No more

I saw Captain America: Civil War tonight. In short, it was fantastic, and totally made up for everything Batman v Superman did wrong. In fact, it's almost literally the same movie, but with every mistake reversed and turned into something amazing.

It's weird: I've been looking forward to this movie for a long, long time. Not Star Wars Episode VII-long, but a while. And while I really enjoyed the movie, the moviegoing experience overall wasn't too great.

I ended up going to the movie by myself. I've gone to movies alone plenty of times before, but this was the first time I've been to a midnight showing (7PM, but still, "first showing") without anyone else. I didn't plan it that way. I asked a few friends, but either they couldn't, had already made plans with other friends, or just didn't want to. I put up a facebook post earlier in the week inviting anyone and everyone to come with me. I got tons of responses from people wanting to talk about the movie, but no one who said they wanted to come, and no one showed up.

While I waited in the theater for the 2.5-ish hours til the movie started, I looked around. A family was on my left. A group of twentysomethings sat on the floor a level below me and played Zelda Monopoly. Another family was on my right. There was one teenager sitting above me that was by himself. We ended up talking for a half hour about comics and video games. Then some of his friends showed up and he moved across the room to sit with them. A couple took his place. For two hours, I was the only person without anyone to talk to. I sat there and thought: this isn't fun. I hadn't even considered the idea that I'd be miserable by myself because I'd never really been in that situation before. And it's not something I ever want to relive.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if not for the fact that I've seen every Captain America and Avengers movie with Andrew and Elisabeth. In that exact same room, first showing every time. But this time I sat there and had to deal with the fact that even if and when I reached out to people, I got nothing back.

I don't want this anymore.