Scared I’ll be on my own forever

[Ceriane]

Not sure where to start and I know people have much bigger problems but in the lockdown this issue is going around in my head morning, noon and night. I’m 36 and have been almost completely single for a few years now. Online dating makes me feel really uneasy and unsafe, plus I rarely to never feel attracted to anyone and really don’t want to force it. I dread seeing extended family and friends I haven’t seen for a while as they hassle me about it, some actually get really angry with me over it. I feel deep shame about my singleness and hate talking about it or being asked about it. I actually have never really minded being on my own but the pressure I feel because of my age and things people say is immense. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to meet my soulmate, fall in love, have a wedding and a baby and I know I’m running out of time, but it has to be genuine love. I really have to feel strongly about someone. It’s nothing to do with wanting someone with no flaws and a high flying career, I couldn’t care less about that stuff and I’m sick of having that assumption thrown at me. I just have to be in love, that’s all, and I can’t make that happen by force. I don’t want to spend all my time in lockdown trawling OLD sites it really stresses me out. I don’t know what to do and I’m worrying about this all the time.

Hi
Really sorry to hear you feel like this,
it's not easy to meet people as you get older I found and I did end up on OLD sites after coming out of an 18 year relationship.
There's no harm in trying it, don't put any pressure on yourself to even find a date it might build your confidence just chatting to people on them.
On the flip side don't feel pressure from others to be settled down and married, it will happen when it's meant to, there's nothing wrong with being comfortable and happy on your own.sometimes this is when you're most likely to find someone when you least expect it.please don't let it worry you xx

I feel exactly the same, it’s awful and I’ve cried about it nearly every night for weeks now.

I get attention and dates but have never found the right person. I think it is down to luck and all I can say is that you are not alone in feeling this way.

I am feeling the same. I really don’t like the idea of old but not sure how else to meet someone as I have zero social life. Seems I will be alone forever

I met my lovely DH through OLD, took 18 months of dates and it was almost like having a second part time job, you gave yo commit to the process. Although I think I was his 3rd date so a lot quicker for him! The pay off is worth it and I was surprised by how many lovely men I met (just didn't fancy them!). In about 20 dates I only met a couple of oddballs and nowhere near making me feel unsafe, you can filter out the time wasters from the messaging stage and I was very up front I was looking for a relationship etc. Give it a go OP there's nothing to lose!

I feel a bit angry when I read your post OP, not with you but with all the people hassling you to couple up. Why on earth do you feel shame about being single? Have you seen the research showing that single women are happier and live longer than married women? Maybe point your annoying relatives towards it next time they start going on about it. We, as a society, really need to stop this ridiculous idea that a marriage or long term relationship should be everyone's goal.

You sound perfectly okay OP. Rather than spending your time trying to meet a man, why not spend it doing whatever makes you happy?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/25/women-happier-without-children-or-a-spouse-happiness-expert

www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/when-you-start-enjoy-being-single-these-13-things-will-happen.html

There have been so many posts like this this week. I think it must be the stage in lockdown we are at. I don't know if that helps or not.

I am married now with kids but it took me long time to find DH. I used to find the loneliness and sadness came in waves. Take some time to grieve and then try and chin up and start again.

There are ways to make OLD safer.

I think it’s the lock down making people feel more lonely. Lockdown made me realise I don’t want to be single anymore. But I would rather be than do old!

I feel for you OP, I really do.

I'm the same although I am 41 and have been married before and have 2DC.

Since for 5 years now and I hate it. Thank n one hand I don't want any Tom dick or Harry in my DC's lives and I'm quite happy being in charge of what we do, what we spend, how we live and all that. I'm too set in my ways now to compromise I think lol.

But on the other hand I am lonely. I just want to be loved and feel like I'm just getting older and fatter and will never be happy again. Not truly.

It's hard. I told my sister (married) how I was feeling and that lockdown is making me tearful...and she just replied "least you've no one to argue with!" I guess we have to look on the bright side.

I'm sure you won't be alone forever. But I agree the "pressure" from others is overwhelming at times.

Well, newly single here after a 20 year relationship but real loneliness in the marriage for at least 3... I think being with the wrong person is the worst form of it somehow. Although I admit I'm a bit scared of never finding the right companion. Good luck to us all ladies!

I think its disgusting that your family make you feel like that. I'd be telling them to shove their backwards opinions up their arses, whether that's a younger relative or granny.

I think you're very wise, OP. You are certain that you need to be in love and your instinct is spot on. Anything less and you'll be unhappy. Be proud that you are sticking to your values.
Those idiots who are pressuring you are simply feeling threatened because you're not conforming to the "norm" and they have settled and wish they hadn't. Their anger is twisted envy. Of course you don't wish to be lonely but hold out for Mr Right. Take the advice here and approach OLD like a 2nd job. Commit to it if it means everything to you to find a partner. Good luck.

Thank you so much for your replies, they have made me feel a lot better. I think it has got to that point in the lockdown where I was starting to worry and obsess about it ie if I don’t try to find someone now I could miss my chance, and that stresses me out. I feel more pressure from friends and family and your right, they shouldn’t be putting that type of pressure on me. One of the main culprits was in a seriously abusive relationship for 20 years and doesn’t seem to see just going it alone as being an option which is why she can’t work me out. Why on earth would I take advice from her. The other one is a very naive girl who met her partner at 19 (now 35) and has never been with anyone else so assumes everything in a pair of trousers is just as lovely as her partner and pushes me towards anything with a pulse (even if really dodgy she doesn’t seem to see it). I won’t rule out OLD, but I won’t make a stress fest of it. It will either happen or it won’t. Either way, I will be happy. I just have to ignore people’s pressure in the meantime and stop pressuring myself!!! I know I was so much happier when I had my whatever happens, happens attitude. If good stuff happens embrace it, if a situation feels bad, keep away from it. It’s just the lockdown situation has made me feel it more and feel that the chance of just naturally meeting someone in real life isn’t likely to happen for a long time, and I don’t want to end up still single at 40. I’m such a mixed up person over all this. If it wasn’t for the big 40 looming up in just a few short years, I wouldn’t put pressure on myself at all.

I am the same. And with this stupid pandemic it feels like all dating is off the table. And like you’re not allowed to say that love and sex is a basic human need. Getting really anxious as well. The thought of life on hold for so long.

I was reading some posts from a therapist on here a while back and she was saying that often when people are single but hoping for love, there are things that are holding them back. It might be to do with not experiencing the right kind of intimacy with others while growing up. She said that once she had worked things through with the clients they would then meet someone quite quickly. It might be worth looking into this?

It tallies with my experience. I struggled with emotional intimacy when I was younger because of how I had been brought up and in my early 30s my nickname at work was "runaway bride" as I had halted an engagement and then a serious relationship for apparently no reason. Looking back I actually had no idea what an intimate connection might look like or feel like at that time, and once I "got it" (I can't go into details how) I fell in love for the first time.

I’m really sorry to hear this OP, that’s very insensitive of your relatives and also downright wrong! You are absolutely right not to settle for someone you don’t have proper feelings for - it wouldn’t be fair on that person and it wouldn’t work out long term anyway. Some people are so insecure they can’t bear to be alone and will settle for anyone and then they don’t want to think that they made the wrong decision so they try to bring you down to make themselves feel better about their life choices.

I was single for a long time before I met DH and I remember those lonely nights in tears, thinking I wouldn’t ever meet someone. I really do think it’s largely down to luck. Some people say it’s a numbers game but I know some virtual hermits who only dated one person and got married young and some social butterflies who’ve been on hundreds of dates and not met the right person.

Eventually your luck will hopefully come in. But what I actually found liberating was to make a plan for my life on the assumption that I wouldn’t meet the right person. In my mind that was the “worst case scenario” and I was putting my life on hold waiting for the right person to appear. Then I came up with a plan (involving a year of travel, moving house to be near my parents and then adopting a child) which I was genuinely happy about and looking forward to. I’d just started to looking at houses near my parents to see what I could afford and then DH almost fell into my lap! It was great because I didn’t spend our first few dates desperately hoping it would work out, as I had done in the past. I was actually quite annoyed it was going so well as it put paid to the plans I was now excited about!

Bests of luck OP, wishing you every happiness whichever way things go

Starsinthelightsky. I have wondered about this a lot for years! I’ve dated a lot of people and some really nice ones and can’t understand why I’ve pulled away. Scared I’ll either always do this or force myself not to for the wrong person. Have thought about therapy for a while!

Conkergame your advice is amazing!

Glad I came across this thread as this week I am feeling a real sadness about being ‘alone’ - I think it has been magnified by my birthday this week. I always thought that by this age I would be married with children and I am very far from it. I was scared of OLD (just scared of meeting anyone at all really as my previous relationship had ended very badly). Turns out I did meet someone who I thought was lovely, but has now just disappeared after 6 months with no good reason. It has affected me more than I thought and now I’m even more wary than before. I feel like my life is on hold and I’m wasting time. And as sad as it may sound, I want to get married and I want to have children.
But I’ve read some great advice on here and hopefully post lockdown I can change my thinking.

Yeh, I get what you mean by being scared to meet people. Different if it happens naturally through friends or work etc, it’s the thought of meeting strangers and the pressure to decide if I like someone or not and make it into a relationship. I’m not really that scared about getting hurt in a relationship, no more so than most, it’s actual safety I worry about. The thought of talking to strange men is just a bit weird to me. It’s different in a natural setting where your not necessarily looking, you just develop feelings for someone you already know and they develop feelings for you. That to me is genuine and natural, but trawling through profile after profile of complete strangers that could be really not good people for all you know, whilst telling yourself to stop being so fussy and putting pressure on yourself to get into a relationship with them just makes me stressed and it’s just horrible. Anyone else feel the same. It’s only been in the last 10 years OLD has been the thing everybody does. In the old days, you either met someone naturally and fell in love, usually married young or you didn’t. Now there just seems to be all this pressure.

It’s just that I believe in genuine love not tick boxes for suitable partner if that makes any sense. I’m not even particularly lonely as I’m really close to family and friends, it’s more if I don’t MAKE it happen soon I will never have had a wedding or be a mom and will be seen by society as a total loser in 3 years time. I’m driving myself mad with this.

But I don’t want those things unless it is with someone I really love. Those milestones marriage and kids are seen as measures of success by society and I find myself buying into that. If I could have just settled down with the person I was with at 18 like a normal person I wouldn’t be in this situation now :(

I agree it can be a very hard feeling to deal with. Also that it is very much down to luck on meeting the right person at the right time and place.

I console myself that even if I am single I am not in a relationship that might be very dysfunctional, unhappy and unhealthy. I know people who come across as being smug at being in a relationship, but are not happy with their dynamics at all and seem to spend a lot of time arguing with their partners.

Now is the perfect time to give it a whirl then OP; you can trial OLD without the pressure of actually meeting anyone. Go on girl - sign up and have a chat and maybe a flirt but consider it just that, then if any princes show up, it'll be a bonus.

Avoid sleazy sites like POF & Tinder, try something more tailored to your interests or leanings - GuardianSoulmates, CountryLoving, OKCupid...

Good Luck!

Thank you

One thing about “genuine love”. Something I found amazing in the years I spent in OLD is that most people are looking for “love at first sight” where they “click” and then all goes swimmingly after that, but we are now older, more discerning and sometimes is difficult to see if the person is right for you in the hour a first date can last. I’m sure a lot of people dismiss wonderful people that may have right for them because they didn’t click or feel attracted at the beginning when they would have possibly been if they had taken a chance to know the other person a bit better.

I’m not saying you should settle for someone that is ok but doesn’t rock your boat, but if you can see you are somewhat compatible, have similar values and aspirations and have a good time in the first date there’s no reason why you shouldn’t meet another time to see if there is some potential, you don’t need to go to bed or kiss anyone until you feel like it after all.

As someone else mentioned above, this is a matter of luck. I was actively looking for a long while and most people I met were wonderful people but just not the right person for me, but good enough to see them again as friends (no benefits) if they felt the same. I made some very good friends and we kept company to each other’s until the right person arrived to their lives and mine.

I met a guy who I didn’t feel attracted to to start with but it had all the “credentials”, the more I got to know him the more I liked him and when the attraction came it was amazing.

On the other hand, I felt really attracted to my current partner when I met him but I didn’t think he was right for me, but then as I got to know him better I realised he was very cultured, able to keep a good deep conversation and was very kind, the man has a heart of gold so we have been together for a few years, so I am glad I didn’t dismiss him on my first impression alone.