Bono

The event was held in the basement of a church hall in Chelsea. At first glance, it seemed a perfectly normal get-together by New York standards—until I noticed the athletic woman wearing an ankle-length blue velvet gown and diamante earrings was in fact a handsomely bearded man. Contra dancing was a vigorous and complicated workout. I was hopeless at it and was soon panting on the sidelines. Lydia was awash with suitors asking her onto the floor. She accepted all invitations, and I was delighted to see how much she was enjoying herself.

Content to drink in the spectacle on my own, I hardly noticed an approaching male. He was unusually short with charcoal hair scraped into parallel lines.

“So you hate dancing, too, do you?” he asked.

As he sat down next to me he exuded moroseness. It didn’t worry me. In these grindingly positive times, I find the company of melancholics refreshing.

“I’d like it more if I was fitter,” I replied.

We fell into mutual silence. Fear of sadness has become a global phobia. The moment someone is unhappy, people send them off to get antidepressants instead of sitting down and talking to them, which in many cases, is probably all they need. Without sadness, life would be flat and superficial like a roadside billboard. It would become impossible to appreciate joy. Besides, every great artist has found inspiration in pools of sorrow.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

I told him.

“I’m from the Upper West Side,” he said. “My ancestors were from Albania. Everyone in New York is from somewhere else.”

I quaffed my nonalcoholic cordial as he unraveled the story of his life, a string of disastrous romances. During a lull in his monologue, he turned his mournful face toward me and asked my marital status.

“Twenty-two years!” he said in a tone that implied I’d confessed to keeping a basement full of sex slaves. “How can anyone be married twenty-two years?”

I didn’t like to say it was a question I’d been pondering, and that I was taking a sabbatical from my own marriage to figure out the answer. Instead, I told him the basis of a long marriage is about hoping the other person forgives your faults. In return, you try to overlook theirs.

“That wouldn’t suit me,” he said, shaking his head.

I agreed it wasn’t for everyone.

“I want one hundred percent passion, sex, and romance,” he said, warming to his theme. “For it to just fade into the two of you staring at your phones over the dinner table . . .”

He threw up a hand in disgust. The man had a point. As Michaela and Gene spun past, locked in each other’s gaze, it occurred to me that perhaps they had the ideal relationship. Though they lived in separate apartment buildings, they’d been together for fifteen years. In their case, it seemed a little personal space kept the oxygen flowing through their romance.

“Wanna know what my problem is?” he said, not waiting for an answer. “I’m lonely.”

New York’s a loner magnet. I’d heard some people go to live there specifically because they crave solitude. They’re convinced they can live more quietly on an island crammed with 72,000 people per square mile than one populated by a single coconut tree. Still, there’s a difference between being alone and loneliness. Personally, I could think of nothing more appealing than being alone and free in this dazzling city.

“Everyone’s alone to some extent,” I said. “Even if you meet your soul mate and spend blissful decades together, one of you has to die first.”

He didn’t seem convinced.

“Besides, when you love someone you’re always putting them first,” I added. “When my mother was dying of cancer she spent her time reassuring the rest of us she wasn’t in pain and everything was going to be okay.”

“Guess it took her mind off things,” he said.

“Sex and passion’s fine, but there’s only one person you’ll go to bed with every night of your life,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one.”

“It’s a good insurance policy,” I said. “If nobody else warms to us, we can at least like ourselves.”

“But I do love someone,” he said. “Wanna know who that is?”

There was no need to answer because he was going to tell me anyway.

“My dog.”

I was immensely relieved. I took his happy confession as confirmation he wasn’t trying to pick me up. Also, the fact he had the sensitivity and wisdom to appreciate the love of an animal meant he was probably going to be okay.

“She has the most amazing personality,” he went on. “We go for walks twice a day, and she’s always waiting for me when I come home. She has this funny, sad face. When my uncle died last year she just knew it. She slept on my bed every night. She’d do anything for me . . .”

I patted the man’s hand and said how happy I was for him. Then it was back to the dance floor for another round of dosi-dos, swings, and allemandes. I loved dancing with happy strangers who were no longer strange at all. Accepted and yet alone in a primal soup was exactly where I needed to be. And yet, I wondered how long the elation was going to last . . .