At the movies

Last Thursday, A. and the boys took some friends up to the cabin for an overnight.  This left me with a night all to my own.  I decided to go to a movie, even though it felt weird and a little wrong.  For me, movies have always been something you do with others, a convenient reason to get a group together or a good date activity.  Movies really are custom made for the introvert in me.  Unlike a party, where you're expected to mingle and engage in some degree of conversation, a movie demands just the opposite.  Perfect.  If I've got to go out with a group of people, let's do a movie.  I can sit quietly with the best of them.

Still, it felt strange and a little extravagant to go to a movie alone.  I got there early so there would be plenty of seat choices.  I've always been a little suspicious of the loners I see in the theater.  I'm even more uncomfortable when they sit down next to me or the group I'm with.  I didn't want to be that guy so I got there first.  After I found a seat that was generally in the middle of the theater, I relaxed a little and checked my watch - plenty of time.  As I sat there, the theater slowly filled and I thought about the concessions and the bathroom, places I would surely have visited if I had someone with me to save my seat.  Instead, I sat there and tried not to take an inventory of all the liquids I had enjoyed that day.

The movie I saw was rated R, a far cry from the G and PG movies I usually see with the boys in the theater.  When selecting a movie, I looked for one that was not aimed at kids and that I wanted to see and that I figured A. would have no interest in.  For once, I thought, I was going to a movie that did not star some sort of computer-generated talking animal - I think the last one was guinea pigs.  Once the movie began, any discomfort about being alone dissipated and I enjoyed myself.  It did occur to me, though, that many of the main characters in the movie I chose were computer-generated talking aliens.