A couple of nights ago I had a few guys from my old job over for dinner. This was an unusual thing for me to do because I don't do stuff with guys. I am not particularly fond of guys. Guys in groups do guy stuff and talk about guy shit and given enough time will fuck things up and convince themselves it's a good idea. Vietnam, the Lions Club, Kiwanis Club, the Ku Klux Klan, General Motors, General Dynamics (general corporate bullshit - any table full of corporate execs), Gen. Custer, God-the-Father-ism (and for that matter God-the-Sonism and God-the-Holy Ghostism, Allahism, Yahwehism, Jehovah-ism, Mormonism, L. Ron Hubbardism, McCarthyism), George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Ronald McDonald, the Republican Party, Sarah Palin and, of course, Texas. It's what happens when guys get together. I try to avoid it. That includes dinner with guys. But unemployment messes with a man's life in unexpected ways.
And these were guys I enjoyed working with and work always has been where I spent time with my friends. Work has been my social life for years. So I don't cultivate male-bondage friendships away from work. Never have. The guys who are my non-work friends can't come over for dinner.
There aren't
many; they are old friends and they live in Tennessee, New Mexico, North
Carolina, Wisconsin. Outside of work I enjoy: 1) being alone with my wife and 2) being alone. But now I am jobless and what was once solitude sometimes becomes loneliness. What was once unthinkable becomes thinkable.
So I had the guys from my old job over for dinner, drinks, etc. They're good guys, smart guys. We had a good time. A little whiskey, a little wine, steaks and talk. It was almost like we work together. And we will probably do it again. But did it make me wish I had more guys to hang out with more (or more often)? No. So until we get together again I think I will follow Merle Haggard's advice. I think I'll just stay here and drink.
Because I can. Because I want to. Because I need to. Because sometimes solitude is lonely. Just because.
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