In Defense of Solitude

So, what's happening? Who are you going around with? What? no one? What's wrong?..........

Hi! So what's up? How's the job going? Hows life? and then the inevitable - Who are you going around with? What? No one? What's wrong? Then follows the same ol' discourse on the need to get someone for companionship in life. Tinged with a little sympathy, the monologue from the "friend" implies that being single is an abnormality. Leaves me a little uncertain. I react with a fervour directly proportional to how much I want to convince the "friend".

Quite often these friends say what they want to say, extract a promise that I'll "try" harder, warn that they want to hear better news when we meet next and go away - leaving me amused, confused and unsure.

Then I step into the sitcom that's my life - mostly predictable, spent mostly in trying to make it interesting for myself; interspersed with polite smiles, polite jokes, polite conversations, polite nods and a general politeness that's the bane of my corporate existence. Being closeted from 9 to 7 in the sterilised office does not help. Nor does the 7 to 9 existence in front of the TV.

People point out other ways of getting to know people. Friends point out potential soul mates. But, I'm torn between the image that exists in my mind - which has not yet found its match in reality - and the urgency to have something to show when I meet my "friend" next. The debate between my uncompromising self and the eager-to-please facade continues.........

Next time, I'll once again shrug my shoulders at the questions and slip into my polite existence.