Mingling

You know, I don't even know what that means. Mingling. Mingling. Mingling.

Mingling.

Sounds like slithering through some wiggly, non-descript crowd, a conditionless blending.

But I'm not a conformist. In fact, I’m as unconformistic as possible; I’m the guy standing outside the wiggly crowd, and I'm nothing like any of them. However, if you say out loud you’re different, they call you vain — so I keep that to myself.

***

Did you know that men between 25 and 35 are the most anxiety-prone group? Well, you do now. That’s if you read the previous sentence and paid attention, instead of just skimming it absentmindedly, as I would—I can't pay attention to any text longer than a sentence or two.

That's because I've got ADHD. I don't know what that stands for: A is for attention, and one of the Ds for deficit, though I don't know which one.

In plain French, my attention span is fucked up.

I'm also dyslexic, which doesn't help my reading, and dysgraphic, whihc deosn't hlep yousr. Either deal with it or get your figners off my dairy! (Just kidding, I'm using spell checker — who writes their diary with pen and paper these days?)

That's it for today — my attention is drained. Frankly, I'm surprised I even managed to write this much. Streak of beginner's luck, I guess.

***

Anyway, I'm 26 now and belong to this super-anxious group. And it hit me real hard—especially the loneliness. I've never had a partner in my life, and my odds of finding one are shrinking with each passing day. I should be at my fucking prime, but I feel lamer than ever. Where the fuck are you supposed to meet people nowadays?

Disco? Cafe? A railway chance romance?

It’s all Hollywood bullshit. Everyone just stares at their fucking cells and minds their own business, even when talking to people next to them.

What's done is done: At this point, you're either wedlocked or fucked. (Yes, pun intended.)

***

And I'm even more fucked than the rest, because I'm asexual. (Yes, pun intended—I don’t make accidental puns.) To be precise, I'm an asexual biromantic — casually known as ace-biro — which in plain French means I don't give a fuck who I don't fuck with.

And for those of you thinking that I'm making this shit up, tell me why the fuck would I want to have as many labels attached to my sexuality as though it's some obscure bacteria? Do you all seriously believe that trans people enjoy taking those body-transforming hormones just for fun, cause they have nothing better to do? God forbid! (Yes, pun intended—Gods do forbid it.) If they were only doing it for fun, I bet they would rather take cocaine, LSD, or heroin, each to their own taste. (Not to say that hormones are equally harmful as those drugs, but they're certainly less fun.)

***

If the single cis motherfuckers feel stranded at my age, then my boat is trapped under piles of snow on fucking Mount Everest.

Yes, I've tried Tinder, an app that labels a millennium of musical history as "Oprah", at the same time offering a distinction between trap and rap, K-pop and pop. And by the way, I still haven't stumbled upon a single user who picked “Oprah” as their interest.

I've tried Bumble too, an app named after an animal that finds its partner by releasing pheromones in the right sort of flowers. Lucky motherfucker — if only we had such a fail-safe method.

Oh, and have I mentioned how pretty I am? Pretty… ugly.

And even the best-designed dating app wouldn't be suitable for an ugly ace-biro like myself.

Because people are being really stupid about it. Biromanticism means I can eat all the fish in the sea, while asexuality also poses no limitation whatsoever: if any human creature ever finds this Elephant Man sexually arousing, the Elephant Man will be more than happy to visit the biggest sex shop in town and buy all the toys of their preference at his own expense.

***

So I’ve decided to mingle — integrate into this squishy wiggly crowd. Oh, and have I mentioned that I'm an introvert? And that I have social anxiety? And that I have no friends — literally, not a single one?

Well, I am, and I do, and I don’t. Which makes things—you've guessed it—fucked up.

My shrink gave me some pills that relax me enough to have social interactions, but I also suffer from health anxiety, and I’m scared to take them so that they don’t fuck up my already fucked up brain even more.

So I'm down to sleeves-up muscles-down brute-force mingling, like a cripple without his crutches competing in a 100m race. And it’s not Paralympics.

***

My first station: book club.

Although I never read books, I'm the biggest fan of literature there is, and in my opinion, there is no finer profession than that of a writer.

The Monday book club pick was also promising: One Hundred Years of Solitude — as if you piled four copies of my life on top of each other. Moreover, the genre is a family saga, as I learned from the summary.

Tell me you're organizing a singles party without telling me you're organizing a singles party!

I put on my finest sweatpants, shaved the mustache, and trimmed the beard to fit the image of a young Columbian Aureliano, the coolest guy in the book. I borrowed a copy from the library on my way to the cafe, and marked random pages with sticky notes, as though flagging the intriguing quotes.

And, man, was I disappointed! The group consisted of seven middle-aged women, all married, and a couple of their husbands, dragged along by their wives — those two seemed to have read even less than I have.

The meeting was a bloody nightmare. Barely even mentioning the plot, they talked about the “book’s literary significance”, using fancy words like “magic realism” and “saturated with Colombian history”. They dribbled on for half an hour about something called “La Valencia” before continuing to “Banana Massacre”, neither of which was mentioned in the Wikipedia summary I’d read. What fucking toffs!

And they didn't even include me in the conversation, so all the phrases I had learned by heart were totally in vain.

In the end, Aureliano’s lifelong pursuit of victory amounted to little more than a well-conducted failure, carried out with discipline, repetition, and absolutely no result.

***

My second station: Cineclub.

Cinematography is the second-best art form, right after literature. I don't watch movies too often — you’ve guessed it: because of my attention span — but I hold them in the highest regard. And I know a lot about them from TikTok Reels.

Only a fool makes the same mistake twice, so this time I made sure that Cineclub’s Instagram page had many female followers in my age group before attending the event.

The Thursday pick was a movie called Fight Club. Another auspicious title: all of us singles desperately fighting for the few remaining boats on the sinking Ship of Time, like DiCaprio and Winslet on the Titanic. (Told you I know my stuff.)

I smelled trouble as soon as I walked into the hall. I got there early, but no sooner than a dozen people who were already occupying the best seats.

And all twelve of them were men!

In the next few minutes, the hall filled with people, all men, enthusiastically chattering about the movie’s spectacular fist fights, because — apparently — I was the only one seeing it for the first time.

I was about to leave when the two chunkiest guys in the theater plopped on either side of me, squeezing me so tightly they sucked all the air from my lungs. Before I could move, the lights went out, and the screen displayed a Fox 2000 Pictures logo.

The volume was way too high, and I managed to get just enough maneuvering space to stick earplugs into my ears.

And man, what a shitty movie that was! It was about the unnamed protagonist who suffered from insomnia and managed to fall asleep only after gatecrashing the cancer support groups. After a while, he recognized a woman who also suspiciously attended groups for various types of cancer. He confronts her, and together they create a schedule of who attends which meetings so they don't overlap and ruin each other's experiences.

What a load of shit!

And it gets even worse when he meets this violent badass, and they form a Fight Club. That’s when the movie turns so brutal I can’t bear to watch it! I wriggle free from between my human meatballs and make my escape from the theater.

***

My third station: nightclubbing.

I don't even have to mention how reluctant I was to go into a nightclub, given my social anxiety and the repulsion I felt towards those wiggly crowds. The nightclub throng is the very definition of this squishy confirmistic bunch.

It definitely wasn't my cup of tea, but since all my cups have failed me so far, it was a worthy shot.

Knowing that the nightclub excursion will warrant an upgrade to my wardrobe, I bought myself a pair of jeans and a striped shirt. Armed with earplugs and the smuggled bottle of apple juice to pass as cider, I entered the club.

Unlike my previous stations, the nightclub exceeded all my expectations: I managed to stay there — squinting at the wiggly alcohol-intoxicated blur of near-naked bodies through the cigarette smoke that made my eyes sting — long enough to gulp down my apple juice.

Walking home, I felt like a prisoner unshackled for the first time after years of jail time.

***

You know what? Relationships are generally overrated. Sure, they can soothe loneliness, but at what cost? I'll tell you at what cost—the cost of freedom. Sure, most people enjoy having someone to argue with and sleep next to, but I'm not like most people.

Come to think of it, my decision to mingle was definitely not thought through. I like to spend my time alone, and be my own boss; wake up when I want to, go to sleep when I want to, eat what I want, and fart whenever I feel like it; and not a boy or girl in the world would condone all those things. They would tell me I had to fix my bio-rhythm, eat some green rabbit food instead of burgers, move out of my parents' house, find a job, and stop playing CoD till 2 am.

To keep them, I would have to compromise.

And who needs that?

My third and final station: playing CoD until 5 am. Offline, of course, because internet chats trigger my social anxiety.

***

You know what else? I think marriage is an outdated institution, about to become extinct due to technological development. I was born in the worst time ever: if I were born a hundred years ago, I would have been married off to some local country girl, and born a hundred years from today, I would be paired with an AI partner, customized to all my social and (a)sexual needs.

And yes, I changed my mind overnight. Yesterday's entry was the grumble of a defeated man, but I’ve slept it off — I'm putting my gloves back on and returning to the ring: I want a boyfriend/girlfriend and am ready to fight for them, albeit I know absolutely nothing about boxing.

***

Do you remember when I said I didn't have a single friend? Well, I exaggerated a bit; I get along pretty well with my neighbor Dino.

Dino’s uncle died yesterday.

The wiggly throng claims he died of cancer, and we agree on this point. But we disagree on why he got cancer: they claim it’s the genetics, I think it’s because he was alone. That's what decades of loneliness do to you; in his case, fifty-six years.

And the way it's hitting me, I bet I will meet my maker before I'm fifty… unless I find a partner.

My wardrobe was updated once again as I bought a tux, a tie, and a pair of pointed leather shoes for the funeral.

A cold wintry wind was tugging at my tux as I mingled into the mourning crowd listening to a hypocritical preacher, whose claim that the deceased Bill was an honest Christian — of whom Dino had told me he hadn't stepped into the church since his christening — was as valid as his promise of Bill’s soul now peacefully resting in what he called heaven.

When he’d finished, the band played a sorrowful tune that made most people cry. Then we lined up to express our condolences to Dino’s family.

Afterwards, the procession moved through the graveyard, following the band's sorrowful marching beat to the restaurant, where the duck with pastry and Dino’s mum’s home-made baklava had already been waiting for us.

Some people talked about the deceased, telling all kinds of anecdotes; others talked about unrelated topics, complaining about everyday troubles, and some simply cried on their own or in groups — yep, there were actually groups of crying people, like some bizarre group therapy.

I simply stood aside, nipping on my duck drumstick, absorbing this macabre energy.

And I was loving it!

I had to work very hard to suppress surges of happiness rising to my throat and stop myself from laughing out loud. I have finally found a crowd I belong to. Perhaps we weren't mourning the same person, but we were united in our helplessness and misery, and this bath of communal despair was simply irresistible.

When I couldn't take it any longer, I walked onto the forecourt with a plate of baklava in my hand, and — making sure no one was around — knelt on the cold gravel and burst into joyous laughter.

***

Unlike birthdays and weddings, funerals are super easy to gatecrash for a simple reason: the guest of honor is absent, or, more precisely, present as a pile of ashes, very unlikely to accuse you of gatecrashing.

And obituaries and funeral schedules are public and super easy to obtain, so my new addiction was super sustainable.

After expressing condolences to family members on a few occasions without the expected surge of adrenaline, I realized that my ecstasy is reserved for middle-aged male loners. It took me a while to discover the cause of this — I experienced an emotional orgasm by imagining that the dead guy was myself, and that all the people were mourning my tragic death. God, I even feel the chills of excitement as I'm writing this!

My routine soon stabilized: I would flip through the obituaries in the morning newspaper while sipping my coffee, picking the funerals I wanted to attend for the day, and spending the rest of the day at them. An unexpected advantage of this lifestyle was its costlessness, because the deceased’s families provided me with all the food and drink I needed (apart from the seventy cents I spent daily on morning coffee).

I owe the Honoured Reverend an apology: There is a Heaven, and I'm just living it!

***

I've been to twelve funerals so far, and I swear that I picked them without any bias. And you know what I just realized? The average life expectancy of a male loner is fifty-two years.

Fucking fifty-two years. 52.

The average life expectancy of men is 73. I was never too good at maths, but I can tell you two things right off the top of my head:

52 < 73

73 - 52 = 21

A married man will live 21 years longer than a single one! Even more, because if unmarried men are below average, married ones must be above average.

Okay, my sample may be too small to reach that conclusion, but it still makes you think, doesn't it?

***

Okay, I chatted a bit with ChatGPT about this, and it says the difference isn't that drastic. One study found that married people live six years longer, while the other found only two.

Damn! 21+ years would be a powerful motivation to find a girlfriend. Two years isn’t remotely as good a motivator! Especially the two years between 72 and 74 — these will be lame anyway!

***

When I spotted her for the second time, I first felt sorry for her, wondering how awful it must feel to lose two loved ones in such a short period. I got suspicious only on the third funeral we attended together, and when I saw her the fourth time, I was sure: I wasn't the only one with this kink.

She approached me at our fifth mutual funeral, pulling me aside when the crowd lined up in front of the bereaved brother of the forty-nine-year-old Steven.

“Are you into death?” She asked, blowing cigarette smoke straight into my face and sending me into a coughing fit.

“Could you please not do that?” I said when my coughing finally ceased. “I have asthma.”

She thoughtfully blew the next stream of smoke sideways, away from me, but kept staring at me, awaiting her answer.

“Yes,” I admitted. “I'm into death.”

“Whose?”

I understood the question immediately.

“Mine. And you?”

“My step-dad’s. I can't get enough of his funeral. Imagining him inside the urn makes me wet every time.”

This time, I didn't immediately capture her meaning and first thought of her sweating.

“Oh,” I gasped when it finally struck me.

“Cool,” I added, so she wouldn't think I was judging her.

But she looked totally unfazed; she threw the butt away and put it out with her high heel.

“You up for a drink?”

I hesitated a moment.

“Are you real?” I finally asked.

Instead of answering, she grabbed my hand, and together we strolled towards a small cafe, where the preachers, morticians, and other cemetery staff were drinking their afternoon coffee, both knowing that no place on Earth was more suitable for our first date.