Mark stretched luxuriously in his recliner and grabbed another chip. What a plain Saturday he'd had! A morning spent out in the field, checking if the test site had lost its snow cover, then an afternoon spent on errands, laundry...and now, a beer and chips and a video. Three years into his career, he was just starting to find life lonely - through the hard slog of three degrees, he'd always had friends and fellow students, but now, with a research fellowship, he only saw a handful of people, and most of those were in the lab. When he'd moved to take this job, he knew he was leaving most of his grad student friends behind, but he figured there'd be new friends - and there weren't many, not really. Oh, there was a class full of students to teach, but they were all so young...and that was unethical, anyway.
So, here he was, a lonely Saturday night. He looked through the pile of mail that had accumulated over the week, and found a notice from a local church, listing an Easter morning drama service, followed by lunch. When he was a kid, he'd gone to church most Sundays with his parents, but except for visits with them, and a wedding during grad school, he'd hardly darkened a church door since. Maybe he should go? He remembered there were always young people around his parents' church, and this one didn't sound too extreme - how far out could Methodists get, anyway? So, with nothing better to do for tomorrow, and a nagging sense of loneliness, he decided to go.
The next morning, Mark hesitated long and hard over what to wear. A suit? His father had often worn a suit, but he hated it when he had to, as a boy. Was it expected? He finally settled on a jacket over chinos, with a white shirt, no tie. Looking at himself in the mirror, he thought he looked intelligent, and approachable, and if the jacket was too much he could chuck it. He looked harder at himself then he had in a while - wondering why he hadn't 'found a girl' as his mother put it - and noted that....
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