Cold Comfort

Single life is actually genius. You kiss whoever you want, you come home at four in the morning falling down drunk and nobody cares, you never have to wonder if maybe you could do better. It’s real freedom, the kind people spend their whole lives talking about and never actually getting.

Then winter comes and you remember why people pair up in the first place. You want someone warm next to you on the couch. You want to cook for someone. You want wine and a fire and the kind of small comfortable silence that only happens when there’s someone else in the room. The cold is designed for two people, apparently.

So February hits and suddenly the whole internet is drowning in couple photos. People kissing in snow, wrapped in blankets, looking perfect and happy and everything you’re not currently experiencing. It’s a specific kind of targeted sadness, marketing romance to people who can’t afford it right now.

I can look at those pictures for a minute or two. There’s something almost beautiful about watching other people be happy together. But past a certain point they just feel like a reminder of what the trade-off actually is: all that freedom you love, against warmth and company and someone to sit with while things get unbearably cold.

The joke at the end of it all is to walk outside and physically shove the happy couples around. But the real answer is just waiting it out. The cold doesn’t last forever. Neither does this particular ache.