Diary,
There’s nothing like Valentine’s Day to remind the single male that he’s riding as solo as a witch. I could go on a date every day of the year, but if come Valentine’s morning and I happen to be alone, I might as well be gazing into my future through a crystal ball. This single day in February becomes a microcosm of my later days in life. A life with no wife, no kids, no grandkids… nothing to commemorate my existence on earth.
In that crystal ball I see a man hunched with age and brittle bones, sitting quietly on his front porch, sipping at a cup of cold cocoa he’s too feeble to walk into the house and warm, feeding thankless birds, and chasing children off his lawn. I see the mothers accompanying those children herding their charges away from the grumpy old codger lest he flings his dentures at them.
At such times I wonder whether my lineage dies with me, seeing as I’m an only child.
To avert this foreseeable future, I’d have to negotiate a deal with a woman. A deal permanent enough to ensure the production of a brood of my own, and hopefully they too reciprocate and the chain continues.
That would mean conveniently forgetting every bad thing that’s happened in my previous relationships, giving up my freedom, compromising my career goals, consulting on just about every decision I make (including what I eat and drink and wear), disregarding all the unfavourable divorce statistics in the news, and abandoning my alternative lifestyle to join the herd.
Seems to me like the nays have it.
To most of you who see matters in a different light, I encourage looking into the future not through a crystal ball but through another glass. Like a glass of Stone-Cold stinger, an equal pour of Jägermeister, Goldschlager, and Rumple Minze. A combination of this and equally miserable company, lays bare the future like a well-read book.
“You know what?” says my friend Ethan Azizi, a successful tech entrepreneur drinking with me on Valentine’s evening. “Screw Valentine’s, okay? Who needs a date with a woman anyway? Soon there’ll be more Amecas than women in the world and a robot will never be jealous or question why you came home late. Cheers!”
But this is little consolation. The only reason Ethan is here and wishing he’d marry a humanoid robot is because his flesh-and-blood date failed to show. Maybe it’s time I heeded that evil crystal ball after all.
