dinner with sybil (m)

Last night I went to dinner with Sybil. 

I met Sybil in 1981, during the Spring of my second semester of my last year at Wharton.  I interviewed for a job and Sybil was my interviewer.  We clicked immediately, she offered me the job and I declined as I took the job with Gillette.  About 4 years after that, I met Sybil again, when I hired a company to work on one of my Gillette projects.  The consultants arrived for the first meeting and in walked Sybil! She had left the company she was with when I met her. We laughed, re-connected and collaborated on many projects through the years after that....all hugely successful.  Sybil is brilliant...highly creative, highly strategic and very pragmatic.  Add in a high measure of common sense and likeability and you've got the key player on the dream team.  The thing I like most about Sybil is that, while she's never had to work, she works harder than anyone I know.

I last saw Sybil in 2007 when I left work.  We promised to keep in touch.

Sybil emailed me two weeks ago and said she'd be in Boston for work...would I like to have dinner one night?

We agreed to meet at Legal Sea Foods at 7 p.m.  I dressed like I was going on a date. I wanted Sybil to be impressed with my weight loss and go back and tell everyone at my former company how good I looked.

Get to the restaurant.  Sybil is there first.  We scream, hug and then sit down for dinner.  I look at Sybil.  She hasn't changed a bit.  A mop of dark curly hair sticking out in every direction, skinny, understated clothes, no make-up, no jewelry to speak of.  I wore a red linen jacket, slimming black pants, turquoise jewelry and freshly applied make-up. I even blew dry my hair.

With Sybil, the time passes quickly.  We talked alot about business (she was pimping for a CEO of a major company who wants me to work for them and asked Sybil to convince me to go back full time), a ton about our kids (she remembered my sons' names and interests.  I remembered her three kids as well) and alot about maybe doing something together in a couple of years (start up venture).

What we didn't talk about was my weight.  She never mentioned it.  When dinner was over, I drove her back to her hotel.  We promised to keep in touch more frequently.

Driving back to my house, I wondered why Sybil never commented on my weight loss.  I don't have the answer but I suspect it may be one of two reasons:

1. Sybil has seen me at my thinnest, heaviest and at every point in between.  I am not even close to my thinnest.  So, last night was just a point along a continuum.  Not noteworthy.
2. Sybil operates on a higher plane. She connects with people on an intellectual and emotional level.  How people look, what they wear, what car they drive...doesn't matter to Sybil.  She's  more interested in who they are as a person and what they and their families are doing.

I think the second reason is the one.

I made a note to keep Sybil in my life.