There's a specific type of guy I never really got - nor for a long time. It's the kind of guy that would be mostly indistinguishable from anyone else in the street, but people would seem to get along well with him. He would be courteous, somewhat silent and would keep to himself. All this, in and of itself, aren't what you would call unique traits, right? But then, after the guy had crossed paths with us, or we saw him across the road, someone - usually my mother or my grandmother - would comment about how that person had not had somone in their lives for many years, and these would still be fairly young people - in the 40-ish range.
They were these long-term bachelors that for whatever reason had elected to live their lives alone, and when I, as a kid, learned that there were people who lived like this, I always felt incredibly sad for them. It also didn't help that they were always talked about in these hushed tones, as if they were someone to be truly pitied. But I couldn't understand why someone - anyone, for that matter - would choose to live their lives that way. Where I live, there were maybe a couple of people who fit that bill, and they never looked happy to me. I wouldn't know it yet, but the air they had was one of contentment, of resignation.
My young mind couldn't comprehend not wanting... not desiring... not craving. I wanted so, so much, as a young boy. Surely everyone did as well? Ah, but such are the follies of a young and naive mind. And as we grow up, and learn about life, and get fucked over... you start to understand. Some years back I found myself questioning if whether all the effort I was putting in was worth it. The romantic part of me thought it was. That it was just a question of trying. And if I failed? Then I'd try again. But in time that part of me began to dwindle, it began fading into the background. Another part of me - the jaded, cynical part - began to tell me it wasn't worth it. That I was better off by myself.
And I believed it. I believed it so much that I began giving up on everything - well, almost. But when it came to people, and indeed, myself? I just gave up. I stopped wanting the complex things from life. The compromises. The commitments. The chase. The game. I wasn't having any of that. I never spent so much time by myself since I was that young kid who knew nothing - he just knew not to have friends, and keep his stupid head buried in books.
How would that boy react to the fact that he would become that kind of man whose life choices so mystified him? Would he have clung to hope more fervently? Or have I been turning myself into this person since that lonely childhood? Maybe I was always fated to give up. Maybe.
I have shelved the audacity of hope, but that romantic heart of mine sometimes beats in time to a song it used to know oh so well.
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