“I’m thinking about joining a monastery,” said Troy over the faint sound of Biggie Smalls coming from my tinny iPhone speakers. On the television screen, I pointed my virtual machine gun at his character and pulled the trigger. He was dead. After a few moments of not speaking, he said, “I’m serious.”

In the game, I crouched behind a box. I turned to look at Troy. “Why would you like to join a monastery, Troy?” He was not the monk type, with his cap on backwards, his long hair hanging over his ears, his arms uncovered by the tank-top he was wearing. His eyes were glazed over. He was looking at the TV but he was not seeing it. “You know you could never have sex again if you joined a monastery, right?” He nodded and jutted out his chin. His eyes were watering now.

“I don’t want to.”
“To have sex?”
He nodded.
“You never want to have sex again?”
He nodded.
“You never ever want to make love to a woman again?”
He nodded.
“Stop being a  loser.” I turned back to the game and willed Troy to stop talking and just play. But, then he paused it. “What the f***?” I threw up my hands.

“It’s not about sex, Mike. It’s about love.”
I dropped my controller and rubbed my temples. “Look, I told you you could come over if you promised that you wouldn’t talk about-,”
“She broke me dude!” Troy was sobbing, clutching his face in his hands. I sighed and checked my watch. He had only gone two hours without mentioning her.
“Hey, calm down Troy. Troy. Dude. Man, Troy you’re supposed to be making forward progress. Not backwards progress. Troy, you went an entire 24 hours not mentioning her at all.”
“I just miss her so much!” he blubbered.
“This is precisely what I did not want to happen.”
“I’m sorry dude, I’m such a b****.”

I sighed loudly and rested my hand on his back. “Yes you are, man. Yes you are.”
We sat like that for a few minutes. He composed himself and sat up. His face was covered by a thick sheen of tears. “I’m gonna join a monastery dude. No joke, I literally Googled it already. It’s not as hard as you might think.”

“Bro, you get to have no fun as a monk.”
“I don’t need fun. I need super-glue for my heart.”
“Then go f*** some other girl. That’ll be super-glue enough I think.”
“F*** you man.”
“What!? I’m serious!”
“You don’t know what I’m going through.”

“Um, yes I do. I don’t know if you recall, but you’ve been at my house for the past two weeks- yes, that’s right, two weeks- repeating the same s*** over and over again. I have a pretty damn good idea of what you’re going through.”

“You don’t get it.”
“Dude. She’s a jerk, okay? She is a straight up jerk. Just forget about her.”
“She’s all I know! I’m never, ever, ever gonna love again.”
“Yes you will.”
“Not if I join a monastery. If I join a monastery I will avoid suffering for the rest of my existence.”

I felt a twang of an idea in my stomach. A thought floated into my head. Pain informs everything that humans do, and have done. To avoid pain, to get over it, to share it. Pain and suffering are fundamental to everyone’s life, and those monks were missing out on the sweetest parts of life by trying to hide from the most bitter. Pain destroys people, but they will almost always become again, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different, and always whole. Pain is what has raised civilizations and razed architecture, created the greatest art, murdered people, pain is the most fundamental feeling in the world, the most powerful, and to avoid suffering is to avoid living.

I wanted to say all of this to Troy, but instead I turned back to the television and un-paused the game.