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Women of My Family, I Beg You: Let Me Die Alone
Please accept that maybe, just maybe, I want to be single
Dear ladies of this particular ancestral shield, who refuse to allow me to live out my days as a bachelor of poise and equanimity:
Ah, my wonderfully charming kinswomen! There are simply not enough holidays in the year for us to gather together and celebrate the richness of life. It is always such a merry occasion to be in your presence, as you all have such a fiery zest for existence. And now, I am straight-up begging you to let me die alone.
Please.
Please be open to the idea that I may want to live, and very well exit this world, riding a spiritual motorcycle without a spiritual sidecar.
You see, after years of enduring the same narrow dialogue, my mind, my spirit, and indeed my body have weakened. Tell me about your job, your hobbies, your anything; hell, unburden yourself of all your opinions about your damnable commute and those marital troubles that have ventured well beyond mild suspicion!
For I can no longer endure such exchanges:
“You should get a girlfriend.”
“There are actually a few friendly women in my life right now.”
“Why don’t you want a relationship?”
“Just rarely my thing.”
“But it’d be so nice.”
“Not for me… or them, eventually.”
“You know, someone special.”
“Hello? Are these ears on?”
“…a teammate of sorts…”
“The hell is happening? Is this purgatory? HELLO?”
“…who we’d meet…”
“HEY I BLEW UP THE MOON AND NOW THE GOVERNMENT IS ASSASSINATING THE LOCAL CATS I USED TO PAY PROTECTION TO AS A WARNING.”
Then, as if a gaggle of wedding dresses were drunk in wherever the brain’s equivalent of the garage is — I have no idea, biology was an 8 a.m. class when I was 19 and I was half-Popov back then — some dart is unceremoniously hucked with an arm spin leftover from college softball, and in comes some reference to my life so obscure that it actually perplexes me, the only geek who’d be…
