Today’s words: Cat, Ennui, Chocolate, Quixotic
Word count: 442
Completion time: 1 hour 1 minute
Summary: Being in a relationship is the ultimate aim...and if you’re
single, you must be looking for
someone
--
The
whole world told her that to feel whole, she needed to find her other half, her
soul mate.
Feeling down? Experiencing ennui from
your life that promised to offer excitement and endless opportunities once
you left university? Find yourself with a frown more often than not? Wrinkles
populating the edges of your mouth? Need to go on a diet? Want a great-tasting
family-sized meal for only a fiver? Well then, my friend, what you need is a fella.
Boyfriends
were the apparent solution to everything, she found. Too sad, too happy, too
fat, too thin, too human, too ‘you’? Have a partner, a lover, a honey, a hubby.
(Who said she was straight, anyway?)
(Who said she was straight, anyway?)
“Oh
pumpkin, you need to find a boyfriend before you get too old. I knew this one
woman, virgin ‘til her dying day, who would dress her cat up and dine with it
on the kitchen counter, certain that she was on a date with some ex-actor at
some swanky restaurant. The profession changed every time I asked about her
‘date’, poor dear.”
The
single life was only for the unlucky, the losers, the ugly, the boring...and
when she hit puberty, the prospect of a relationship loomed on her before she
knew how to form her lips for a ‘proper’ kiss.
At
thirteen, people looked down on her for being single. “I’ve been to second and a
half base with my boyfriend!” One of
her friends boasted once, sticking her chest out with raised eyebrows.
“Oh
yeah? Well the other day I dipped my chocolate bar in my hot chocolate and it
was the nicest thing ever, better than sex,” she replied with virgin lips.
The
quixotic was always advertised as realistic, something plucked from a romance
novel or a chick flick, something that you deserved
just for being alive...
“You
deserve someone great.”
“Why
don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“Who
wouldn’t want to date you?”
...And
if you didn’t have it, you would eventually. It was something that just had to happen, like death.
After
gushing about her charming new husband, her best friend turned and said, “You’ll
find someone someday.”
“I’m
fine on my own?”
She
wrinkled her nose and laughed a little too loud. “Don’t be silly – everyone wants
to be with someone. Being single by choice?” another laugh erupted from her
throat.
“Well
hear it now – I’m fine, and not in an, ‘I’m fine but really I’m not fine’ way,
I really am fine, and I am allowed to
be fine without someone else to be fine with.”
“Whatever
you say, hon,” she said, staring starry eyed at her golden wedding ring.
Madness.
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