i guess resistance is futile

I overheard two women chatting in a restaurant at lunch today.  I know it’s not polite to eavesdrop, but I can blame it on being a writer and my interest in people and dialogue.  Anyway, I pretty much ignored the two of them until I heard one of them say she had been to see her fortune-teller.  I stopped devouring my burger and leaned back in my chair under the pretence of stretching my belly to accommodate the 16oz of meat I was stuffing into it.

They were telling the same story I’ve been hearing for the last 8 years: there are no more good men left on this planet! And all the good woman are left to pick over the scraps in hopes that there might be some redeeming quality about them.  I can’t turn around to see what these women look like and one is a low talker and the other a high talker so I’m only getting half the story.  The fortune-teller tells her some stuff that’s not all that interesting.  The story ends with the high-talker resigning herself to her fate: “I’ve come to a point in my life where I just have to accept who I am,� she sighs.

Her words were heavy as if soaked in the sadness of believing that she could never have the life she wants.  Instead, she must settle for whatever she can get.  That to me sucks.  And I wonder what has she been through that she has come to this point in her life.

I watch them go up to pay their bill and the one friend strokes the arm of her friend in a gesture that says, ‘I feel you.’

I feel her too, now.

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