Perhaps…
Perhaps he has only glimpsed her… On the street. On the bus.
Perhaps he knew her in a country far far away.
Perhaps they frequently share a train carriage. Or he has seen her profile on a dating site. And he read it, and drank it in. The details that were not present were filled in, unwarranted, unsupported. Yet loneliness is given control far too easily.
The desire, the want, buoyed by sketched-in imaginings, becomes a hope. Hope that provokes a tentative conversation. While the hope was fleeting, in its passing, phoenix-like, it became an expectation. Unwarranted. Unjustified. An entitlement in his own mind, free of the trappings of reality, of normalcy. Of fairness.
The expectation denied, as (of course) it inevitably would be, breeds resentment. Pain. Anger. But, of course, not at the source of the expectation (his own distorted view of reality), but at the source of the desire, misidentified as the person who is a woman, who walks the earth.
The anger leads to other foolish thoughts, which are (at best) self-directed, criticizing himself for foolishly believing that the imaginary perfect woman, dwelling upon the pedestal of his imagination, could ever care for a man as a base as he. This is the best case scenario, error-riddled as it is.
Far better it is to sense the hope in it’s larval stage, to reach out and throttle it, lest it metamorphose into expectation. Identify the want and understand that it is nothing more than a want, that the society that exists beyond himself owes him nothing, regardless of how much the longing screams otherwise. The sense of isolation, of separateness, is over-whelming, yet… This is a far better consequence than hating those who are not responsible for his situation.
These are foolish thoughts, that never cease, but must be managed if he wishes to exist. His thoughts are his alone, certainly he is no exemplar amongst men. Yet to consider him to be unique amongst 3 billion men of the world, or even 1 million men of his city… Tis also a foolish thought.
Like the dude, he abides. The calm veneer, merely that.
[GARD]