So I'm sitting with my friend I haven't seen since December. It's around 9 at night, we're sitting at the glass table in the living room over plates of freshly baked double fudge brownies (my idea). The high ceiling in the room feels higher than usual. I find the light in the room too dim for the bigness of the room.

She asks me how I'm doing. I talk about work. Work always seems to come first when anyone asks how I am. Work is good. I'm not just exchanging pleasantries, it really is, even with my sometimes odd schedule and the stress.

How is everything else going?

At this point I am not as ready with an answer. I know what she's getting at. Should I tell her that all has not been well on the social/emotional/spiritual front in the past three months? I don't know if she really wants to know about Saturday nights spent alone, disillusionment, and grasping at the remnants of friendships. A little bit of it dribbles out and I find myself getting emotional, because I almost never talk about this. I am lonely and it bothers me. I admit it but don't get too detailed.

I don't know how much she can relate. My friend is engaged to be married, and she and her counterpart are always together, it seems. It's rare that she and I hang out alone like tonight. I don't even think of her and her fiance as separate anymore, I just kind of assume that her fiance will be there at whatever she happens to be doing. Their names are fused together in my mind, like "Brangelina." She mentioned earlier that he cooks for her all the time. That sounds nice to me.

I wonder if that is the exact thing missing from my life, a hole in my heart where that kind of relationship would fit. Am I jealous of what she has? Saturday nights wouldn't be spent alone, I probably wouldn't be so dried up emotionally. But even at this lonely point it seems a bad trade. In my mind I'm not the kind of person who wants to be joined at the hip with anyone, however special that person may be.

I don't feel comfortable asking her, do you ever get annoyed with living so close to someone? I want to but it seems too intimate of a question, especially when I have shared so little myself.

Her attempt to engage me in some girl-talk comes to an end, and we start talking about books. I tell her about Reading Lolita in Tehran, and I actually sound excited. She tells me how she loves Cormac McCarthy's books, which I have decided I don't want to read without having even skimmed through any of them. Something to do with seeing the author on Oprah.

She leaves at 10 p.m. I was enjoying the conversation and wanted it to continue for longer, but oh well. I pack up the brownie plates and put them in the sink. I turn off the light in the living room and go upstairs. Work tomorrow, I should go to sleep...