One Is Not Necessarily The Loneliest Number
December 31st, 2009So is your first New Year’s resolution that you won’t be alone anymore, or that you won’t end up alone? They are the same, yet as different as they can be.
I have kids, three really good kids, so maybe that means I’ll never end up alone. But I don’t think that’s the “alone” you’re talking about. Seeing as I am as single as you are, I can feel exactly what you’re saying. As comfortable as I am with being alone right now, I still can’t embrace the concept of being alone when I’m 60… Or 65… Or 70… Or more.
It’s not about who’s going to wipe my ass for me when I can’t wipe it myself. No matter how old I get, I will never let anybody else wipe my ass. If I can’t do that on my own, I’ll simply shoot myself. I may be a “glass half-empty” kind of guy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to live forever. As of now, my plan is simply to live forever, to be in great shape the whole time and to avoid every illness, disease and malady that commonly affects us in old age. Trust me; I will be the old guy at the gym who everyone whispers about in wonder at the shape I’m in. I’ll be the old guy at the restaurant watching the ball game while eating his dinner at the bar. I’ll be the old guy at the stoplight, bobbing his head to some Steely Dan with the sunroof open and his arm out the window. I don’t plan on going kicking and screaming – my plan is to not go at all.
Then reality kicks in, even for me. If I’m alone at 60, I won’t just be alone – I’ll be lonely. And the longer being alone lasts from there, the longer and lonelier I’ll become. I could become so pathetic that I wouldn’t even hang with me.
But what about knowing to its core that setting the bar high remains the only position to take when it comes to meeting quality women? And how many countless visits have we had with our longtime-married friends that, instead of inspiring envy and admiration with the life they display, leave us cold and pessimistic in the face of the abject boredom, and thinly disguised disdain that now so often defines their lives. Then there’s the “random encounter” – that interaction, however brief between two people that almost slows down time. Remember the French girl I told you about from the gym? She gave me her number yesterday. I didn’t ask for it.
So what about all of this? This all sounds pretty good to me (especially the French girl). So as much as I’m aware of the increasing possibility that I could remain alone through my fifties and beyond, I still think it’s too early to think that far ahead. There’s simply too much left to do right now. (More so for you than me.) You’ve seen those old couples at the grocery store engaging in in-depth comparison and analysis of every ingredient in every package, snarling at each other the whole time? They’re old and they have each other, but it’s a life no sane person would sign up for if given the option. Is that better than being alone? Is that better than the other older couples we encounter time and time again, the couple eating a long dinner in a nice restaurant and not a word passes between them. Is that better than eating alone? Not from where I’m sitting – but every year, I’ll be sitting that much closer to the age of lonely. Maybe I’ll have a different view of things once I get a close enough look.
Sick and alone is a whole different animal (except I stand by my earlier comment about wiping my own ass). I imagine being old, sick and alone sucks as royally as your mom explained to you – over, and over, and over. Is it attitude? Genes? The luck of the draw? There is no consistency and no guarantee to a life as it gets older… That’s why smart people are more inclined to live for the moment and appreciate the present.
We’re smart people, let’s be those smart people.
