Metropoloneliness
Thursday night in a big city, somewhere in the world. The annual self-pity tsunami is hitting single-girlville with full force once more.
This usually happens around dinnertime, but only if you somehow forgot to go grocery shopping.
Here are the first warning signs:
3 pm: Your friend cancels the dinner date second evening in a row.
4pm: You leave class with the intention of going to the supermarket and buying yourself some healthy veggies and fish for dinner.
6pm: For some reason you still haven’t left the house, eventhough you really wanted to go to the gym and then hit the grocery store.
7pm: You make a list of what you’re going to do tomorrow, check the TV programs for later on tonight and think about what you want for dinner. Weirdly all you can come up with is stuff they serve at restaurants you would never go to alone, especially not in the evening.
7.15pm: You consider skipping dinner for various reasons: a) you’re too fat anyway b) you don’t want pizza delivery again c) you don’t want to go out in the cold, alone, again d) you don’t have any cash at home, so even if you skipped on a), b) and c) you have no option.
7.30pm: You know better and realize you’ll probably regret not eating dinner by 10pm because you’ll raid the fridge and kill your secret stash of chocolate.
7.35pm: You put your jacket and uggs over your sweatpants and leave the house looking like shit, hoping you won’t run into somebody you know.
From now on it can go many possible ways. Here is mine, tonight.
Inspired by a facebook post I go on a quest to find summer rolls somewhere in my neighborhood. Instead of going to the little Vietnamese place on Mulackstraße I decide to try the other one which is closer.
Since they don’t have a menu outside I am forced to go in and ask for a menu. As I look around I see couples sitting there, talking and eating. The two people who are there by themselves are men. Unfortunately there are no summer rolls on the menu and everything else is fried, which is not good for my diet, so I leave.
I walk down the street and see a pizza place. For a second I consider just getting something carby and greasy in order to get back home a.s.a.p. and watch Law & Order. The tiny spark of discipline I have left isn’t having it. Come on, you already went outside, might as well go get something halfway healthy.
While I am walking I remember I haven’t called my food-friend Jan in ages. I call him because I am thinking of food and we should go have dinner again soon. As I am telling him this he goes: Yes hun, absolutely, but not tonight. Of course not! What do you think, I am spontaneous or something? I mean, I have to study anyway.
Somehow this makes me a little sad. I try to cheer myself up, thinking that other people are just getting off work and probably a lot of them are eating by themselves tonight. Nobody will know, nobody will know.
I walk by my favorite bookstore and see Kurt, my literature critic of choice sweep the floor inside. I say hi. He seems in a hurry to get out and is not really into having small talk right now. I am bummed, for no reason at all. He is your bookseller, come on.
The idea of noodlesoup hits me, but I don’t remember exactly on which corner the place is, before or after my Vietnamese. I decide that I’ll go for whichever comes first.
Noodleplace is first. The place that is usually empty is now crowded with happy, international people. I am standing in the way a little arkward, asking to see the menu. The mute waitress hands it to me, I feel watched. Somehow Sex and the City, Miranda, chocolate cake and chinese takeout come to mind. As I order with the other waitress she tells me that the wait is going to be 20 minutes or more. I can’t bear standing here for that long, so I say thank you and turn around. She says: Sorry! and I feel caught. She knows. She felt it. She felt that I am lonely, and now she made it come out.
As I exit the restaurant, still sans food, I start crying. The little tear rolling down my cheek feels hot in the cold air outside. I turn the next corner to get away from people. Through the misty window of the candle-lit Italian place I see happy people on first dates. I start feeling pathetic. The usually dim street seems bright and there are too many pedestrians for my taste this minute. I hear a mother yelling at her child and think to myself: I wish i had your problems. Then I pace myself, forcing rationality into my brain, but somehow it’s not quite working. I am embarrassed for being lonely and something tells me it’s ridiculous. This is the catholic in me, not allowing a thing as self-pity. Other people are worse off than you. Think about the shit thats going down in Israel right now. Yet, I can’t help it and keep walking and crying to myself. The world is such a sad, sad place. The argument inside goes on. I want to go home, but not without dinner!
I get to the Vietnamese place and discover something I had never noticed before. It is split in two! A restaurant and a take-out bar. Hope on the horizon. Two people are sitting inside, both by themselves, each drinking a glass of wine. The man is reading a magazine and the woman is reading a book. Hello fellow loners! I feel like I’m in heaven when the owner greets me without sympathy. We’re all alone by choice the atmosphere seems to say. The two guests seem perfectly content. Being by yourself is not a shame. I wish I had brought my book so I could stay as well. Creative people stick to themselves! But I have not, so I operate according to plan. I get my food and realize I’m not hungry but I want a cigarette. I quit smoking a while ago, but after all this it seems like I deserve an unhealthy drag.
Pretty cheerful I walk home. Nice, I think, this is a good place. Maybe being a bookworm isn’t so bad after all.
On the last 100 meters to the deli I have another argument with myself. Should I really buy smokes? Why? What will the deli-guy say? – Who is he to say? He wants to make money, so he won’t judge you for smoking! He’ll judge you for not smoking! – Oh God, Mel would be so disappointed! – Everyone has their vices…
As expected, he greets me saying: I haven’t seen you here in a while! – Well I don’t smoke much anymore…do you have yellow Gaulo—-he interrupts me with a smile: Are you pregnant?
This is more than I can take, yet I laugh. He apologizes after I tell him that he can never ask a woman that unless he is absolutely sure. And if I was, he shouldn’t sell me smokes. For a split second I imagine what it would be like.
I catch myself and summarize the lesson learned tonight.
Never put your wallet, keys and cell phone in your jacket pocket. You’ll look fat.
Peace kids, I’m out.
http://www.manngo.de/
much ado about nothing
