Ten years ago:
A young man sits at the edge of the playground, watching everyone else have fun. In fact, he sits at the edge of everything; he doesn't understand how to talk to people, boys think he's weak and girls think he's creepy. They're probably right. So he hides where nobody can see him during the mercifully short breaktimes, and goes to chess or art club during lunch so he doesn't have to be near most of the other people, and he spends a whole lot of time trying not to cry or show how lonely and bored he is.

Last night:
A young man sits at the edge of the dance floor, watching everyone else have fun. He sips the drink from the round he bought and suddenly remembers the other young man from a decade ago, whose position was so similar and yet so very different to his now. Right now, he's sitting this one out because he's tired, he's been up all day organising the social events of the weekend, he was drinking the night before too, and his mate wants to try to cop off uninterrupted.

He remembers the other young man.

He realises that right now he has chosen to exclude himself.

And the knowledge that I have that choice now makes me smile wider and laugh harder than I have in a long, long time.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Mon 9 Aug 2010, 11:15, 6 replies)

By Falstaff
aged 53.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 9 Aug 2010, 11:41, closed)

Hahaha!
Too-shay, sir. It is a rather po-faced post, but I was revelling in having grown up.

So nyah boo sucks to you.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Mon 9 Aug 2010, 12:22, closed)

No I just liked the idea
of a middle aged man sitting crying by a playground, complaining that the girls found him creepy.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 9 Aug 2010, 12:32, closed)

PERSNAL EPIFANNY IS SRS BIZNESS
So stop making me laugh so damn hard.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Mon 9 Aug 2010, 12:42, closed)

This
is worrisome!
( Rev. Jayneflakes Buy my book, I need the cash for drugs and hookers, Mon 9 Aug 2010, 12:55, closed)

Well, just for the record, that was only a joke
and I'm exactly half the stated age.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Mon 9 Aug 2010, 18:58, closed)