That stuff I've been meaning to talk about

Okay, I've got a bit of free time before Justin G. calls me about dinner, so I'm going to make myself sit down and write this shit already.

...Oh, no, wait, he just called. Check back later.

AND I'M BACK: Ha ha, motherfuckers, I been drinking. This will make all this shit much easier to talk about.

Tonight I got to hang out with Justin G., who prefers that his last name not be used for Google purposes. He was in town to do some mock-interviews for the big ol' Mellon Fellowship that he's interviewing for for realz next Sunday. So the day after I interview with New York Teaching Fellows, Justin confronts the Mellons.

Anyways, I started out the night with some Manwhich, courtesy of Walsh. Then Justin, Julie, and I went to Mag Congress for some grub. We met up with Lee there....then to Trudy's, where Justin Cox and Noreen happened to be, then on to Hole in the Wall, where we talked with Seemay and Joanna about vaginal vs. clitoral orgasms and blah blah blah.

Look, what I wanted to get to was this.

About two weeks ago, when that girl in my Bible class mentioned her boyfriend, I got pretty down. I remember getting on the #5 bus right after she told me, leaning my head against the glass, and wondering why I'd pinned so many hopes and expectations to some girl I hardly knew. I mean, I felt all my optimism for the semester fall away, at least in regards to relationships. I wondered, Why did I build this girl up so much?

The answer, of course, is that I'm lonely. And this is what I've been meaning to talk about. At some point, it became taboo in our society to say that you are lonely. Despite the fact that almost everyone, from the guy reading "A Shot in the Dark" to the girl staying in a relationship merely because it's convenient, wants some kind of companionship, to admit as much pegs you as an attention-starved pitymonger. I actually had to admit this to myself on the bus that day. For a long time now, I've been denying how I felt, as if loneliness were something to be ashamed of. Looking at my reaction to April's boyfriend — which was hardly an unexpected revelation, since I've gone after girls with boyfriends at least two dozen times in my college career — I realized I'd seen the potential for a relationship in this girl, and that was what had gotten my hopes up. Really, what I wanted was someone to whom I was special, who would cuddle up with me at night and be there when I woke up in the morning. These are pretty much universal desires. Near as I can tell, the only people who don't want these things are those who have been recently burned by a relationship and don't want to put any emotional investment on the line for fear they may be hurt again. Although we all want someone there in our life, you'll never ask someone, "How you been?" and have them respond, "I sure am lonely."

Tonight Justin G. hypothesized that after college all relationships — friendly, romantic, and informal — revert to middle school status. The "social and sexual regimes," as he put it, "of college are gone." I think this hypothesis rings true with my comments above. No one wants to say that they're lonely now, because when the desire to be with others first surfaced, it was in adolescence. At that time, to say you were lonely was a cry for attention. Because this need for companionship was actually co-dependent — a way of reinforcing one's hyper-fragile ego — loneliness became equated with immaturity and insecurity. In fact, it is quite possible to be lonely and very secure and confident about oneself at the same time. This description fits me well.

On the bus that day, I understood that while I did want something more from my (potentially) sexual relationships, it was not my sole pursuit to fill this defficiency. That is, I knew no amount of drunken screwing or dating for the sake of dating was going to suddenly make me feel better. At a certain age and after a certain amount of experience, one realizes that it is not the presence of another person per se that makes one un-lonely, but the arrival of very specific and unpredictable people into one's life that satisfies. So it is possible to be lonely without being desperate, although the two are often unfairly linked.

To jump back to last week, this is where Lost in Translation and Mrs. Dalloway come in. Both pieces of art concentrated on the individual's struggle with a simple fact: In the end, we are all alone. There is no despondency in this statement; it is merely the fact of life. And if we would admit this fact to ourselves, we would save ourselves a good deal of time and even more heartache. People too often think that relationships and/or marriage are the key to escaping this terrifying — yet ecstatic — realization. It is terrible, because it forces us to face mortality. It is exciting, because it forces us, at the risk of sounding cheesy, to be responsible for our own happiness.

I was talking to Joanna about this once before, and she made a point that I had never considered. "Yes!" she said about lonely's off-limits status. "And no one admits that you can be lonely while being in a relationship." Having never experienced this myself, I can only say that it sounds true. But how much better off we would be admitting this! Instead of dependency on our companion, we would instead want rejuvenation.

Look again at Mrs. Dalloway. Every character in the novel experiences an existential crisis as "time's leaden circles dissolve in the air." When all of society's pretenses are pulled back, when one ignores for a moment the hassle of merely existing, what makes life worth living?

What is this terror? What is this ecstasy? [Peter] thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?

It was Clarissa, he said.

For there she was.

A bit melodramatic in this context, I agree, but the point remains: The people who make us feel intensely, for whatever reason, are what make life worth living. Lost in Translation comes to the same conclusion. Bill Murray, after kissing Scarlet Johannsen, runs back to his limo without looking back. There is between them an understanding that the shared knowledge of each other's existence — to know that they are not alone in their struggles — is enough to bring forth an affirmation that leads to rejunvenation.

Over the past few days, I've talked to quite a few people who recently graduated from college. Nearly every one has expressed the anxiety, fear, and depression that accompany a move from the insulated society of college to the fend-for-yourself "real world." Those fortunate enough to find a spouse at our young age seem to have had an easier time moving into the responsibilities of adulthood. I won't make any declarations about why this is, but I will point out that it seems to support my point. I suppose the couples could live in delusion, but it seems they have realized that the elusive "right one" isn't going to be a cure-all to life's delimmas. At the other end, a few of my friends have come close to emotional breakdowns, but all have said they came out stronger for it. It puts things in perspective, they say, to realize that you are out of your bubble and responsible for every aspect of your life now. I think, with no particular evidence, that this realization is a necessary step to understanding the person you are, and that seems to be the precondition for all happy and lasting relationships.

To bring all of this back to the point, I say with full confidence and a shrug: I am lonely. This is no different than saying I am sad, or I am angry, or I am happy. It is one of our natural states, and I for one am tired of fighting it.

Tonight, there was food and booze, and there was laughter, and there were my friends.