Alone, Part I

I saw my soul mate the other day. Every so often I’ll be somewhere like a coffee shop or a library or a restaurant and see an absolutely beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous girl (with red hair) and know in my heart that we would be absolutely perfect together and that we are actually soul mates. And this was one of those occasions. When I saw her, I just wanted to yell out or shake her hand or give her an awkward side-hug or something. Even if she heard me say hello, I know she’d instantly know, just know it was me that she was looking for. If I had the courage, I’d explain to her that on a scale from unbearably ugly to ridiculously attractive, she is above ridiculously attractive and I actually sweat a little bit when I see her. I’d go on to elaborate on how she should marry me because, with my mid-low status of ‘unnoticeable’ on the attractive scale, I need a woman so high above me on the scale that our procreation won’t have to live a life of unnoticeable-ness like me.



But I don’t really have the guts to tell her and her red hair that I’m the right one for her. No, she’s sadly doomed to spend all of eternally searching for that perfect someone who she just passed nonchalantly in the coffee shop downtown. Sigh.



Other guys are really good at things like meeting new girls and somehow getting them to go on dates with them, but I’ve never had the gift. Like my friend Carter who has this ridiculous confidence with women where he can pretty much walk up to a girl and his confidence is like a magnet that must attract the bobby-pins in their hair or something to draw them in. It’s a bit ridiculous. He has a girlfriend now, but before they started dating, it would always amaze me how his simple confidence in his approach would woo women all the time. That’s probably why he’s a 19 year old college student dating a 21 year old graduate: because he has confidence that he is inherently worth something and that kind of thing seems to swoon girls for some reason. I guess I just don’t get it. 



What’s really crazy to think about is why I do all these things like sweat when I see pretty girls with red hair or dream about giving awkward side hugs to that girl I just saw in the coffee shop. Why guys like my friend Carter go out of their way to woo girls like he does and why it actually works. I think a lot of the answer to this is that no one wants to be alone, because being alone absolutely sucks and none of us want to feel alone or end up having no one that understands us in life.



Sometimes I feel really alone, like I’m the only one who is experiencing what I am experiencing. I know in my mind this isn’t true because it can’t be true. But that still doesn’t change my heart from thinking that. You can’t really change your heart from thinking things sometimes.



But being alone is different than being lonely, isn’t it? Loneliness is feeling like you need someone there with you and if you had someone there with you, you would feel better. Feeling alone isn’t like that though. When I feel alone, I feel as if no matter how many people were around me or who was with me, it wouldn’t really matter. Because really, truly, when you feel alone, your heart tells you there is nothing and no one that can take you out of it. Being alone is being alone whether that girl with red hair actually thinks it’s cute that her presence makes you mysteriously sweaty or not. Even if you achieve the glorious side-hug, you’re still alone because a side-hug doesn’t fill your heart and it can't.