On Friday night I went to a club for the first time in nearly a year, and the first time since my wife left me about eight months ago. I had fun, I got drunk on Smirnoff Ice, I smoked a whole pack of cloves. I danced, I talked to people I hadn't seen in a long time, and then on the way home, my "date" (really just a friend I hadn't seen in a long, long time) and I stopped our bicycles at a stoop in the CBD and sat down.
We spent the next 45 minutes crying really hard and uncontrollably. Both of us, for seperate yet similar reasons.
She was crying because her former best friend and ex-roommate is moving back to Chicago on Tuesday, and she was lonely, and frequent, empty sex with various men and women doesn't really help to abate the loneliness she feels.
I was crying because of everything I had lost over the course of the past few years, because I was also lonely and I'm all but certain I won't be able to find anyone that I can really get into in that way in this city, and because all of my long-time/really important friends all live hundreds or thousands of miles away and are generally inaccessible except for ineffectual instant messages or emails.
We cried in unison because we'd both been dumped by the people we each thought we were in love with. We were both full of hormones and alcohol, and we both had a lot of really bad things cramped inside the both of us.
Collapsing together on a concrete stair and crying endlessly at 5:00AM as drunken tourists pass by was a release. It brought forth the realization in both of us that we are truly lonely, both in the same way, which made us feel a bit better; but then feeling better was quashed by feeling worse by knowing that there's really nothing either of us can do about it. It takes a lot of doing, and a good deal of hard work to find someone to love. It's going to be hard for her because she's a stompy, green-haired, alcohol-swilling rivethead girl. It'll be hard for me because I'm introverted and solitary, plus there's always that pesky gender status thing to worry about when thinking about the possibility of having a girlfriend.
I stared into the muddled sky with tears running down my face in small rivers, and I knew then that there was no hope.
This is your world
These are your people
You can live for yourself today
Or help build tomorrow for everyone*
Which option shall I choose?