Don't promise me forever

The bar was smokey and the din a steady rumble, except when a team sprinted to the goal line and the crowd roared. I stood leaning against the wood paneling as Mr. Pickle sat between his friends. To his right were a couple whose "save the date" magnet had hung on our fridge for months. They were ignoring everyone else, laughing and touching hands, arms, sides. Their touches lingered just a little too long. They flaunted the secret quirks of friends that are lovers.

And I watched Mr. Pickle, oblivious to me. I reached around his front and grabbed a pack of smokes from his pocket and he angrily shrugged me away and muttered it was "too hot," and I shouldn't touch him. I lit a cigarette and backed away into the woodwork. Again.

Last Saturday we went to the wedding. I sipped shirley temples and watched Mr. Pickle chat up a plumber. I made pilgrimages past the open bar to the bathroom and out the automated doors to stand in the humid night, alone, smoking. Contemplating forevers and how weddings are always cause for bothersome introspection about your date. About whether that date will be your forever person. And for me, the inevitable realization that whoever my date is, he's always like the others. A for now person.