Ladies and gentleman I’ve a real treat for you tonight as once again it’s time for Fromage’s whiney diatribe on being on my own, or shall I say by myself, single, unattached, as opposed to being a part of a couple. A couple a what? I hear you ask. Well, Ok, as in a relationship, like paired with your mate, so to speak, two peas in a pod of mutual connubial bliss. And it isn’t like I’m crying foul and saying that relationships are the work of Satan or some such nonsense as that, it’s just that I’m currently not in one, or two or any for that matter and yeah, there’s still that desire to be desired and loved and cohabitated with. However as of late it hasn’t happened or I haven’t pursued it, or maybe I am in a relationship, it’s just that I’m too feeble minded to know or remember that I am and in turn won’t acknowledge it, at least not in public anyway! But I hardly think that that is the case here.
Nonetheless with me always being a wee bit on the self-conscious side and in a somewhat slightly morbid fear of being misunderstood or at the very least being forced to engage in some sort of debate where I come off looking less than fully prepared to argue my side or worse, ignorant of the facts, I have come up with 10 really good reasons why I’m not presently in a relationship at this time:
- The inability to keep a pet. Yep, I went and did it, pulled out the old “no pets” theory—where if the person in question is incapable of taking care of a cute albeit totally useless animal then they are probably unable or unwilling to compromise, placate or even feed another human being, let alone sleep in the same bed with them, or so I’ve been told on numerous occasions
- Unable to keep a plant alive. Same theory as number one only just further down on the evolutionary chain, After all who can’t water a little sprout and nurture foliage? Yet unfortunately even during the best of times I’ve tried my hand at caring for house plants; like great big majestic palms and stubby succulents, and if I’m remembering correctly I was even rather pleased about having them, only to wake up months later and there across the room was the dried tortured skeleton of my formerly elegant shrub staring me in the face while trying to evoke a sense of guilt out of me—the ungrateful bastard!
- Selfishness. Do I really need to waste anymore of my precious time elaborating on this subject?
- Work, or as in my case where I work. Because being a counselor in an all men’s rehabilitation facility whose populace consists of drug addicts, child molesters, alcoholics, murderers, parolees, petty criminals, exhibitionists, glue sniffers, wife beaters, arsonists, grave robbers and the certifiably insane tends to keep me separated from the rest of the world and it’s not like I work with an all female faculty that resemble a naughty nurses porno video from which to elicit hot dates from, since single good looking women just don’t last in this type of environment. Though god forbid in all actuality if it was a female client population I just might not be single. But that’s a whole ‘nother post all together.
- Isolative behavior. Pretty self-explanatory: man doesn’t venture outside of his apartment, man is virtually all alone. Of course staying up all night in front of my computer writing posts like this for the internet doesn’t help the situation either.
- Antisocial behavior. Read reasons 1 thru 5 again and then stop breathing my air and just leave me the hell alone!
- The car. With the numerous weekends spent under the car covered in axle grease while holding a 30-pound driveshaft up with one hand and cursing the world as another bolt to the transmission mount slips out of my fingers again. Not to mention that the heater doesn’t work and I hate heaters anyway except for when it’s really cold and all, and then there’s that small exhaust leak that some days fills the car up with fumes until your eyes water and ya gotta open a window and I’m not even gonna talk about all the money I’ve spent trying to keep it going. But did I mention that I really love this car even though it takes all my attention, time and patients? So much so that maybe another person might not get the reason why?
- Ice cream flavors. Having changed my tastes, either out of old age or a lower tolerance to the cacao plant, and these days tending to not want chocolate based flavors but vanilla instead. Like vanilla heath bar crunch or vanilla Swiss almond and of course I eat ice cream in one pint servings, because after all that’s the size that they come in. So like due to my addictive behavior of overindulging, all the vanilla flavors would then be gone and cluttering up the freezer would be those god damn chocolate NY fudge type deals that she likes and then I’ve got to suffer through eating them when in a pinch and… Ok, so like I hardly even eat ice cream any more but this could be a problem, well, it has been in the past and I’m just noting the possibility of repeating it and yeah, it’s a little weak as a reason but…
- The side of the bed issue. This too may seem petty to some of you but it has been an issue before and of course there’s the side of the bed that isn’t as choice or with less amenities like the one closest to the wall or the closet as opposed to the one with the nightstand that holds the phone, the alarm clock and the ashtray. Well, Ok, forget the ashtray because I don’t smoke any more, but you know what I’m talking about especially if you’re at a motel and you go to lay down and if you take the time to notice which one of you gravitates to the phone side of the bed, well, that’s what I’m talking about here. It’s a power struggle to see which one of you is in control and it’s not something that I’m willing to concede, especially if I paid for the room or I’m expecting a phone call anytime soon.
- Evidently if you’ve gotten this far by reading the last nine reasons, and are still somewhat engaged, then by now it must be blatantly apparent that I spend an inconceivable amount of time dwelling on the absurd, over thinking the mundane and splitting hairs like a nuclear physicist splits atoms. Though obviously after all this you can gather that due to my overly active imagination and obsessive compulsive behavior that I’ve barely time left for a relationship or even a quick heart to heart con-fab with my cohorts and besides who’d wanna stick around through all that?
However to be totally honest the only real problem in attempting to change my current availability status is that for once in my life I’m actually happy with the way things are somewhat working out and as far as I can see there’s no black clouds of discontent hovering on the horizon. So I’ve gotta ask myself do I really wanna relationship or is it just one of those things that I think that I need because I’m suppose to or because everyone else thinks that I should?
Meanwhile, my ex, the one that lives two doors down the hall from me? Well, she went back to drinking booze and it goes without saying that she does it to an excess and so does her current boyfriend and just last week in an alcohol fueled blackout he ended up kicking the shit out of her and of course she calls me all in tears. Why call me? Well, who knows? Maybe because I’m the only semblance of normality in her life, though that thought alone is too frightening to dwell on, or maybe because I’m a sympathetic shoulder to cry on? Only after all the condolences and mutual commiserations are over she decides to go back to him. “To work it out.” She says and I’m left wondering what in hell’s the matter with her, me and the world in general and why do I really care in the first place if she doesn’t?
Though I wish that I could say that that was the worst of it, but everywhere that I look it seems that friends of mine are immersed in torrid affairs and unfulfilling or unfaithful liaisons which for the most part either leave them totally unhappy or depressed and lost in conflict as to what to do instead. And here I sit albeit alone but breathing a sigh of relief and contemplating whether I really want to be like them or stay like I am. Or maybe I should get some plants and a little furry dog and one of those Croatian mail order brides that they’re selling online and join in with this circus of chaos and pain!
Or do what I’m already doing and that’s just going about my life uninhibited doing what I need to do in order to stay somewhat reasonably sane and knowing that all good things come in time…