Flying solo It’s Friday night and a boy at the bar orders a drink to calm the nerves and dull the icy isolation of aloneness, so amplified when everyone else is paired. The pale face, with an immature stubble cultivated for this night, belies a lack of solidity, an awkwardness and naïveté, not suited to this place and he hugs his drink like the woman he would like to hold on to, the woman who would take away the stigma of his solitude. A live band and the din of social chatter drown his quietness as he melts into an…