So I'm single.

This is not news, nor is it a particularly bad thing. when talking to my roommate today the concept of being single came up. We were discussing people who claim to be single by choice. This was quickly dismissed as a lie told by guys who had been single for too long and were trying to rationalize it.

however upon further thought, this doesn't have to be the case. I suppose one could choose to be single. Being single is easy. It can be fun. But it can also be lonely.

I'm not a physical person. I'm not comfortable touching people or being touched. I'm pretty good with handshakes, and I can fake hugs well but they're not exactly pleasant. When I'm in a state of being that could be called not single, I have somebody I can touch; somebody who can touch me.

I can understand why people have hook-ups and one night stands. Physically feeling somebody is an incredible experience. Most of the time people live in a vacuum, they are the only living thing in the world. In Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy, the protagonists meet a man who knows what he is sure of. The only thing he can be sure of is the present. Everything else is only in his mind. This is how people are weather or not they know it. It is impossible to be 100% sure of anything outside of our current experiences, and even those are suspect. someone (possibly Heinlein) once said "there is only one sense, touch. The others are all simply extensions." I take this one further and say that the others are lesser than the primary. thus when we touch somebody our perceptions and another's interact as closely as they possibly can. Somebody else said "we are all born alone and we die alone." We walk though life alone and when we touch somebody else somebody alive, we are that much closer to not actually being alone. We can feel experience and understand being with somebody. those moments of being not alone are few and far between. Cherish them.

I miss being touched.  ¶ 8/23/2007 01:57:00 AM