Tag: partner

Is Loneliness a Choice? A Personal Reflection

I’ll never forget when my friend Steve said it.
“You can go to a restaurant by yourself, sit and drink or eat alone. It doesn’t bother you at all. That’s a rare thing, you know. I sure can’t do it.”
He has never given me the impression that there’s anything he can’t do. The guy was a Army Ranger and won’t sit in a restaurant alone? I told him that I had never given it much thought.
He further went on to say that it indicates security, confidence, and self-awareness. Things that I have rarely been accused of and traits that he has an abundance of. I asked him why he wouldn’t do it. His reply was that he didn’t like to appear lonely.

Lonely. Many aspects of my life can easily suggest that I am lonely. I live alone. I haven’t had a relationship lasting more than 4 months in almost 8 years. I do indeed go into establishments and bars alone, where I can occupy myself for hours. But I don’t feel lonely.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I occasionally lament the fact that I don’t have the company of a woman. But that’s another conversation.

I am very comfortable being alone. In fact I often enjoy it. As my social anxiety increases and my energy level diminishes, home is my favorite place. I like to cook, read, putter, watch movies and write. Sadly, much time for those activities was lost as my drinking and weed habit surged of late. Now that I am attempting sobriety I am doing more of those activities.

But I’m not lonely. I have a vast network to reach out to. I could probably arrange a breakfast or lunch with a friend every day of the week. I enjoy people. To an extent. Then I retreat to my Fortress of Solitude, my tiny apartment.

It has occurred to me that this is largely semantic. Does loneliness mean that one has no-one in their life? Does it mean that you don’t have friends or family to talk to or spend time with? Or does it mean that you need a partner? If it’s the latter, then yea I may be.

By choosing to remove myself from the dating scene entirely I didn’t make a choice to be lonely. I made a choice to be alone. I’ll admit it, I’m not too proud or macho to say it, I don’t want to get hurt anymore. I can tell you a very convincing argument about how I’m ok with it. But the hole in my heart has caused a hole in my life. I liked being married, if not to the person I married. I enjoyed having someone with me to share life with. I wish I had someone to spend time with. Not every day, maybe one day a week. To have dinner, make dinner, go out to a movie or something. To see where it goes. I genuinely crave female companionship. Not just sexually. Yes I like it but I value connection above all. I like women.

But I have decided to not make any active measures to meet anyone. I am leaving it to chance. Hopefully someone I can meet face to face. Online Dating is just miserable. It’s exactly like trying to make puzzle pieces fit. It’s forced and I won’t play that game anymore. Until I meet someone I want to be with, it’s just me. I choose who I spend my time with.

I am not lonely, I am just good at being alone. I’m alone because, despite my desire for intimacy, my sense of self-preservation will always take over. And it is definitely not a decision.

from Me to We

Like all great stories, this one begins with a girl.

This is a story of missed opportunities. Of crossed wires. Of uncertainty and trepidation. Of missed signs and poor timing. But it also one of perseverance and dogged determination. The story takes place over 2 years, but I’ll spare you the remainder of the buildup; it has a happy ending.
I got the girl.

2 years ago I went on a first date with a wonderful and complex woman. She is the best friend of my very good friend’s new wife. I was interested in her the very first moment I saw her. Dare I say smitten. The bubble burst when she leaned in to the guy next to me at the poker table and kissed him. Oh well, I thought. I chased her out of my mind, for the most part anyway. I welcomed her back into my thoughts when I found out she had broken up with him that night. When the FB friend request came in days later, I was cautiously excited. We began to communicate regularly and I finally asked her to get dinner. It would prove to be a nice evening but that would be all it was because I didn’t realize that to her, it wasn’t a date. This confused me because it sure felt like one. We had dinner, we drank and danced. We talked a lot and we really hit it off. I read it wrong, all of it. I even blogged about it, you can read it here https://goodtobealivetoday.com/2020/03/

We continued to hang out for a few months after that but I finally had to acknowledge that I wanted something from her that she wasn’t ready to give. She really wasn’t ready. So I cut our get togethers way back and acted like we were friends. We just weren’t on the right page and I couldn’t do that to myself. I recognized that my neediness did not equal romance on her part and I resigned myself to hoping for things to change. The problem, when we saw each other it was just weird. We communicated less frequently to minimize the weird. But I always kept her in the Rolodex, as it were, of potential romance because I really liked her. So much that I compared everyone else I dated to her.

In October of 2021 we began talking regularly again. We even got together a few times. By this time I knew that her mind was changing, that she had become the aggressor, that she was finally truly interested in dating me. I was now the one resisting her. I found every reason I could to not date her, I didn’t want to get hurt again, even though I hurt myself the first time by not listening to her clearly tell me she wasn’t ready. It made it weird and got to the point that when we were together it just confused her.

One day I realized that she was what I wanted. I asked her to go to lunch. She never saw it coming. I took her hand at the table and told her I wanted to date her. She was floored. Not in a flattering way, just surprised. She still calls it “the bomb” because she never saw it coming. We have been in a torrid, fantastic whirlwind of a relationship since and I have never been happier. She is every bit of the person I thought she was, with the doubt and uncertainty removed from the picture. She is the best thing that’s happened to me in a very long time. I’m a part of a we, not just a me.

She is the first thing I think of when I wake, and the last when I go to bed. I needed this, she needed this, we needed this. So there you have it. Superman has met his Lois. God help us all.