It wasn't that I liked being alone, because in fact I dreamed of having what Beverly had referred to in her old-fashioned way as a 'bosom buddy.' I sometimes found myself watching girls chattering away in a coffee shop, talking and laughing, their heads bent together. It looked lovely from the outside. But in my experience, these kinds of relationships always came to an end, usually painfully. Wasn't it better to avoid that pain altogether? Wasn't that pain worse than being lonely?
