e - I want to be one of those people

I want to be one of those people; you know the ones, who hold hands
in the street and sleep next to each other? I want to be one of them. A
girlfriend, a wife, a lover. I want to be cuddled to sleep and needed
by someone. I want to be one of those people. I'm unwrapping my
thirtieth mingle and turning up the volume on Bridget Jones' Diary
while adjusting the dozing cat on my lap. There is no testosterone in
this room, this house, this life; just a chronic oestrogen and
progesterone mix of disappointment and tears. Just me and a cat and
sole use of the television remote control. I want to be one of those
people though, more than anything, more than a new pair of shoes, or a
silver sports car with a soft top roof, more than all the latest
everything with ten years warranty and free insurance. I'm constantly
prepared to be one of those people, but somehow it never happens to me,
not anymore. It's as if I was only allowed the chances I've already
wasted. I just want to be loved. Maybe I'll buy another cat? I'll call
it Gary and pretend it's my boyfriend when I mention him in general
discussion. Then when the neighbours' kids find me feeding Gary from a
ceramic bowl in the shape of a fish on the floor in my kitchen I'll beg
them not to tell and bribe them with promises of free chocolate
biscuits. But eventually it'll come out that I've been having an
imaginary (they hope) relationship with an animal and I'll start
therapy. Good time filler, therapy. The RSPCA will probably ban me from
owning any more pets, so I'll sit on my own with the tv remote and
slowly heat the sofa into the shape of my flabby torso until the day
when they come to take me away in a wooden box. They'll notice the
empty packets and tins and the piles of plastic wrappers and shake
their heads in professional sympathy while inside they'll feel like
laughing. And I'll just have wanted to be one of those people. I'll
just have wanted to hold someone's hand.