The Bachelor

Henry spent a lot of time worrying. His job was frustrating and seemed mostly meaningless. His body was gradually changing in perfectly ordinary, embarrassing ways: time and biology were conspiring to turn him into his father's lazy twin. His friends were dwindling in number. Their conversations were mostly about children and spouses. They seemed charming at first, if a bit formulaic, but quickly devolved into conspiratorial whispering or angry complaining about the gulf between how things were supposed to be and how they actually were.

For a while, other people seemed eager to persuade him to conform, to obey tradition and convention--to become like them. "Suffering is leavened by sharing," Henry thought.

Blind dates were arranged. Friends introduced him to women he "might hit it off with," most of whom were as awkward and uncomfortable at mediocre dinners or movies as he was. He listened to his nieces arguing in the background as his sister quizzed him about his life over the phone and shuddered. He was happy to be an uncle, but secretly happier that he had not become a father.

Still, he worried. Perhaps he could have worked things out with Chelsea. Maybe Liz had been the right one after all. He had enjoyed joking with her parents that Christmas in Denver. He must have her number somewhere...

But, as he groped in his desk drawer for that elusive number, he realized something. Other people succumbed to routine normalcy out of cowardice or sloth. Herd psychology was not for him. Instead of worrying anxiously that his life had amounted to nothing, Henry began to suspect that escaping from standard ways of being was his special power.

Beaming, he vowed to turn fretful solitude into a thrilling adventure, and became The Bachelor!