To absolutely hate being single?

[pushingthroughcracks]

Sorry to be so pathetic and in many ways negative but stay with me.

I am battling a number of personal demons and I feel alone and unloved. I am trying really hard to make it different but unfortunately it isn't working!

I've not had a great time of late, I do try to speak to and text friends but they are almost always busy with their own families and it can become a difficult line between putting yourself out there for friendship and companionship and getting in people's way. I was surprised and a tiny bit put out when having driven for then best part of two hours on Monday to see a friend we had coffee and then just over an hour and a half later she cheerily got up and said she had to go because of reasons to do with her family. I didn't say anything because it isn't exactly helpful for future relations to whinge and whine about not spending a required number of hours with me, and perhaps she just hadn't thought that it took a not inconsiderable amount of time and money to see her. Anyway this is beside the point but I'm just trying to explain when I do try to initiate contact sometimes things don't go to plan!

I do try to get out of the house as much as possible. I live in a city and I do try to get involved and do as many things as possible but a lot of the time I end up in a position where I have to do things on my own and it isn't really much fun. As well as the impact on finances which is another source of stress: having to run a home - mortgage and all bills and car repairs and so on from one salary takes its toll.

I've joined over the past five years or so various dating websites - guardian soulmates and match.com and plenty of fish. None worked for me in the time I was on there. For some reason the only person wanting to strike up a conversation with me on match.com was a man from Manchester which is some 300 miles away from where I do live, and while I've nothing against Manchester as a place I would like to think there's someone amongst my millions of neighbours who I could have a relationship with! Yet I do feel I should be coupled up with one person and any social life should stem from doing things with other couples. This certainly seems to be the impression I have from scanning my eyes around those around me.

I do know, before anyone says, that loving with a cruel or neglectful or ignorant partner would be worse but that's not really what I'm about here.

I do volunteer work within my community, and I do have friends although they are somewhat scattered around this country and abroad and a couple of friendships are sadly waning a little at the moment despite attempts on my part to rekindle them. I also go to the gym but don't find this a social activity (I don't go with this expectation.)

So I do feel a little as if I am going around in circles where in order to meet someone in need to be a grounded individual with a sparkly social life yet having a sparkly social life when ones friends are coupled up and you have all the financial limitations of being single, is hard!

I am in a rut and don't want to go on like this but I don't know how to change things!

MyPerfectCousin

I don't think it's easy, but I think that's how to do it.

As I said, you have to make opportunities to meet people if you aren't going to do online dating.

You said you don't have any male friends - do your female friends know anyone they could set you up with?

If your hobby is only affording you the chance to meet men who aren't an option for whatever reason (too old, not your type, married) then you still have to make more opportunities to meet men. I didn't mean do any old hobby / club, I meant one when you can meet men.

Think about everything you do in your average week, and everywhere you go. Then think about how you can change it to meet men.

OP I sympathise. I'm also long long time single. I also agree with the PP that you're somehow not allowed to ever say you don't want to be single, even though everything in society tells us we should coupled up. I know what you mean about just wanting companionship. It is hard.

Personally my female friends don't have male friends either apart from other couples. In other words, Jane and John Jones are friends with Sam and Sue Smith but they socialise in couples as it was a single sex friend first - Jane and Sue were friends or John and Sam were friends.

This may just be me but I don't personally know any exceptions.

It has however helped a lot to know it is not just me :)

Can we take it as read that anyone who has been single long enough to be posting about it on the internet has already investigated the options of "do you have any single male friends? Do your female friends know anyone they can set you up with?"

I know it comes from a good place but its slightly frustrating to keep hearing what is essentially "have you tried asking all the obvious people?"

Are you sure? Maybe they have friends you don't know about. No harm in asking.

Its so cute that you think they are not already painfully aware :D

Friends have had more success with interest matchmaking websites ie Private Eye & Muddy Matches. Both of those started relationships that became marriages (one late thirties & one mid-forties).

It didn't occurred to me to ask my friends to hook me up for a long time. I mentioned I was single and fed up off the cuff when out with friends, and someone arranged for me to meet one of their friends. So it isn't necessarily obvious to everyone.

The advice about asking your male friends out was more to make the point that most men are highly unlikely to decline impolitely and that "men like to do the chasing" than to offer an original suggestion.

But do any single females actually have single male friends, at this age and stage if you like when many people are in established relationships with small children.

The men at work I know are all married or in committed relationships!

If you're in your late 30s, some men around your age will be still single, having just not met a partner yet, and some will be divorced. I don't know whether your female friends know any such men, I suppose, some of them will have brothers I guess.

But if not, then, as I said, think carefully about everything you do in an average week, and see how you can make changes to meet men, if that's what you want to do.

I don't have many single male friends, but I did manage to hook up my friend with a married male friends friend. ( not the married one; his friend!) They are now married.
I have two other friends who have serious relationships that started from Tinder.
I have another friend who did as a pp suggested, made finding a serious partner a project, said yes to every social occasion, and within a year met her lovely husband.
I think you sound really lovely and together OP, and a good man would be thrilled to meet you.

I hear you OP. Am newly single at 45. I have never lived alone before - always been in house shares and it's soul destroying. I laugh at something on TV and there's no-one to share that joke with. As someone said upthread - I can leave work on a Friday and not speak a word until I get back in on the Monday.

I have some friends but they are all busy with their lives and a coffee takes up probably one hour out of around 16 that I am awake for. I'm not brave enough for OLD - I'm too ordinary and introverted and the thought of getting out there going on dates with strangers leaves me cold (especially with all the horror stories I've read about!). I've joined MeetUp groups and met some lovely people but they don't do anything outside of the groups.

As has been already said - I have all my finances to pay for out of one salary and to be honest just living costs takes up more than my monthly rent leaving nothing for a social life.
And having to be relentlessly cheerful when you do see people so they will want to meet up again is exhausting

Yes, indeed!

You know, it is such a relief to realise it isn't just me moping and being miserable. A relief to feel others feel the same: struggling to meet the bills, trying to put on a smiley and cheerful outlook to the world at large for the couple of hours or so you see people and then returning home to the hours and hours of aloneness.

It is depressing

Thank you Stormtreader - people tend to think they are the only person to ever have suggested whatever idea they come out with. All of my friends know I am single, know I am looking, they even all say I'm a catch and don't understand why I am single. I've asked all of them "do you have any single friends to set me up with?" and NONE of them know any singletons. Probably because couples tend to socialise far more with other couples, especially once kids come along.

I hated being single. Was utterly single for 4 years - without a sniff of a date or any interest even from 3 different dating websites. No friend's offered to set me up with their or their partner's single friends. One Easter the only person I spoke to was a cashier in Tesco. No one called or sent me a text. I know the feeling of being a burden to your mates even if they insist you're not.

I met my partner on the tube - he randomly asked if I'd like to join him for a drink and I threw caution to the wind and went. Don't give up and please don't think there's anything wrong with you (like I did). I really hope your perfect partner is just around the corner.

Walking group? Anyone can walk!

Some of the comments on this thread are a bit I think a few people need to check their privilege. I mean that kindly.

No, not everyone can walk. Single here, love walking, think it would be a brilliant way to meet lots of lovely people. Except I can't walk. And my wheelchair doesn't handle all terrain, as most chairs don't. I'm not so unusual at being in this position.

OP I feel very similar to you. It is really, really tough. It's hard not to lose hope and feel downhearted. As a single person, even if you're really sociable and join in with things, that can still leave hours and hours and hours alone. It gets old fast.

I think all we can do is keep pursuing the things which bring fulfilment and joy to our lives and keep meeting people too. Online dating is a funny thing but it does work for lots. I do think having a cat or a dog eases loneliness (look at borrow my doggy if you can't have a dog right now). I think keeping busy works wonders. No more answers than that and I'm not sure you wanted solutions so much as to have people identify with you. Because the solutions do just involve keeping putting yourself out there.

Perfect
Im 18months post marriage breakdown... I think a change of thinking is required on my part.

In a funny way my weight is probably my protector.... don't need to let anyone close; they wont be disappointed by me.

Still, OP, you do sound together and compassionate...it will happen.

Do you think you have unrealistically high expectations? I think I might do...
So flipping confused...

BadLad I have plenty of male friends, probably a 50/50 split, but none of them are single. And none of them have single friends, well none that would be compatible with me (e.g. much younger/older/don't fancy each other).

I have asked my friends about setting me up with someone. As Storm said, after being single for 5 years since I was 37, there aren't many things I haven't considered.

I do hobbies that men do, and I meet men, they're just not single. Or there are so many far younger, more attractive women that I don't even get a look in. Understandably.

I'm just not really what men want. I go to festivals on my own/with the children and camp on my own. I drink real ale. I like Star Trek and horror films. I wear floral dresses and DM boots. I wear very little make up. I'm intelligent and quite intellectual and want a man who is the same. I like classical music (go to the Proms every year) and 'alternative music'. I'm not 'slim' or 'beautiful' or 'elegant' or 'sophisticated' although I am 'curvy' (size 12-14) and 'attractive' and 'quirky' and 'sexy' (or so I'm told)... but that's not really what most men in their 40s and beyond are looking for!

I think it's easier to just accept it's not going to happen.

But it is fucking lonely!

I'm not sure that I do. In fact, I was pondering this morning how little generally I expect of others.

I know this post isn't about my friend, but in some way that serves as an example: the expectation was that I would travel. This has always been the case. I do this for everybody, more or less, because they have families and so why, of course it makes more sense for one person to go to four people than vice versa. And indeed it does make perfect sense so you do that and then before you know it a decade has gone by and no one has contacted you without prompting.

I'm depressing myself!

Forwards If you want to PM me, I'll give you some pointers on the approach I took x

And I completely understand what you mean about the weight being a protector.

It's probably time to take stock and start making those changes

The walking/climbing/cycling group thing always makes me wonder though - I wouldnt seek these activities out, I have no desire to do them. It seems a cruel irony of the world that we get told "just be yourself!" and then also told "abandon any personal preference you may have, men are at these things so you must do them".

If I made myself go and grin through it, and then met someone - is that kind of false pretences? They think theyve met someone who loves walking as much as they do, I'm looking forwards to never doing it again as soon as they move in!
Do you think men get advised to join knitting/crafting groups?

Storm We seem to think very similarly, despite being opposite gender. The usual advice on MN is always about women should join cycling or climbing groups because they are full of men. Presumably therefore, there are now far more women than men in these groups in response to this suggestion? I'm a man, never gone near a cycling or climbing group. But even though there may be men there, it doesn't follow that they are single. Similarly, as a man, I was told to go to Salsa dancing because there are loads of women there. But I'm totally shit at dancing, tried Salsa twice and hated it - and if I don't like something or are no sodding good at it, I'm hardly likely to come off at my best to a potential partner and, as you say, it's a bit false pretences because if you hit it off and they love dancing and you never wanted to go again, well, it probably isn't going to work.

We're always told to be ourselves, we should want someone to want us as we are and for our values and interests. Except when it comes to the dating bit, we're supposed to change ourselves to snare the person and then hope they don't piss off when we revert to our real selves.

Totally agree. I have no interest in pretending I like a sport I don't in the vain hope that a man will like me. What happens then when their hobby/sport/interest becomes the bane of your life but there's nothing you can do because that was precisely how you got together in the first place!

I'd rather meet someone who was interested in the same things as me. Not pretend I was someone I'm not.

*Perhaps you need to consider your self esteem before trying to find someone

Oh and this one! Yes OP, your fault you're single because of your 'poor self esteem' hmm.*
Yeap
arbrighton your comments are unhelpful.