I couldn’t believe it when my friend Melvin
introduced me to a life-size doll
he said was his new girlfriend.
At first, I thought he was joking until I
could see he was serious,
and he talked to the doll as if it were real.
I thought he had some wires crossed in
his deluded brain, but after a long
conversation with him, he seemed sound.
That was ten years ago, and he’s still in
love with his doll while I’ve gone through
three failed relationships with real women.
Which makes me think maybe Melvin made
a better choice with his doll than I have
with real women.
And for a lovelorn, desperate moment, I almost
considered buying a doll, but since I swore off
being with women, I changed my mind,
fearing that even with a doll I’d have yet another
failed relationship, unlike Melvin who has the luck
and the skills to make his relationship work.
And since romantic love is doomed to end
anyway, Death the final spoiler, maybe it doesn’t
matter whether you’re in love
with a doll or a real woman, and I suspect
with the doll a man would have no drama,
no disappointments, no heartbreaks.
But he’d have to have an extraordinarily
vivid imagination.
Bob Boyd