My friends largely paired off long ago. They're evenly split into the "growing old together" crowd and the "growing old near one another" crowd. I wouldn't mind joining the first group, but I'm clueless about how to avoid the second. I'd rather die alone, and, well, it seems increasingly likely that I'm going to fulfill that prophecy. If this seems like a lament, it's really not. I'm comfortable keeping my own company. Plus a lifetime of evidence suggests that I'm simply not very good at relationships, and to me that suggests a Group 2 destination. Can I blame my parents for that personal failing? Obama? Really, I'll entertain any theories other than "Maybe I just suck."
It's not for lack of practice, however, which brings us to today, when I was driving down a road I'd never been down before, and I spotted a pedestrian. "She's cute," I thought before I recognized her as someone I dated briefly 100 miles and 19 years ago.
Ordinarily, I would chalk that moment up to grand coincidence, but when you're single into your oldfartdom, it kinda feels like a mathematical inevitability.