I need friends

I say the words, silently, hear them echo in my mind. There's no cause for self pity, but I do have to face the facts.

I need friends, new friends.

I'm a fresh yet quintessential loner. My free-time options are being home alone, or being in town alone.

I've perfected the art of eating alone; buying a French crepe on Ben- Yehudah, spread with chocolate and nuts, and nibbling at it as I window shop. That's better than finding an empty table at the pizza place, watching the other people there, eves-dropping on their conversations, while biting and chewing down a necessary supper as fast as possible.

How did I get here, to this lonely place? I may not be a social butterfly, but I'm no sociopath either.

And I do have friends! I consider printing it in bold marker pen letters on a folded piece of cardboard, placing it by me as I eat alone. "I have friends." Just they are married you see. Almost all of them. They can't hang out any more.

I never bothered to make new friends, when the old ones cleared the ranks. Because I didn't need new friends, my current ones were great, so what if they were married? Soon I'd be married too and we could go shopping for Shaitels together. Besides, changed marital status is no reason to end a friendship.

And when do I even have the time, the opportunity, for meeting new girls? Every spare moment, every gram of physical and emotional energy, goes on meeting guys.

I sometimes bump into girls my age, at Shiurim and in Shul. Though I should call them women; they are all married, usually pushing a stroller, or holding a toddler by the hand. They won't go hitchhiking across Europe with me, or even pop out for a milkshake. They are no more use than my old friends.

Perhaps there are single girls out there, hiding in the crevices. Perhaps I should search for them, set out on a mission. Perhaps I should even move from suburban-family-land to central-singles -city, and start bonding with female roomies.

The truth is though, that once I discovered the exciting and exotic other sex, with all its quirks and complexities and endless differences, well, girls just seem boring after that. Too like me. All you end up doing, with girls, is talking about guys.

But guys aren't the solution either. The guys I date, they come and go. The other guys, the platonic friendship ones, they often end up being complicated, or even just akward when I'm dating someone else. In any case, I can't go to Europe with a guy, I can't go shopping with him, or swimming at the beach.

I need friends, new friends, girl friends.

But I don't know where to find them. And I'm not trying very hard. Because I don't want them. I want a new guy friend. A husband friend. A friend who's forever.