Niches are big worlds
Birthday Boy
When Mr. Roberts was a boy, a raggedy one at that, he thought he had many friends until that birthday.
He invited many. One showed up. They waited for more, bounced balls, traded cards, but nobody else arrived. Then it was time. His mother drove them to the waterpark. A long, fidgety drive trapped within four doors and a shame neither chutes nor splashes nor chlorine could dissipate.
For many years, he didn’t know how to respond. To try harder or stop trying. So he did both. Strove to make everyone like him and never held another birthday. Both efforts failed.
The memories of children, acute.
Then college. A new beginning. Good looks and alcohol dressed a desperate boy as a Manic Pixie. But the ignominy never left. When he lingered around for long, people felt it in their bones. So he ran.
Far from home, he found his own. People who jetted from failure.
He started dating. He began to birthday. He figured girlfriends had to come to his big day and would invariably bring friends. Low risk. But fear of being alone on your birthday wasn’t a great basis for relationships.
If only two more people had come that day, he would have spared others a lot of pain.
“He was sick to death of it all, that town, his job, his mother’s lectures and his cousin’s digs, sick of the life he led, and he wanted to be free, free goddammit, that was his life goal, and he’d only just figured it out.” Paradais
“Suburbia, where ‘men are seldom seen in the light of day’” Mrs Bridge
“That is the art world, approximately 10,000 souls—a mere hamlet!—restricted to les beaux mondes of eight cities.” The Painted Word
“Or are you gonna stay ... and play ... in L.A.” Less Than Zero
“In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.” Great Expectations
“Online you can meet people, hang out, hook up, meet your soulmate, but it’s not a community. In a real community bonds are hard to dissolve and antagonisms must be sustained, there’s continuity, and unavoidable neighbors.” Rejection
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