30, female. I don’t often feel terribly lonely, but I did twice this weekend, so I guess it’s time to post to this thread. On Friday I went out to dinner with my parents, brother and his girlfriend. The dinner went fine, but on the way home I was hit by the blues when I got to thinking how it would have been so much better if I hadn’t been the only one without someone there that night. And the next day I ran into an old friend from high school - who has since married the boy she was dating when we were 17. sigh. That made me think about the boy I did the torturous on again off again thing with from the same age up until I was 23. At least she didn’t ask about him.
Lately I’m sick of meeting really great guys who work damn hard at charming me - then remember that they have girlfriends after they’ve secured my interest in them. I’m not fond of being used to boost one’s ego that way, and I fell for it twice in the past year or so. :smack: As someone who rarely drinks (and can’t bear the thought of going to church for the purpose of meeting guys) I find it hard to meet men my age anyway, and this doesn’t help.
Woman 48 years old. Yes I’m lonely, but I do consider myself lucky enough to have had a wonderful relationship for many years with a great guy up until 3 years ago (over three years now actually). I guess I’m still kind of in recovery/better to have loved and lost…mode.
I’m not sure if I’m lonely enough to try again though. Sometimes I am, but most of the time I get really clear reminders of why dating sucks so much and that I’m not ready to wander out into that jungle again, especially at my advanced age.
First, I’d like to thank all those in here for making this the most depressing thread EVER. Perhaps because I see there are more than a few folks on here who are very alone, and while I realize that some of us just aren’t cut out to be social creatures, the mammal brains in our heads tell our hearts that we our obligated to be such. The human condition can be a terrible thing to live with; we’re one of nature’s few creations riddled with conflicts of the heart. Thank our ancestors for evolving those wonderful limbic systems for us over the course of time. That system essentially tells our hearts we need to belong to something. I read what some people say on here and it scares me because I don’t want to be that alone but part of me thinks it’s probably what I’m destined for; what I’m most comfortable with.
I’m 27, male, and I recently ended a relationship with a girl who, for a time, I’d thought was the one. It was only after I realized that this meaning was predicated on a foundation of untruths that I knew I was going to be conflicted about ending it. I only knew her a few months, but even in those few months, things were held back from me. Details were changed after the fact. The growing realization that there would always be some hidden surprise just around the corner, and not a good one. It took weeks to come to the realization that I was an outlet for emotional indignation from someone I was bending over backwards for. The strangest part is, she never actually lied to me, and that more than anything is what made the decision hard. It was only when I realized that I could never know just how deep that rabbit hole of duplicity went. To me, trust is infinitely more important than love because trust comes first.
Some people on here have told some incredible stories of loss and self-destruction. Mine probably isn’t one of those, but I share it because I willfully chose to be alone after a relationship that probably could have worked out a lot longer if I’d have continued to nurture it. But what would I be nurturing it towards? My philosophy is that people do not change, and if someone is going to keep things from me in the infancy of a relationship, then they will continue to do so even when the relationship has long since matured. No traumatic events led to my decision, although I actually had to convince myself that my feelings developed under false pretense because my heart wouldn’t shut the hell up trying to tell me to give her another chance. I had to bound and gag my heart and let my brain do the talking; I actually had to convince myself of proven facts. That’s how fucked up love is: even when we are at our highest, when we feel we’ve found someone who loves us and whom we love in return, we have to struggle against those urges to be critical of the whole process and realize where those feelings come from. It’s so much easier to just fall blindly. For me, it was a question of choosing to be alone or always questioning the trust of someone I cared about.
Obviously, I chose to be alone, and even though it was the right choice, it doesn’t make me feel any better to have made it. Companionship and trust are two of the hardest things to find in this world. Certainly harder than love, I believe.
You have two choices - married and bored or single and lonely. When you’re married, you want to kill your spouse. When you’re single, you want to kill yourself. I say…better her than me!.
-Chris Rock
After an acne-ridden adolescence, my hair fell out at 19. I admire men who endure baldness gracefully, but at 32, it still bothers me more than words can express. I’ve been set up on a few dates over the years, but they’ve all been pretty terrible. I get lonely on occasion, but my job is my obsession, so I have plenty to keep me distracted.
I want to express my respect for the dopers in their 40s and 50s who’ve maintained their good humor despite the loneliness. Keep on keepin’ on!
