Patheticness is in the eye of the performer.

We make our own decisions about what makes us tragic, ultimately being the only ones who can make us feel one way or the other. The difference between being lonely and being a lone is a mindset. Although that doesn’t stop people from making their own assumptions.

My friends go to the dog park just to look at the dogs. They don’t have one. They just go to look. It’s good for de-stressing, my friend says. And she’s right – dogs do wonderful things for the human psyche. And there’s nothing wrong with checking out a few happy pups. It’s a public place after all. But it does sound sad and borderline creepy that she goes there purely to look at the dogs like some kind of canine-loving pervert. I don’t think she takes treats to lure the pups away, but she does know each of the dogs by colour and personality like there were contestants on the Bachelorette.

So what’s worse? My friend and her boyfriend going to the dog park with out a dog just to watch? Or me?

Because right now I am at the dog park. Alone. And it’s the setting for my new local Carols by Candlelight. And not only am I without a dog, but I am without a family, a friend or even a bottle of wine (and by wine, I mean cheap nasty carbonated grape juice so bubbly I can’t taste the actual wine).

I am also being paid monthly so I am living off my credit right now, so I can’t even buy some delicious fruity ice cream thing from the truck that is getting no attention from kids and parents when there is real ice cream and Nutella crepes available elsewhere.

I’m not here for dinner. I’m not meeting friends. I am not even wearing my jogging gear so I can’t even pretend I am stretching after a long, impressive run (although I have considered throwing on my runners precisely for this purpose).

It’s very odd to be alone at these kinds of things.

I used to be able to go to all kinds of shit at home by myself. Because if I didn’t run into my friends, I’d run into their parents or the lady I talked to at the bank or the family I buy my bacon from. Apart from my sister, I knew of two other Colleens I could cut a rug with on the d-floor (otherwise known as the patch of bitumen in front of the truck trailer acting as a stage).

I’d be able to confidently strut down the street to whatever festivities going on and know there would be at least five people aged 16 to about 78 I could sink a few tinnies with.

But I find myself here sitting up the back with the two other friendless wonders.

One is sucking a lollipop and pretending to read the program.

Another is texting, presumably to make it look like whoever he isn’t meeting here is merely lost and the pair are working out logistics. They aren’t coming, mate. You know it. I know it. The couple next to you would know it if they weren’t too busy being happy to notice this tragic trio.

I am sitting here texting too, but I am texting myself, writing this column via multiple blue speech bubbles, so it’s a totally different thing.

We all have our coping mechanisms for when we find ourselves alone in public. Because being alone in public isn’t always as blissful as being alone in private. Being alone in public means sitting with your knees close enough together to avoid an indecent exposure charge. Being alone in private means wearing only your saggiest undies and a stained jumper.

Ah, the lollipop eater has a child. She’s not a lone watcher, she’s here on official mothering duties.

The texter has “gone to meet his mates”… or cry to his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

And I remain, texting myself this column and getting bitten on the upper thigh by mozzies. Why am I staying? Perhaps it’s because the blood sucking disease spreaders are the only living beings going anywhere near my crotch tonight.

Maybe it’s because neither Netflix nor Stan have Love Actually and my roommate doesn’t has a DVD player set up with the television.

Maybe I’m just fishing for blog material. I can pretend I’m doing this purely for literary reasons. This isn’t pathetic; this is research. My defence for any sad situation I find myself in is that it’s memoir material. As such, I’m able to justify any humiliation by reasoning it will make me appear more relatable to all the plebs who will read my life’s story to make them less depressed about them never being in my league. I’m not embarrassing myself; I’m merely gathering material for my memoirs.

But the truth is my lingering/loitering/borderline perversion is probably due to a combination of all three.

Oh! The texter came back, he’s now walking among the crowd taking video for snapchats. At least he’s not sobbing on a couch somewhere.

They started playing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and it sounded like Noah Jones should have been signing it. I was reminded of the deeply depressing original lyrics like, “faithful friends who were dear to us will be near to us no more” and “but at least we all will be together if the Lord allows – from now on, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” And I have to admit, as the spikey grass dug into my thigh skin I began to feel a little sad. I began to feel that lonely Christmas depression I see on movies before some grand dramatic gesture. If I were in a romantic comedy, some bastard I knew would have started singing All I Want for Christmas Is You and a spotlight would have shined on me in an unrealistically flatting glare. Instead, I nearly had my foot run over by a disobedient child with a mini scooter. I hate it when my life isn’t a Christmas rom-com.

Update: my friend who watches the dogs is doing the EXACT thing I am right now. By herself. We’re alone in different states together. And that means we’re not only not alone, but also not lonely. We’re not pathetic, just quirky!