Verified by 
I worry about the how-to article's pontification and aridity. So in some recent posts, I've genre-bended: I've attempted to embed a psychological issue within a short-short story, for example, Slick WIlliam and Average Jane. Here is today's offering.
As usual, Charlie had to race from his office at the Manhattan Community Mental Health Center to make the 5:05 bus. Out of breath, he sardined himself among the strap hangers. Although he had so often told himself he was done with women, he couldn't resist looking to see if someone even vaguely attractive would replace her flat, often angry-looking demeanor with even a hint of of warmth toward him. But as usual, nothing.
So Charlie turned his attention inward, to all his previous relationships. He involuntarily dropped his head as he replayed his failure after failure: How often he had been rejected. How his efforts to be more assertive only backfired. How, in desperation, he asked out women he wasn't attracted to and who had serious emotional issues. He grimaced when he relived his poor sexual performance again and again.
But then Charlie thought, "I can't stand the idea of living forever on my $15/hr, 29-hour-per-week pay as an "adviser" at the clinic, helping drug-addicted and/or mentally ill people survive. I can't afford social-work school, let alone a doctorate, which, after all the cost and lost income while in school, might not net me that much more money. After all, in New York, it seems there's a psychologist under every rock. Maybe I do need to keep to keep looking for Ms. Right. Not just for the money--I couldn't stand to think of myself as a gold-digger but because I can't picture myself living alone or with roommates forever. And I might like to have a child. Would I be a good father? A good husband even with the right woman?"
Engrossed, Charlie almost missed his stop but managed to scramble off the bus before the door closed. As he plodded home, he thought, "Should I forget about women, maybe date a little but that's it? Should I find some way to go to grad school, maybe part-time while I'm working, take out lots of loan? Who knows? Maybe that's a better place to meet Ms Right. Should I ask my friends yet again to set me up on dates? Should I work on my OK Cupid profile? Or should I stop all this thinking and just let it happen?"
The takeaway. If you were Charlie, what would you do? If you knew a Charlie or a Charlene, what would you ask?
Marty Nemko's bio is in Wikipedia. His new book, his 8th, is The Best of Marty Nemko.
