And about suffering they were never wrong.

Who can say that happiness isn’t real? Everywhere you look, you will find happiness. It’s in the way another walks, it’s in the windows that we pass; it’s in the things we consume, and the states we transition through. It’s the promise of a new day as you lie in bed, or the close of one with a drink and a cigarette in your hand, and a conversation you’ve had twenty four times before.

Whenever I go on a date, I take them to the same place. The Lord Nelson in southwark, do you know it? I take them there because I know what to say. I tell them, I used to come here as a student. Sprit-mixers for three quid, that’s what I tell them. It’s true. I also tell them I once saw a man throw up right across the street. He gave his wife his shopping bags and threw up, right outside that Travelodge over there. It was a summers day in London, the type of day you only find in London, people were talking, and the pavement was throwing up heat quicker than that man across the street.

Everyone in the smoking area was staring at him, aghast yet entertained. Something to talk about. No one helped, not even his wife. That’s London for you. That’s true too. It’s an odd story to tell, that one. I only ever tell it when conversation is taking a distinct downturn. I’ve had a mixture of reactions. The right kind of man finds it amusing but wonders how they ended up with someone as odd as me. The wrong type of man wonders why I told it. I won’t be out with him again, that’s what I think to myself. Everyone has to have a story like that. One that sorts the wheat from the chaff, as the saying goes.

You might say it’s quite calculating, the story I just told. I never mean it like that. It just happens like that; I don’t know what to say and then I say it and then I’ve said it. It’s funny, the times I’ve been to this pub. Always at a different point in my life, always with a different man. Haven’t taken the same man twice. When I do, you’ll know it’s serious. I wonder what I’m doing, with these men and this pub and this life I’m leading. I have a purpose but I’m not fulfilling it, and that’s almost worse.

If you look at me on a date, you’ll think I’m happy. I’m doing all the things a happy person does – smiling, laughing, listening, talking, drinking. I’ve got my best hoops in and my favourite jeans on. I’m having, to all intents and purposes, a wail of a time. I really am too. I’m not lying. But then it ends. Then I’m not in the pub – I’m just walking by. And then everything is different, and I’m not lying. Then I’m in my head, and who likes their own head? Your head is a place where you see yourself like a jigsaw puzzle that does not quite align. You head is a place where something’s always missing. Like a fledgling, not fully formed.

Outside yourself, it’s all different. Everyone sees one another as a whole person, fully formed. In their head, you align perfectly. You are a fact, not a question. You are a sentence, not a proposition. That’s why I love a date. You get to remind yourself that in another’s eyes, you’re whole. You get to play at being real, at having a purpose and fulfilling it. It’s not a lie either. It’s a truth that’s happening in someone else’s head. If you’re true in someone else’s head, then you’re true. It’s only in your own head, one insignificant head, that you’re anything less than.

I try to see myself from someone else’s perspective. They think, therefore I am. That is what brings me happiness. I’m always better in someone else’s head. That’s happiness I think. Seeing yourself from outside. Counting your blessings on your pinkie finger. Being able to look beyond you. Even when I’m beyond me, I’m still gazing at me. I need to work on not doing that. Russell says that the key to happiness is shaking off the shackles of painful self-absorption. I’ve still got some way to go. I think a lot of us have. That’s the truth of it.

Happiness will always be external because as soon as it becomes internal, it does not align with your own puzzle pieces. Happiness is always just over there, but once you get there it’s already moved on. The trick, I guess, is knowing that. Knowing that happiness is, by definition, always over there. You begin to feel content because you know you’ve got something you cannot see yourself. Trusting in what you cannot see, that’s happiness. Realising that, in someone else’s eyes, you’ve already got it – that’s happiness. And about suffering they’re always wrong. They never see it.