Went home to visit family and friends. Buddy invites me to his daughter’s first birthday party and I’m like: Jesus, how long have I been gone. He invited me to his wedding but I couldn’t get the time off to fly home for it. So I forgot he was even married. Now he has a daughter and I’m just — oblivious.

Then my mom, she makes me dinner and we’re hanging out and she not-so-subtly starts rambling about how her friend Terri’s son who is my age got married two years ago and his wife is pregnant. Yeah I get it mom you want grandchildren.

Reflect on my own life. Hook ups and dates and talking stages until I fade out and move onto the next. Fun? Sure. But any human can admit it’s empty after a certain point. And I’m always third or fifth or seventh wheeling my coresidents with their spouses. Deep down I want to feel something again.

But I mean… I don’t go out much. I spend most time in the hospital and I already pseudo-dated one nurse at my hospital. That ended and became awkward. Swore I’d never swim in that river again. The gym, forget it. And dating apps — they feel like a butter knife slowly cutting off my limbs.

So what then.

It’ll be serendipitous, I think.

I’ll be at the grocery store. We’ll both reach for the chobani Greek yogurt at the same time. Our hands accidentally touch. Oh gosh, we think — no, you go first.

No you.

Haha.

We’ll smile at each other then engage in innocent banter. Perhaps I’ll suggest the caramel vanilla flavor. She retorts: you’ll have to try the strawberry sometime. Our eyes will meet and sparks will fly. Then I will ask her if she wants to get a drink.

We’ll meet up for a drink and the conversation will flow like milk into a latte and the chemistry will be electric. Then one day we’ll fall asleep together and lie in bed wrapped in each others’ arms and wake up in a rosy minded fuzz. Stay in bed rolling around all day [kissing], ordering takeout and and curling up to a cozy horror movie and mutually succumbing to this feeling. We date and learn about each other, share our souls — our mistakes and triumphs, joys and fears. Then one day we move in together and get an adorable little puppy, name it something like.. Peter… and enjoy this cohabitation and we get married and “Real Love Baby” by Father John Misty plays as we walk down the aisle while everyone’s cheering and crying in witness of this ceremonious testament of unadulterated love.

Peter is the flower boy. 

But it doesn’t happen like that because when I go to the grocery store it’s after work and I’m exhausted and tired and delirious. I don’t look like the Instagram influencer or TikTok star in pristine scrubs with a bicep pump. In fact my arms are flat and deflated because it’s been all of 96 hours since I last lifted. I look disheveled and my hair is sticking up every which way from that stupid scrub cap. No matter how hard I try to fashion it in the perfect way every time I take it off there’s that fucking piece of hair that’s sticking up damn it. And I try to mat it down but now I just look like an overgrown boy who’s mom forgot to comb his bed-head before school. And I’m too delirious to engage in the wee hallmark banter. And if I get her number I’ll forget I ever got it then remember to text her a week later after the spark of our encounter has totally died. If we do agree to meet up for drinks I either flake due to my lack of mental and physical energy or we hang out once and I genuinely forget to text her for days after because there is nothing I hate more than small talk texting. I’m charismatic in person but when I’m texting someone I don’t really know I probably sound like someone googling “common English phrases” who has no grasp on nuance or charm.

I digress. 

Hey how’s your week going, I type out and forget to send.