Looking for Confidence - Company not Required

Part title

Her favourite way to spend her free Sunday afternoon was to sit at a coffeeshop for a few hours, reading a book and watching people. Sitting back and observing other people as they went about their daily lives somehow relaxed her. She liked catching some of their conversations and picturing the stories behind them: the fireman getting excited about his upcoming ballet recital, the school teacher with a secret foot fetish and the elderly woman recovering from her pole-dancing injury. With no one to talk to, she could let her imagination run wild and she had discovered over the years that she had quite a vivid imagination. It was probably a good thing all those people had no idea about all the strange hobby's that she had awarded to them.
But it wasn't just people she liked to watch. She had found animals to be equally fascinating. She could spent an entire day at the zoo, while only visiting a few enclosures. She had become a pro in finding just the right spot to quietly observe the animals. Every now and again her view would be blocked by a family trying to spot the animals, but once they had gotten a good enough picture to make other people jealous on Facebook, they would move on, leaving her alone with the animals again. She had grown very fond of the elephants. The versatility of their trunk continued to amaze her. And seeing the baby elephant running to keep up with his parents, with his ears heavily flapping, made her smile every time. But her favourites had to be the monkeys. If you paid close attention, you could see the similarities with the human world with all the playing, bickering and grooming going on.
In a zoo, she never really felt alone – something she couldn't say for an amusement park, but she didn't let that stop her from going. What she loved about amusement parks, was that feeling of being submerged in a whole new world. Amusement parks weren't just a bunch of rides. It was like going to an alternate universe, one that was inhabited by fairies, pirates and talking animals. She loved the attention to detail that they put into an attraction. Everything was aligned with the chosen theme, from the decorations on the wall up to the lighting in the ceiling. Even the trash bins would be in style. Going to an amusement park on her own always gave her ample time to study all those details, especially when there was a long lineup for a ride. But she didn't just study the details; she studied the people in the lineup as well. The conversations would be different from the conversations in the coffee shops. They often revolved around the plans for that day: which ride to go to next, whether they would go to the cafe just outside the ride or to the restaurant at the other side of the park, and - her favourite - whether the kid was going to behave or whether they would be forced to leave. The irony never escaped her. A day at the amusement park was usually something the whole family looked forward to. Yet at the end of the day, kids would be crying, mom would be raising her voice trying desperately not to loose her patience, and dad would suddenly become obsessed with his phone in an attempt to block out his wife and kids. She knew that it wasn't nice to find joy in other people's misery, but those moments made being alone hurt less.
These feelings weren't something she easily shared with her friends or family. She didn't like to show her vulnerable site. But most of all, she already knew what their response would be: she should start internet dating. If she would have gotten a penny for every time someone had made that suggestion - well, she wouldn't be rich, but she could definitely afford a decent cup of coffee. People seemed to think that if you couldn't find a partner in real life, you should turn to the internet: success guaranteed. Sure, she knew some people that had found their significant others online and seemed happy, even living together for several years already. But she believed those people to be an exception. Not that she had any facts to base her opinion on or even any real experience for that matter. Her only experience with online dating had been a week several years ago – you should try everything at least once. But it had been enough for her to form an opinion.
It had all started with filing out the information about herself. You would expect it to be simple. After all, she had known herself for many years now. So how hard could it be? But it hadn't been about just listing some random facts. It had been about 'selling herself', making her stand out between all those other 'fun', 'easy-going' and 'athletic' girls. Well, athletic wasn't really an issue since she simply wasn't. At all. But there were only so many ways to describe the fact that she considered herself to be a nice person. A relaxed person. An even-tempered person. An amenable person. Eventually, she had realized these were all just meaningless words anyway - it wasn't as if anyone would describe themselves as difficult or bad-tempered, even though she was convinced at least half of them would be described that way by friends and family.
When she had finally completed her biography and been sufficiently convinced that it wasn't too sappy, or boring for that matter, she had made her first steps into the world of online dating, quickly realizing that her expectations hadn't been far from the truth. The moment her profile had gone up, she had received multiple likes, but all from guys twice her age, while she had been quite certain that she had selected a younger age category for her potential love interest. Fortunately, it hadn't taken long for some more age-appropriate candidates to also show an interest, and not much later she had found herself exchanging messages with a guy just two years older. With every new message, she had started to convince herself that there might actually be something to this whole internet dating. That is, until he had revealed his career plan. Apparently, he had just quit his job as an IT specialist to fulfill a life-long dream of becoming a crane operator. Although she had applauded his courage of following his dreams, she had immediately lost interest. What would they talk about? She had nothing against crane operators, but she just hadn't been able to picture herself ending up with one. And yes, she realized how shallow that sounded. Which had exactly been the reason she had decided to quit internet dating. If they would have met in a bar, they might have had instant chemistry, rendering things like profession irrelevant. But because it was hard to test chemistry through a computer screen, she had dismissed a guy, who might have been the one, her soulmate, the love of her life and all because he wanted to be crane operator. That had just seemed wrong.
Of course, her friends had thought that she had quit too quickly and that she should give it another try. Or maybe she wasn't interested in a relationship? She always wondered if people heard themselves when they asked that question. Do you want someone who loves you? Do you want someone who actually wants to spend time with you? Do you want someone who thinks that you are the most important person in his life? Well, why on earth would she want that, right? She must be out of her mind. If they only knew how much she craved some romance.