Uber Therapy

It's embarrassing how many Ubers I've taken since the app has been introduced. There are the daily Ubers I take home from work and then the occasional ride to run errands or a night out. And then in the winter months, when it's too cold for life outside, I have to admit to taking cabs to and from the gym four days a week. (Yes, I go to the gym four days a week. This is the new and improved me.)

And with each vehicle I've taken comes driven by a new special driver. Sometimes we sit in silence, sometimes we get in a heated conversation long after I've arrived at my destination and sometimes they tell me their whole life story while I sit there nodding, preferring the silence.

I've had one driver share his tale of coming to this country from Egypt five years ago to go to school and falling in love with an American girl who he then married after a long courtship. It had been his new wife who suggested he apply for citizenship and who also then became distant once she decided he had married her for the wrong reasons. He got teary eyed telling me how it tore them apart until they eventually divorced. He was now driving for Uber to save up enough money to bring over his parents.

Then there was the driver who decided that he knew better directions than the passenger who took the same route every day for over a year (me). It has recently snowed and the streets had limited access and increased traffic. We got stuck in a stand-still for 30 minutes which he took as an opportunity to ask me on a date. Nothing worse than being stuck in non-moving traffic with a man you have just rejected.

I've heard every horror story from drunken vomit to domestic abuse in the back seat. It's interesting how much information gets shared in a 15 minute ride with a stranger.

But then there was the time my driver mentioned how he had been released from prison that morning. I don't know if that is something he should have been sharing but it didn't end there. I was lucky enough to hear the whole story of how he ended up there! There was a lot of mumbling and bits of the story that I missed but the part I got was that his girl friend of 4 years had hit him numerous times in the face after a minor dispute and he called the cops on her. She wasn't too thrilled about that and retaliated by calling the cops herself and telling them that he had hit her. He told me how he has spent the night in a holding cell and I tried my best to sympathize.

I'm well aware that I bring these conversations upon myself by being personable and so darn cute but I should really start charging for my services.