Perhaps it was two nights earlier after logging in
to Manhunt and changing my location to Kensington only to check back and find
no messages. Not even a record of profile views.
I suspect it was earlier, maybe even on the first
day as I wandered in and about Harrods, realizing I wasn't registering as the new
kid old man in town to, well, anyone.
Hell, the moment may have even come before taking
off from YVR as I spotted two gay couples boarding and sensed quite strongly
that that wasn't my lot. At least not in the foreseeable future. I tried to
swat away any defeatist thinking. Your
Stella moment awaits! Get your groove back! Or, if you never had it, then
just get it. And, if not a full-on groove, a slight indentation. A back
scratch.
Whenever it was, it was blessedly early on. Any
notions of finding a prince in this land of palaces, a Mr. Right or Mr.
Slightly Left of Centre evaporated along with any sighting of that notorious
London fog.
Whether I view it as pessimism or realism (even
self-preservation), abandoning any hope of a romantic interlude proved a good
thing. Shaking off all expectations, I felt complete freedom. Isn't that how a
vacation is supposed to be? No goals, no agendas. Seeing what I see. Not seeing
everything else. (Oh, why would I ever want to go to a wax museum?!) The
only man I had a conversation with was a daft Scotsman who'd just witnessed a
woman stumble on a raised portion of a sidewalk near Trafalgar Square. As had
I. Unfortunately, he needed to debrief this exciting event and chatted me up
for two long blocks as I politely nodded--in part, I struggled with his
accent--before I got wise and asked for directions to a place I'd just passed.
Complete U-turn and I was safely all alone once more.
A vacation for an extreme introvert like me mutes
all the people, single and otherwise, and allows a closer pondering of the lone
black swan in the pond at Hyde Park, of the utter nonsense of being a boy king
and of the lives lost while building the fanciful Tower Bridge. I leave London
still single but feeling a greater sense of inner peace.
Bloody hell. Maybe Stella got 'er groove back after
all.
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