After a week or so of crushing loneliness, I had a wonderful night out tonight with an old pal of mine. We wined (yes, I know) and dined, and had a grand old time.
Or at least I did. When my friend first arrived at my door, I could see that he was not in a particularly great place. Being me, I decided to take off my acting pants for a moment and pulled my analrapist stocking over my head.
I could see that he was in a great deal of pain. Recently, he had had become deeply infatuated with a woman over the internet, and had just that weekend – and please excuse my math innuendo – finally become a derivative lying tangent to her curves. Then, just two hours after saying good-bye to her, he was on my doorstep with large, puffy eyes.
So like the enormous douchebag that I am, I asked him probing, uncomfortable questions about the weekend. I call myself an enormous douchebag in this case for several reasons. One, other people’s pain is sometimes a sick, twisted form of television for me, and exposing the wound makes it all the more entertaining. Two, I am incredibly starved for any kind of social or romantic adventures in my own life, so I’m forced to draw it out of my friends. Three, when I put on my analrapist stocking, I cease to be a friend, and I become a cheap imitation of a mental health professional. This last bit can be quite dangerous, as anyone who has woken up in a bathtub full of ice sporting a festering wound where their kidney should be can attest.
In the end, though, we ended up being for each other exactly what we both needed: a welcome distraction from the emptiness of our lives.
