If you’ve never read Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Masque of The Red Death” - 1. Read it now, it’s amazing. 2. If you don’t want to read it now, tl;dr, it’s a story about a masquerade ball where everyone is dressed up and then this super creepy man shows up with a scary red mask and floats through the party.. and kills everyone #spoileralert
There’s a lot more to it, but the image of the creepy man at the party is what I needed to get across.
So while on Fiji, I was totally solo. Ernesto had to go home (he doesn’t get 5 weeks paid vacation… weird) and my friend, Kim planned to join later for the South Island of NZ. That left me with roughly five days to plan on my own.
I thought…. why not Fiji? I knew Ernesto and I would have been running like crazy and a few days of R&R would be nice.
What I didn’t anticipate is it being the school holiday for all the kids in NZ and Australia, so like the resort was OVERRUN with families. Which only exacerbates the weirdness of a thirty-something-year-old man wandering around by himself.
From the get-go at customs, the questions started coming: “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
*Look of pity as the officer stamps my passport*
In the cab:
“So…. you’re alone?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…”
The best, however, was at breakfast. This was literally when I was the haunting image of forever being alone ala Edgar Allan Poe. Again…
At the breakfast counter:
“You’re alone?”
“Yes.”
“Your family isn’t joining?”
“No.”
“Ahhh…”
Then they sat me at this table kind of in the middle of ten families. Which was great, because I love my bacon with a side of screaming kids. So I’m surrounded by all these family units (the whole shebang - grandma, grandpa, Cousin Larry, Pete, Tom, and the seven kids) and getting my food and then I FEEL the stares. Like people are just watching me.
“He’s…alone?”
I’m not kidding when I say I walked by a young mother and she clutched her child tighter as I went by.
“Mum, who’s that man in the mask who’s at brekkie?”
“Turn away, Little Herbert. If you catch his eye, you too, will die alone.”
It was very odd. People were literally sadder at breakfast because I was there distracting them from eating with fifteen other people.
I was slightly insecure with the stares, but, like, really, it was fine. I got to sit on a beach for three days and eat big breakfasts and, if needed, go back to my room and call my friends and family. I was fine. Fantastic, even.
After day 1, I think people just accepted me as Mr. Lonely Hearts and no one really looked too much (it’s a very small resort).
Things only got weird one other time when I went to lunch. The waitress was super friendly. We did the standard dialogue:
“Table for 1?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s your family? At the hotel?”
“They’re home. I’m alone.”
“Ohhh…”
Because we had a prolonged interaction, she eventually came back to that:
“So… where is your family?”
“Back in Illinois - in the US.”
“Do you live with them?”
“Uhhh…. no?”
“Ahhh… so you live ALONE...”
I wasn’t going to correct her because, why? So the food comes and we chat some more, then at the end of the meal she comes over to me with the check.
“Were you… looking… to try something new in Fiji…” she asks shyly.
I’m not sure… but I’m pretty sure it was a proposition. Somehow I had used some unspoken code and gained access to a shopping mall (yes, I was in a shopping mall) circle of prostitution.
“Mel, he said he lives ALONE...”
“Green light, Susan. Go ahead with the line.”
We just kind of stared at each other for a minute and I perhaps went a little overboard in my explanation that I didn’t, in fact, want to try something new.
“Nope, nope! Just sitting. Sitting in… the sun and stuff. Relaxing! Sitting. Nothing new for me this week! Not a thing!”
After that things resumed normalcy, but… who would have thought ordering a burger would have been so exciting, especially while… ALONE.