Going to the movies alone has always been the epitome of loneliness, he thought. Sitting alone on the couch in the privacy of your own home wasn't as bad just because the loneliness was yours alone, unseen to others. Going out to the cinemas by himself just seemed to confirm it to the outside world.
All fine in practice, he knew, but when you run out of shows to watch at home, going outside ends up being your only course of action.
So thats how he ended up in line at the local cinema. It was a Tuesday, with the clear view of hindsight he knew he should have waited a day at least, Tuesdays in the nothing week between Christmas and New Years was always going to be busy at the cinemas. Nonetheless, he was there, in a line that snaked through the shopping mall, a line that was too long for a sane man to join.
It should be all fine for now, he thought, everyone else in line would just assume that he was getting tickets for friends. How does one create that illusion, he wondered, should he be periodically checking of the mobile phone for that phantom call, how about a permanent look of annoyance at that fictional friend who was always running late. That friend could even be a female, yes, yes, its a fictional person anyway, lets make it a fictional date.
Fictional dates.
Fictional dates always went smoother in his mind than actual dates. The beauty of a fictional date was that it was all in his control, from the locations, the weather, the woman, her reactions. Sometimes in the stillness of the night he would wonder if these fictional dates had destroyed any real chance he had with anyone whom he could not control.
