Goldish silences

I sat at a table with three women who approximated past coworkers. One of them said something subtly disparaging about a fourth coworker who was not present. "I know her," I said. "She's a good person." This caused a brief felt silence among the group. I'd unintentionally caused the speaker a minor loss of face. She recovered quickly by deciding not to get defensive and by offering me a ride. I wanted to decline, but I knew that doing so would be, in effect, like landing a second blow. Tedium. I don't even want to be here. And then I was in another scene. A man, younger than me and anxious, was telling me about a feeling of malaise he was experiencing. He was going to see his doctor, he said, to be tested for low T. He needed to find a cause for his perceived illness and a definitive cure. I wanted to reassure him. I wanted to tell him that there's really no way of narrowing it down to one definitive cause and that any treatment is really just a shot in the dark. Just go through it, I wanted to tell him. Don't worry so much about the outcome. I was thinking of telling him that things just happen. And that what we expect the trajectory of our lives to be is usually wildly different from what we actually live. I wanted to tell him that I too had plans - which didn't include falling in a hole for four or five years - but that's what happened. You deal with it. That's all. It's ok. Adjust your expectations and press on. I think I told him my age. He said knowing that just made him more anxious. I should keep my mouth shut.