How many of you folks manage to spend quality time with your friends?? I'm talking about unmarried folks of course. I presume that once a person's married, they'd be hanging out with their spouse, whether willingly or unwillingly.

No, i mean how many of you actually spend considerable amounts of time with friends, in person, talking, sitting, walking, dancing, drinking, eating, watching movies, plays, etc, etc??

You lucky lucky bastards!!

It only strikes me once in a while, how much of a pleasure it is to spend time with friends, good friends. And it only strikes me once in a while because it only happens to me approximately two evenings a month.

You might think that since it happens so rarely, that i look forward to them. But you would be wrong.

You wait and you wait and you wait, but it never happens. So you just stop waiting. One can only live in hope for so long before despair sets in.

You do whatever it is you have to do to try and fill the void. You learn not to expect anything. So that when it happens, it's a pleasant surprise. And after the all too brief experience, you resign yourself to another decade of nothingness. Why not a decade? After all, that's what it feels like.

And i just read something cheerful. Dammit!! I was going to do another para on how incredibly difficult it is to find friends one can actually talk to. Someone you'd have no hesitation in calling, at any time of the night or day. Someone who'd be happy to talk to you and listen to you. I guess those are the kind of friends that you have to have known for many years and spent a lot of time with in person. And i am so very curious to know how that is even possible, for someone leading the life i do.

But no.

The mood has passed..

That's a story for another day.