I lay supinely on the couch, sipping the final third of a palm-warmed beer, and mulled over thoughts that, over the last few years, had become very familiar to me. Long ago I came to the realization that loneliness would forever be a part of me and, soon after, decided that I should embrace it rather than fight it—that way, something good might come of it, I told myself.
I remembered I went through much of high school and college keeping mostly to myself; my friends hovered around just long enough to know that it was probably too much work to remain my friend. I concluded, at the time, that people at such a young age just want to be around other people who make their own lives easier. Thus my understanding of “friend” became: someone who makes someone else’s life easier. I thought about how unlikely it was that I had ever made anyone’s life easier.
I figured the theory also applied to romantic relationships but, along with wanting someone who made their lives easier, girls wanted someone who fit into their plan—whatever it may have been. I never had a girlfriend in high school and it wasn’t until the middle of my freshmen year in college that I met a girl who told me she wanted nothing from me other than to teach me things; thus my entire breadth of (still limited) carnal knowledge was attributable to that girl for quite some time. Later in college, I did get to know a few more girls, not girls who thought I fit into their plan but, rather, girls who had just gotten out of relationships with other boys who had once fit into their plan.
I finished my beer, grimacing as I swallowed the last warm mouthful, and wondered what had roused my recurring memories. Change. That was it. Lately I had become increasingly frustrated by my unwillingness to bring change into my own life and, naturally, I had turned to my own history for any clues about why I was the way I was.
—A tiny excerpt from my forthcoming novel: Isn’t It Pretty To Think So?
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