Alone ... In A Sea Of People

What is about a big city that makes you feel so alone?

I have been in Buenos Aires for 2 weeks, walking the streets, watching beautiful people wear beautiful clothes, shoes, make up.
The feeling is strange, a touch of heaviness, a touch of dread, all mixed with the thankfulness for having such wonderful big cities.

There are people everywhere.

And as I walk, I can´t help but become unsettlingly aware that they are walking in pairs, and I am not.
It is as if I am back in high school and all the popular kids are sitting together sharing their lunch at a noisy, happy table, and I have to stare down at my tray, picking around the healthy diet options.

Is the feeling internal or borne out of the odd looks people give you when you ask for a table for one?

I tell myself, in a city, people have their rhythm, time is squeezed tight, making people rush to fulfill their set out routines, without much room left to welcome a transitory stranger.
I understand that my continued solitariness is not a reflection of my lack of socialness and there is no big ugly pimple on my nose to deter strangers from proposing to hang out.
But, I can´t help but become very aware of my aloneness and wonder if I belong, if I am one of them, one of those happy, laughing rowdy groups as I read my book over a grilled trout with baked potatoes a la provincial.

There is no such dilemmas in smaller places. The mountains make our own smallness too obvious, and the awe of the beauty of nature makes bonding simple, natural.
In the nature, we come there to witness it, to be part of it, to join the beautiful flow.
But in the city...
In the city, the communications become more narcissistic, needing to fulfill, to confirm some part in us that bring out our insecurity and make us feel vulnerable, open, easily pushed away.

But I am happy to have the city.
I bought a dress, and a sexy t-shirt, and I like wearing them, noticing approving looks of strangers.
I like drinking good coffee out of pretty cups and seeing lights and bustling, and the ornate rows of buildings.

And I also remind myself that I have a big city, where I have my group of happy rowdy friends, with whom I can share tasty bottles of wine.
My, something about that word is just so good to say.