I just got off the phone with a long-time friend of mine, who happily announced his engagement to be married. While I wish him nothing but happiness, it occurred to me that there is now not a sole remaining single guy among my friends.
Over the course of the last few years, one by one my friends have married and all but dropped off the map. While I’ve never really been a social person, there is a bit of a void now that I hadn’t really noticed before - a necessary trial of getting older, I suppose, but as people move on with their lives I can’t help but feel a little bit isolated.
I am very introverted by nature, and spend quite a lot of time alone. I always have, and to that end I have often been regarded as being a bit distant - the “loner”, insofar as one can exist within a circle of friends; however, I think that the lifestyle I live was made possible by the fact that, when necessary, I could rejoin the world, get together with my friends, and get my social fix for a while. Maybe that was taking them for granted?
Now, that resource no longer exists - at least not in the same readily accessable form that it had before. As much as I still value my own time and space, and as before, often need to experience life and my own thoughts without outside influence, I find I am occasionally disturbed by loneliness - something I had experienced before, but never to this extent. Keeping myself busy helps, but is not a complete solution.
I am just curious if there is anyone here who is not seeking a relationship, who is experiencing the same thing, or who has experienced this in the past? How did you deal with it?
