A friend calls…and during the conversation we discuss our working lives, and how it is good to have a job that engages you completely…thoroughly.  A couple friends of mine are taking the Big Detour off their career paths after years, because they aren’t sure they want to spend the rest of their lives in them.  Some friends have been laid off.  Some don’t know what they are going to do with their lives.

Fine.  But that’s not my issue.  Career isn’t crap.  It isn’t.  Neither is money.  Some time ago I did one of those cute little MySpace surveys…and one of the questions was…

28. Would you rather be rich and smart or young and beautiful?
(sigh) Whatever comes with smart. Stupid is not worth being beautiful for. Or rich either.

Okay…  I have another question.  Would you rather have the job of your dreams and be single, or wash dishes at some cheap dive and have your soulmate.

But it’s not rocket science.  Not at all.  Whatever comes with the soulmate, that’s what I want.  That’s all that matters.  That’s it.   That’s everything.  Everything.   I work on the Hubble Space Telescope project.  I make good money.  I own my own house now…and a Mercedes-Benz.  I get five weeks of paid vacation every year.  I make really good money.  I should be counting my blessings.  I should be relishing the good life fate has given me.  And I am miserable.  I’d trade it all…in a heartbeat…for the minimum wage dishwasher job and the soulmate.  In a heartbeat.   In a heartbeat.  And think myself so goddamned lucky.  So very very goddamned lucky…  But life hasn’t given me that choice.  I don’t think it ever will.

I feel like a failure.  I feel like a leftover part.  My friends…they just don’t understand that.  They think I’m making a big deal over nothing.  Some of them have found their other half.  Others have loved and lost, and loved again, and maybe lost again, and are bored with the whole dating and mating thing.  They think I should be so glad to have a good job, and be making good money, and be able to do whatever I want with my free time…because I’m single…

And it’s all the worse when you begin to realize that your friends are telling you all this, because they figure you’re really not boyfriend material, and so they’re trying to be kind to the love cripple.  Just accept being single Bruce…it’s for the best…  You’re not really all that good looking…and let’s face it…you’re getting old…

I hate my life.  I just…hate it.  Thank you god for Tequila..