Letting go. (A "monologue.")

Voice 1: Yeah, she's smart, beautiful, successful, has a great job...I'm sure she doesn't have anyone pursuing her. She's just there waiting for you to come along.

Voice 2: I just thought, maybe, if we were meant to be together...

Voice 1: Look, you've got the dreamer's disease. Even if she likes you a lot...your kindness to her, your gentle, sensitive ways....

Voice 2: So none of that matters, the kindness, the friendship, the closeness...

Voice 1: That matters. But it's not enough. First off, you don't even know if she feels that way about you. Your career is going nowhere, you're not making that much, you're not successful...do you live in the real world? It's not that she's not a good person. In fact, she's a wonderful person, I know as well as you, and that's why you fell in love with her...and probably ever other man who's met, and gotten to know, her.

Voice 2: She's out of my league.

Voice 1: That's right. I hate to take the romanticism out of it, but it's a competition. And what makes you think you can compete? She likes you a lot...as a friend. You're not a bad person, but when it comes to winning her heart, you're not even on the short list. What can you give her? What makes you think you deserve to be with her?

Voice 2: Love.

Voice 1: Love is not enough! When will you grow up? Be a man, not a child. See the world...as it is, not how you want it to be. It might be hard for someone like you, but you need to make that distinction clear in your mind. The sooner, the better...for your own sake. If you don't, it'll just end up enveloping you, and you will disappear.

Voice 2: I have a lot to give.

Voice 1: She will choose someone, be with someone, who will be able to provide her with the life she deserves. She comes from a distinctive family...her...elegance, grace...she deserves to be with someone who will be able to provide her with a wonderful life...everything her heart desires. She's wonderful, and I'm sure she cares about you a lot, to a certain extent, because otherwise she wouldn't have made the effort to continue the friendship after that.... But like any other woman in her position, she wants to be with someone successful, with ambition...

Voice 2: It doesn't seem right, it doesn't seem fair.

Voice 1: Fair by what? Your standards? Some would say, this is exactly as it should be. Social Darwinism, and all that. Again, you need to cure yourself of this dreamer's disease.

***

Voice 2: Why does it hurt so much.

Voice 1: Because you love her.

Voice 2: So what is left?

Voice 1: Let go. Accept the fact...you'll have to make it alone. The sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be. If you can't, it will bury you. And let go. Let her go, so to speak. That is, let the dream of being with her go. Let it go so that all it will ever be is a dream. Because it can only exist, survive, as a dream. To hold onto that dream as something, a part, of reality...that dream will die in reality. It's too delicate for this world.

Voice 2: My life is an endless succession of people saying goodbye.

Voice 1: Time's tide will smother you.

Voice 2: And what's left for me?

Voice 1: Nothing. No one.

Voice 2: Maybe someday...