When you're not alone but you still feel lonely

It was late afternoon.  Sunlight was ebbing out of the room where I lay, my heart aflutter with awe and wonder from the poem I’d just read.  My husband-to-be was in the next room, absorbed in a science fiction novel by an author whose name I hadn’t bothered to remember.  I wanted to share the poem with him but it seemed impossible to articulate why it had moved me.  I worried he would act disinterested.  (Truth be told, on his list of favourite activities, reciting rhyming couplets ranks below watching movies with explosive car chase scenes, dunking basketballs, playing Mario Kart 64 and eating beef tacos).  I sat and stewed on all our differences.  The room grew darker.  Those few metres of distance between us seemed to open up into a gaping chasm. 

Unaware of the divide that had suddenly come between us, the boy closed his novel and sauntered into the living room, stretching his arms and wondering what to eat for dinner.  I burst into tears. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I feel so lonely”, I wailed, cradling the slim volume of poems to my chest. 

“But I’m right here”, he replied, utterly bewildered.

It’s possible to feel alone even when someone’s right next to you.  I have felt intensely lonely squashed into a swaying train with hundreds of tired commuters during rush hour in Tokyo.  At my graduation ceremony, I looked across the sea of my classmates with their mortarboards perched at jaunty angles on their heads and thought, “I’m the only one here who doesn’t know what to do with my life.”

When I was single, I knew marriage would be hard work but secretly believed that my relationship would be different; I’d be bestowed with such a solid, fulfilling marriage that loneliness would be unknown to me.  I thought my husband would understand me completely. He’d anticipate my moods and comfort me with quotes from my favourite writers and KFC.  We would, with the perfect balance of passion and respect, debate philosophical ideas across the kitchen counter while he seared salmon in the pan.  He’d email me articles from The New Yorker that he thought I’d enjoy.  He’d know when I needed to be alone but hurry to my side when I craved company. 

In other words, I assumed I’d marry a man who could read my mind.

And somehow, I ended up with a man who is, well, a man.    

He’s a guy who is surprised by my tears; who pulls out his iPad to play Bejewelled without noticing that I’m clearing my throat to discuss my feelings.  I unwittingly pursue serious conversations when he needs downtime; irk him by scoffing at implausible plots during his favourite TV shows.  We’re different and sometimes we misunderstand each other.

Nevertheless, in a few months, I’ll promise to share his toothpaste, adopt his surname, let him read my credit card statements and make space in my wardrobe for his clothes, for the rest of my life, knowing that our vows won’t cure my loneliness forever.

Perhaps it wasn’t loneliness I felt that afternoon but something intensely personal that even a poetry enthusiast could not comprehend.  My future husband ignored the chasm that I had imagined between us, wiped away my tears and drove us to the beach where we were amused by a pair of Labradoodles trotting along the dunes.  We may not swoon at the same things but at least we can laugh together.