Minority Report

I am a minority.

That is a fact. I used to be part of the majority, but over time, I have slipped into the minor segment of society and am now, a minority.

I feel like I've stepped on the largest snake on the board, and I've slipped right down to the beginning. Except this time, there are others at the 97, 98 and 99, waiting for their final turn. I have a whole board game ahead of me and inevitably just one last roll of the dice.

There was a time when I had it figured out. I had my intended path clearly ahead of me. I knew what I wanted and I knew when I wanted to achieve it. But then I met someone, and she changed me. Actually, in all honestly I changed myself, albeit, because of her. When I realized that what I wanted could simply not fit within her pursuit of passion, I brushed my needs aside. I locked them away because she took center stage and all that mattered to me then, was that her spotlight shone as bright as possible.

And so I left my plan, unattended, buried and forgotten. It's funny how something so important can suddenly be rendered immaterial when the heart gets involved. But that's just human nature, or perhaps just plain stupidity on my part.

In my defense, I followed my heart, and somehow, at the time, I always felt that it would work itself out in the end. But i was wrong. It didn't. And I was left in turmoil. A universe on spin cycle. That's what my existence felt like.

And it was during this entire process that the universe moved me, from another member of the majority to the minority that I am now.

I look around and see the majority. I see them progress through the game of life. Like the Mario Brother's game they have collected the marriage coin, the honeymoon coin, the buy our own place to live coin and some even the kids coin. And as with the game itself, the coins represent new powers for Mario and with all these coins, from my perspective, they look invincible.

I on the other hand, can only watch in vain. I sometimes feel like an observer, watching from the outside and they play and move up in the game of life, while i stay put, unable to make a move.

A few years ago, whenever there was a huge gathering of friends, inevitably, the ones with children would always be the first to leave, as they had to be back before the midnight feed. I used to pity them and I assumed they just wished that they could be more like us, partying till the sunrises, without a care in the world.

Strangely, the same scenario played out in front of me recently, but for the first time, it dawned on me that perhaps the couples leaving were the ones who really pitied us. We, the ones who stayed out because we had nothing to go home to. Whilst they were returning to the comfort of their newborn, we would drown ourselves in alcohol to numb the fact that there was nothing nor no one waiting for us when we eventually got home, let alone to wake up to the next morning.

I overhead a conversation on the next table the other day over brunch, and a lady who was obviously in her mid to late thirties said "If I meet a guy my age, who's single, never been married, I'd better be careful. There must be something wrong with him."


I used to make fun of my friends who were girls, reminding them that they had an expiry date. But perhaps guys have one too.

Maybe I've passed mine. How else it is possible to wonder on aimlessly for over two years with not a single encounter that is worth mentioning? If this solitary confinement was meant to teach me about myself then I would say that the lesson has been learnt, but now it just feels like torture.

I am a minority. A group thought to be different from the larger group from which it is apart.

There is a larger group out there that is reaping the benefits of living.

I am different. There was a time when I thought this meant I was special. But the reality is that I am not. I am just another minority, dwindling through life, without a cause.