I wrote this in a longer email to a friend several years ago and felt like sharing it here. I still look at those guys sitting in late-night donut shops and get a bit scared sometimes...
now, i like to think that i won't remain an underpaid, single, living-below-my-means, almost-35-with-no-steady-relationship-to-speak-of english teacher forever, but sometimes i worry. ok, lately, i worry about that *a lot*. especially when i ride muni at night and see these obviously single and lonely men in the 30s and 40s and beyond, riding back to their no-doubt rented rooms in the sunset cos they can't afford a place of their own, having neither the financial independence or the combined income of cohabitation to rely on. i don't want to become one of those guys, dammit. nor do i want to end up one of the sad, lonely-looking old men you see sitting in flourescent-lit coffee shops sipping coffee at 1am in the morning because they don't want to be alone in their squalid rented rooms or worse, have no squalid rented room to be alone in.