Take Yourself on a Date

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.      

R a weekly ritual. I walk from my office to the movie theater, where I slip into a back row and slouch down in the darkness. Afterward, I walk the hour and a half home, mulling over the film and daydreaming on my way across the Brooklyn Bridge. I don’t need to formulate a coherent take—or tell anyone my thoughts at all. It’s just me and the occasional passerby and the skyline melting into the water. The night is a perfect bite of quasi-solitude: I get the quiet of my own mind but also the sputter of cars, the swell of the movie soundtrack, the energy of strangers. I’m part of the world, and I’m alone.