Loneliness

I’ve always been content with spending time on my own.  I’m the kind of person who could comfortably go to the pub on my own for a few hours and not be worried about it.  I’d rather spend time at home on my own, than forcing myself to socialise with people I have little in common with.  I’m not an introvert, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m comfortable enough with who I am to not mind being alone.  

And yet, right now, I feel as though there is something missing from my life. 

There is a huge, gaping chasm that is overbearing.  I’m constantly reminded of it in everyday life.  When I look around me it seems that everyone has someone.  I feel like a social leper.  I have friends, of course.  But again, they are all coupled up.  Is it socially unacceptable to be single?  

I have a very small circle of friends.  I have a slightly larger circle of positive acquaintances.  When there is a get together of any kind, going to a gig, party, whatever, all of them are in a relationship.  As a single person, it’s un-nerving. 

In my teenage years and early twenties it’s apparent that I would validate myself just by having a girlfriend.  I’d think nothing of ending one relationship and starting a new one immediately.  The peer pressure to even have a girlfriend is staggering.  You were looked down on, frowned upon even, if you were single.  

I think some of that has spilled into my adult life and the beliefs that I now hold.  I got married when I was 22, to a girl I had been in a long term relationship (5 years plus).  We didn’t have the most stable relationship and everyone knew it was doomed, but getting married just seemed the right thing to do, the way to fix the issues we had and to cement myself in the socially acceptable “norm”.  Not that getting married at 22 is common, but you know, it’d be like I had permanent girlfriend.  

Of course, it didn’t last.  Being divorced before you are 25 is a bit weird and all of a sudden you find that you’ve travelled through the socially acceptable parameters and ended up out the other side.  Still the social leper. 

I’m not a one night stand kind of guy.  I wish to hell I was.  Consequently, I’m always looking for a relationship and therefore I’d never consider seeing someone I didn’t think was girlfriend potential.  

Since divorce number one, I’ve had one casual relationship (I’ve had several serious ones btw!) and she ended up pregnant (a longer story and one that I may divulge at some point).  So there I was, divorced with a child and newly single.  How old?  Twenty eight.  I should still have been sowing oats. 

My solution to my new found situation?  Meet someone else and after a whirlwind romance, get married.  Again.  In my defence, I truly believed my second wife was the one.  

She wasn’t. 

I guess what I’m getting at is that since I was 17, I’ve been in some kind of relationship.  To then find myself single again is demoralising. 

It’s been 8 months since I left my second wife (she’ll say she left me, but hell, you only get one side of this story and it’s mine; so I left her, ok?).  I was cool with it to start with, enjoyed being on my own, living on my own and looking after myself.  My best mate is not too far away and we socialise often.  Apart from when he is with his girlfriend and I go back to being the socially inept gooseberry.  

But still, life is what you make of it.  I have a lovely flat, a job, and no money worries.  I’m free to do what I want, when I want, how I want.  

So why do I feel so empty?