Falling Fortresses

You might know that I spend a good chunk of my life in coffee shops—kinda like an episode of FRIENDS, except that I don’t look like Jennifer Aniston, and actually manage to get real work done. It’s a sanctuary; a place where I can get away from it all, and yet not feel entirely alone. It’s part of my happy-place, where I feel safe and secure, right at home.

At least I did, until today.

I just got back home reeking of nutty-mocha after an annoyingly long time spent talking to this crazy woman. She’d invaded my sanctuary, and what began as a pleasant-enough conversation soon devolved into an extremely unpleasant question-answer session; where I was the one under the gun, and almost had to keep defending my life choices: “why I am where I am” and “how I’ve gotten here” and …

At the outset, let me say that she was no one to be questioning me. Yet she did, almost demanding responses, and I—the fool—tried to appease her. It’s never happened before, but I actually felt insecure and helpless, grasping at straws in a place I usually feel so secure.

Long story short—I know that this might come as a shock to the crazies in the audience—but hasn’t it ever occurred to you that someone might be single because they haven’t come across another person who truly excites, inspires, connects with… completes them? Is it so wrong to be picky, or patient? Why does it always have to be psychoanalysed from the point of view of being a character flaw? Don’t you get that I might just not be into the people you seem to deem as perfect?

Anyway, unable to explain any of this, I spent an entire afternoon fending-off one line of questions after the next, just waiting to get out of there and retreat to my last-standing castle; my bed where I write this.

Postscript: Come to think of it, she probably wasn’t all that crazy. Maybe I was just not ready to deal with the sorts of things she was grilling me about. But this is my journal, and “she was crazy” is the story I’m sticking with.

2 thoughts on “Falling Fortresses”

  1. Well, why didn’t you ask HER some questions?

    And no, it’s not wrong to be picky or patient…as long as you don’t judge others who aren’t…quite tough to do ;)

  2. I don’t know. It just didn’t cross my mind.

    I normally don’t need to ask (or get to say very much in general), because people seem comfortable opening up and spilling their guts to me. It’s like I exist entirely in the capacity of an available ear, and shoulder to lean on.

    I try not to judge other people who aren’t, but I’m often uneasy when I feel they’re clearly settling for someone “subpar”—just because they were sick of waiting. That, I can’t help but feel, is stupid.

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