Accepting being single forever

[teaandcakeat8]

I'm in late twenties and have been single for over two years, apart from a few few month things that never really got into 'relationship' stage. Last one ended just before Christmas.

I genuinely think that I am supposed to be alone forever. I see most of my friends meet men they like, the men like them back and that's it. They get together. For me, there are always complications that mean it doesn't happen. So I think this is the way I'm destined to be.

Have tried to go back OLD since Christmas but my heart isn't in it; am still in brief contact with ex and no one really measures up to him.

I feel like I'm now too old to find someone. I just want some advice on how to come to terms with this, as I'm feeling really lonely and down about it. I keep crying and just feel helpless really.

I am 49, and have been single most of my adult life. OK, I came out of a 7 year relationship about a year ago but this state of 'being single' is very familiar to me and I felt a single a lot in that relationship.

I have had oodles of therapy. Oodles. None of it makes me less single or more likely to want to be single.

I agree with Shatner and Quiddich - I am content, sometimes I love being single, but I miss sex, and intimacy of thought. Someone to understand me (why I felt single in the last relationship I guess, he didn't!). I don't think I want to live with anyone again though.

I once heard it said that being single isn't so much an issue of having someone to do things with, it's having someone to do nothing with.

Out Well said. Sometimes, I can see the advantage of having a partner and sometimes you stay at theirs and sometimes they stay at yours and sometimes you stay at your own alone. Best of all world. You don't have to always marry or live together.

Sometimes you just want someone to snuggle up and watch the TV with. Sometimes you just want a good old snog. I'd like someone to go on holiday with (bloody single supplements); haven't been on holiday in 5 years when I persuaded a friend to go with me.

Sex would be nice. I haven't had sex in 2.5 years which is frankly ridiculous. And while I get offers and could go get sex in 30 mins with some random online, I actually want to have sex with someone who likes me, and I like them. And that is not too much to ask.

It's the someone to do nothing with, and just generally sharing of life experiences with.

I last had sex in April 2011.

And only a certain type of therapy is going to help resolve that 😉😂

Which you can't get on the NHS and we all agree buying it is wrong.

Did I say that this mean that I was alone? No - but I was definitely sending out "push away" vibes for a long time.

Anyway - I feel a little like I'm in a game of "Why Don't You, Yes But" again, so I'll bow out.

You know? I've been pottering in the kitchen getting my DS's dinner ready, and pondering how dismissive my last post was - and that I was a little out of order, and my apologies for that.

I can only write about my experience. I'm 46 now, been in therapy on and off since I was 23. I came from a totally fucked-up family, complete with narcissism, alcoholism, and abuse.

I can related to feeling totally alone; to crying when I saw all my friends in relationships; to being unable to find a relationship that worked; to crying in relationships because I felt so lonely. I have joined dating websites in a frenzy of needing to connect. I have had my heart broken, which plunged me into a depression that lasted months.

Over the past two years, something has been happening, but I'm not sure what. It felt like I've been to the lower circles of hell, it got so bad - I felt like I was falling apart totally. Complete anxiety, nothing to hold on to. I often say it felt like being on a ship that was sinking. So I guess I hit some kind of bottom. A relationship ended, and a lot started to fall away - and then ... nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing was moving in my outside life.

What I started to notice was that I didn't want anything. I didn't long for a relationship anymore - in fact, I didn't want one. I needed to be by myself, and I have been both content and happy ... as well as bored, frustrated, angry, and everything in between. But never longing for a partner. The possibility of never being someone again felt all right - and this from someone who used to look at women who said this with the horror of incomprehension. I just couldn't believe you could come to a place where you felt that way.

But this is where I am - and I'm not saying it's permanent and I won't go back to really wanting someone, but it's new. I've not felt this before. I think it took going through some kind of psychological wringer to get there - and this after oodles and oodles of therapy too. It took that long.

My 2c about where I'm at right now.

And that's good and that's your journey.

But it doesn't mean that someone who doesn't feel the same is wrong or needs help.

I don't long for anything either. I expect many long term singles don't, because you can't long for something for 10 plus years, you can't keep it up. But I'd still like a partner. And it's ok not to want to be an isolated island.

I agree it's okay not to want to be isolated; I never said it was wrong to feel other than the way I feel.

I wasn't saying it was your journey. I was simply sharing mine in case it was useful to someone. And if it isn't, then that's okay too.

Btw - you can feel isolated with a partner; and being without a partner doesn't need to be isolating. Just to add those into the mix.

YOU ARE SOOOO YOUNG !!

But 'not wanting to be with someone' is not the endgame, it's not the solution. You haven't 'won' because you have now decided you don't wasn't to be with someone.

As we have all said, we're perfectly content being single but would prefer to be with someone.

I totally accept that my fucked up childhood/family probably means I am hard to be in a relationship with and actually, I probably can't change that. But it doesn't change me wanting to.

Anyway, it's really annoying being single, telling people you would rather not be, and them saying "oh, you need to learn to love yourself first, you need to be happy being single" [subtext: then the perfect person will just fall in your lap] - the implication being that if you are still single you are somehow doing it/something wrong.

Luckily for me, I last had sex a few weeks ago. But, sadly, it made me realise even more how much I miss it! (not enough to keep seeing the annoying chap)

Thing is, the people who tell you that were last single 20 years ago!

I am happy and I do love myself, and have done for a really long time. If I didnt I would go out with just anyone to resolve my single status. But I don't.

And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Out is clearly our triplet Quid

Welcome to the club!
( that no one wants to be in)

In all seriousness, and to the original op, it's crap. If you want to date, date, if you want to join a club, join a club, if you want to pretend to salsa, and enter a place where no straight man has been since 1967, then do that.
None of those things are likely to change the situation, it's just down to luck and meeting the right person at the right time.

But 'not wanting to be with someone' is not the endgame, it's not the solution. You haven't 'won' because you have now decided you don't wasn't to be with someone.

When did I say you had? It's interesting that I've owned nearly everything I've written as my own personal experience; I haven't foisted it on anyone; I don't believe everyone has the same path - and yet it's getting a lot of push-back.

I'm wondering whether it's safer to hold as tightly to your "club" than it is to ponder the possibility that others have a different experience. Over and out.

Thanks to all for your replies.

This was one the cards anyway due to my job but have decided to move to London later this year - I hope a change of scenery will kickstart my social life a bit!

I have always been one of those women who have mainly been on their own, and over the years I've come to terms with that, and not having kids. In the last I have thought I wanted the whole marriage and kids scenario, but I think part of my problem was that not having that really alienated me with my social group and I felt left out - still do sometimes. When you're the only Bridget in a sea of smug marrieds, you are seen as the odd one out - people sometimes don't know what to do with you, even when they are your friends.
I once got put on a table at a wedding, was ignored by the two teenagers on one side of me and ended up having a coversation with a guy sat in the other side of me, about the Man City take-over. When he nipped off to the loo his wife leaned over and asked me to "stop monopolising" her husband. I was a bit taken aback and ended up apologising, when what I really wanted to do was say, "well if you had bothered to talk to me then I wouldn't have done so".
Nowadays, I am fairly content - I am quite introvert so like my own space, but I do miss affection. A couple of years ago I had a flingette with a Cuban guy I met on holiday - the most action I've had in years and a complete surprise. It was quite a shock to realise that it wasn't the sex I'd been missing, it was the kisses. It coincided with an article I read in the Guardian about how most humans need a bit of physical touch in their lives - and I realised that I don't really get that. My parents died a long time ago, so I don't even get a love from my mum. So now I get a massage every three months. Nothing sexual, just a beauticians one, or a sports massage to soothe my cyclists legs, but it is such a balm for the soul - I end up floating out of the room. It's not dinner, drinks and a bit of how's your father, but it does give me a lift.

"Club" - right. Yeah, cos I am surrounded by other single people who want to date, all moaning about it to each other and without a clue what the problem is.

Oh, except I'm not. I'm surrounded by coupled-up people telling me they would love to have the whole bed to themselves and that I should 'love myself first' and 'have you tried taking up a hobby'.....

And, yes, married women who don't like you talking to their husbands. My sister (recently single after 30 years) disputed this with me (despite me having far far more experience of being single), pointing out that she has a number of married friends. Well, yes dear, but you're not a threat, because you were married for 30 years, during which you met them, they know you well enough to know you won't jump their husbands and you've told everyone you'll never be with another man.
She told me to take up yoga (oh, she does yoga, she's not met any men there though)

Out That's precisely what Quid meant by the club. Me, you, her and the OP, all long term single, all followed everyone's advice, but here we are still single and still getting the same advice...

Out , that's what I meant.

I hate the people who tell me they would love to be single as they could watch what they wanted on tv.

I just reply, yes, for 10 years.

And then they look at you, eyes wide because they don't understand.

And I say, you can watch what you want for 10 years, and you go to bed early as you are so utterly bored. Sat by yourself night after night, can't go out as can't afford a baby sitter fee on top of going out and tired from being at work and doing all parenting and house stuff, that you get up and need to do agsin tomorrow. FOR 10 YEARS.

Then they shut up 😂

And teaandcake, that's very exciting news! Loads of new things to explore and do!

But 'not wanting to be with someone' is not the endgame, it's not the solution

It's A solution.

If you want a thing and you don't have that thing, the two happy resolutions are:
1 - get the thing
2 - change your mind, realise that you don't particularly want the thing

If you decide you don't want the thing but continue to pursue it anyway because "you've wanted it for so long" you're wasting your time.