The ice in Maya’s glass is doing that rhythmic, annoying click against the side, and she’s looking at her eggs Benedict like they just insulted her grandmother. We are 28 minutes into brunch, and the air is thick with the smell of hollandaise and desperation. She finally says it, the thing she’s been chewing on more than the sourdough: “I’m just tired of doing everything by myself. I went to that gallery opening on Thursday and I felt like a ghost haunting a room of vibrant people. I just want… someone there.”

I’m sitting there, trying to look busy with my coffee so I don’t have to participate in the dismantling of Maya’s dignity. It’s the same face I make at the lab when my manager, Greg, walks by and I pretend to be deeply immersed in the spectrophotometer readings for a batch of ‘Industrial Slate 888’ instead of wondering if I left the stove on. I see the look on Maya’s face. It isn’t excitement. It’s exhaustion. She didn’t say she wanted a husband, or a boyfriend, or a frantic three-month whirlwind that ends in a messy breakup over who owns the sourdough starter. She said she was lonely. But in our current cultural vocabulary, those two things have been welded together so tightly you can’t see the seam.

The Catastrophic Misdiagnosis

As an industrial color matcher, my entire life is dedicated to the nuance of the ‘almost.’ I spend 48 hours a week staring at two shades of beige that look identical to the naked eye, only to realize that one has 0.008 percent too much magenta. I see the invisible shifts. And right now, the shift I’m seeing at this brunch table is a catastrophic misdiagnosis. We are prescribing heart surgery for a broken leg.

We have been conditioned to believe that the only valid cure for adult isolation is romantic partnership. It’s the ‘All-In-One’ solution… But more importantly, it leaves those of us who aren’t looking for the ‘One’-or who already have the ‘One’ but still feel a void-wandering around in a fog of confusion.

Solving for the Wrong Variable

I remember a mistake I made back in my first year at the plant. I was trying to match a specific shade of ‘Safety Teal 18’ for a client. I kept adding blue, thinking the pigment was too pale. I added and added until the mixture was a deep, muddy navy. It was only then I realized the problem wasn’t the blue at all; it was the lighting in the room. I was solving the wrong variable. That’s what we do with loneliness. We keep adding the ‘romance’ pigment, hoping it will fix the saturation of our lives, when the lighting-our social infrastructure-is what’s actually broken.

There are 558 reasons why a person might want company that have absolutely nothing to do with wanting to see someone naked. Sometimes you just want to go to the movies and have someone to argue with about the ending over a burger afterward… Sometimes, you just need a witness to your existence who isn’t trying to evaluate your long-term potential as a life partner.

Meeting the Need Without the Contract

I finally spoke up, nearly choking on a piece of cold toast. “What if she just wants a companion?” I asked. The table went silent… I told them about the time I had to attend an industry awards night… I didn’t want a date, either; I didn’t want the pressure of making a ‘first impression’… I wanted someone who was paid to be there, to be charming, to be my shield against the social vacuum. I ended up finding exactly what I needed through Dukes of Daisy, a service that understands the massive, gaping hole in our society where platonic companionship should be.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “That’s so clinical,” she muttered. But Maya… Maya was leaning in. I could see the ‘Industrial Safety Yellow’ light going off in her head. She understood. She saw the 0.008 percent difference.

The Full Spectrum of Human Connection

We live in a world of extremes. You’re either alone, or you’re ‘partnered.’ There is very little cultural infrastructure for the spaces in between… If you tell an app you’re lonely, it gives you a romantic partner. It’s the only pigment it has in stock. But the spectrum of human need is vast.

I think about my work again. If I mix 18 parts cyan with 8 parts magenta, I get a very specific violet… When we force everything into the ‘romance’ bucket, we lose the vibrancy of the other shades.

Matching the Color

Maya eventually put her fork down. “I think I’m going to stop looking for a boyfriend,” she said, her voice steadier than it had been all morning. “I think I’m just going to look for company.”

It’s time we started valuing the ‘almost’ colors. The platonic, the temporary, the simple beauty of someone just being there. After all, even the most brilliant red looks dull if there’s no other color around to give it context.