I was told there’d be cake.

Although it has rarely given me much pleasure, happiness has been one of my favorite subjects to write about. I’ve always felt like I was looking at it through the window of a dream bakery at night (and for some reason, it’s always snowing), hungering to stuff my fat face with the sweetness of the world. And the more I write about it, the more elusive it seems to be.

I’ve tweeted about it incessantly:

Happiness isn’t always the best way to be happy.

For a lot of us, happiness is the scariest thing.

I don’t think I’d know happiness if it bit me in the ass. OWWW! Something just bit me in the ass!

And still, nothing!

I’ve wasted a lot of time searching for happiness on what has seemed to be an unending snipe hunt, knowing perfectly well that the sneaky fucker has been hiding inside of me all along. The realization that it comes from within, however, has still left me without.

If you’ve endured enough therapy, you understand that you’re the only one who can make yourself happy (despite countless hours talking about your mom, and, in my case, Penélope Cruz) and yet I continue to seek it elsewhere. Part of my pointless quest is a silly notion that sharing happiness with another happy person would make all of that happiness even happier, but mostly it’s my fantasy that someone will come along and feed my fat face with the sweetness of her world.

It was my last girlfriend who asked me one night if it were possible to be content without someone to share it with. She said that she wasn’t sure.

“For me, I think the answer is a definite no,” I told her.

Whenever I think about the instances I’ve truly been happy, it has invariably involved other people (Sartre can go to Hell!) – my kids and friends, followed by my ex-wife and various other women. And the time I met Steve Martin in his hotel room.

Of course, music, movies, TV, books, art and all of that cultural crap have also done the trick, but that brand of happiness still doesn’t compare to the feeling of sharing any of those fun things with someone you love.

I know that I’ve been rambling and contradicting myself here and think that’s also part of the problem, if you could even call this a problem. There I go again. I’ve always been confused about how to find happiness, and often didn’t appreciate it on the occasions when it has opened its door and let me come inside for a taste.

Oh look! There goes happiness now!

Are you gonna eat that?