single close friend, that it may well be that nobody has ever felt any
deep and abiding affection for me. And that this might well be my fault.
Or perhaps "fault" is not quite the word for it; perhaps I should say
that this fact of friendlessness is due to some fact or facts about me,
that perhaps I'm simply not the kind of person who has friends. That if
it's a skill I'm unable to learn it, if it's a talent I don't possess
it.
It could even be that it's the rest of the people I've been surrounded
by for 40-odd years who are responsible, that I'm alone on a planet of
people who are unable or unwilling to appreciate my "special" qualities.
(This won't be a very popular idea.)
Regardless of responsibility, the facts are that I am alone now and that
I have always been alone. The available evidence indicates also that
this condition is now permanent. If there ever was a time when having at
least one close friend was possible that opportunity will not recur;
however interested I might become in a person it will again come to
nothing. No one is likely to want to be my friend, or at least likely
enough to tolerate or disregard whatever deficiency or disability causes
this condition. The distance is unbridgeable: I am cut off.
This idea is not new, merely the acceptance of it. Years ago and for
many years I railed against this fact, refusing to recognize it as
irrefutable and seeking to escape it. As one might expect if we are
truly a social species naturally inclined to be sociable together.
Assuming of course that I truly am the same species as those who are not
my friends: subjectively it has always seemed that that is not the case,
that I am a species sui generis. Perhaps I'm a mutant, a "sport," a "bad
seed." Or perhaps my space ship crashed and left me stranded here, or
maybe I've blundered over from an alternate universe that I'm unable to
get home to.
Certainly it's always felt that way, ever since I can remember: any hope
I've ever had of not being all alone here had more to do with finding
another such mutant or mutants with whom I might bond reciprocally and
mutually, not that I would ever prove to be a "regular, normal" person.
It did not take me long to learn that one should not strive to surmount
the realm of natural fact, that it's simply not possible for a pig to
fly. (However worthy of flight the pig might be.)
What's changed lately, besides that this knowledge has finally sunk in,
is the realization that however this isolation has felt at times it has
always been possible: however hard to bear it was I have borne it
nevertheless. Regardless of how others might perceive me I have my
persistence to be proud of. I gather that this quality or achievement is
not at all common, that most of those who might read this cannot or will
not say that: you would have been unable or unwilling to endure such a
condition for over 40 years, you would have crumpled and crumbled long
before. You would be reduced to self-abnegation or self-destruction, or
worse, gibbering idiocy.
But I remain. I, I, I am a rara avis. Hear me type: I think it's pretty.
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