I just need to pour this out because I can’t speak to anyone about it IRL, it’s so trivial and silly.
In essence, I’m just feeling really lost. I’m facing 30 and I’m not where I thought I’d be in life – I’ve got a house and a decent job but I’ve lost my confidence. I’m single and can’t seem to make a relationship last, I can’t stop comparing myself to others, I don’t really know what I want.
All my friends are married or coupled, some trying to conceive… and without really wanting to, I’ve become some kind of well-meaning spinster auntie figure. Somewhere deep down I am happy for them, but I can’t stand another wedding on my own or another baby shower, I can’t stand to look at another set of loved-up Facebook holiday photos, I can’t cope with how this “stuckness” makes me feel.
It’s not that I’m desperately craving a relationship. I just have this inner loneliness and the sense that I don’t really “matter”, my friends’ priorities have shifted because their lives naturally changed and there seems to be no space for me. I have referred to this jokingly as a sort of “turning 30 existential crisis.”
My closest friend since childhood has a new partner and this has consumed her life, I’m lucky if we have a phone call once a week these days. It has been like a bereavement to me, honestly. I have never felt more alone or more of a non-person. When we speak, she wants me to socialise with him and to bring him everywhere and for these mad reasons I can’t express, I just can’t do it.
I feel like I’m trying very hard to shield my friends from how I feel – but to the point where I just want to avoid social situations because I don’t want to drag things down. I just don’t know what the hell I want out of life. I am lost.