard drugs or of drinking too much some nights. Of course in my book, these are sing-song notes of endearment, and kept me talking to him as to learn more. He continued to drink liquor and I continued to make tea for us both. (Doing this because I wanted tea badly, and for him because I wanted to keep him in the kitchen while I made and we drank it.) He brought up having used to gone to school and being done now. He brought up missing work at his last job due to panic attacks. We smoked ciggaretts together through the night, too. Being outside alone, even more about him came out. Flat out words were said, that he had grown up in a physically and emotionally abusive household. He told me his father, I beleive, had took a pair of hand-held shears and cut off one hand full of fingernails from Dan's left and made him watch as it was done. This itself did not scare me, but maybe only for the sake of the young man in front of me. He pulled another scar out from his sleeve, nearly literally, to show a scar up the inside of his forearm to the fold of his elbow. I expected a classic "attempt" story on seeing it. Instead, I was informed of in what way skin grows out of a human body, and that this scar reached from wrist to ear when he was six years old. He said he nearly bleed to death in his kitchen at six, in someway trying to get through a broken window. I asked him how long it took to mostly go away. He asked back, 'the scar or the blood?' I answered very quickly, the scar, because I feared that to the question of blood he may have said never. In other, smaller moments, he said that he feared having panic attacks at our current work. He said he didn't know anything about computers, the basis of his job. I was amazed at this information, that someone, like him apparently, was able to pick up this work and fool the people around him who have years of experience. I was dumbstruck that this person existed, or that I might have spent the night talking to him. The things he said are echoing today, the day with a little less sleep had. I think of the words he didn't say, that the blood never went away, and that he was maybe losing his mind or hadn't been in his for a while. I, in one night managed to find myself another one just like this, one I am not allowed to spend real time with, for the sake of my own health. I feel afraid for the things said and not. I feel greatly overwhelmed at having learned these things about this person. And knowing now we ought to tip toe around each other rather than get ourselves into a deeper mess for both of us.