Sixty Second Boyfriends Redux

"I know I should not complain because life's been good to me

It feels real good to be stranded on my own

...All you drifters now you've got places to go and people to meet

Watch out for the shifting tide wherever you may travel"

-Gordon Lightfoot

I wake at ghastly o'clock in the morning and, as there are no cabs, walk to the ferry terminal to catch the first boat across to Singapore. Once there I exchange most of money for baht, stop for a "western" breakfast of a runny omelet and some type of ham they're calling bacon, before hailing a cab to Changi.

When my driver hears I need to go to terminal two he says, "Oh, Qantas."

Curses.

He recounts all the plane problems he can recall them having in the last five years until I finally assure him I heard all about their problems when their plane exploded over my school. "I didn't realize they owned Air Asia and Jet Star. I guess that explains why the flights were so cheap."

Turns out, flights are also cheap, because they charge you for any checked in baggage. When I get back in line after paying for my baggage there's a tap on my shoulder.

"I think we've met before," says a middle aged man who looks like he hasn't slept in over a decade.

"No," I say, "I don't think so."

"Yeah, I'm sure of it. Hong Kong I think. You were looking for a good dim sum restaurant."

It's the reporter who described Hong Kong as feeling like living in Bladerunner and was trying to get a desk job.

"Oh my god, tell me you're going on vacation."

He shakes his head. Ho Chi Minh city, he's still on the circuit.

"Where's your boyfriend?"

It takes me a moment to realize he means Matt.

"Oh, he wasn't my boyfriend really. Boyfriend for a day I suppose."

And then I am struck by how inert a human life can be. No matter how fast or far you run, or maybe because we're running too fast and too far, everything stays the same. The scenery may change but the substance of it all remains exactly as it was when you started.

There's an awkward moment where we both stare at each other, calculating. Anyway we add it, it is two years and he is still jumping time zones and I am still singularly alone. In five months of almost daily demands for answers to why I'm not married I have never once felt this way, but for some reason today, a tsunami of pity for us both washes over me. We are pathetic.

The spell breaks as my line moves forward and we call out "Safe travels" to each other as I move along with it losing myself once again in the sea of humanity.