Having been
single now for just
over 5 months (having previously been in one
serious relationship or another for 6
years) I have deduced that it really REALLY
sucks.
At first, despite being extremely upset at the demise of my last relationship, I acknowledged that it would be the first time in my 20's (I'm now 26) that I would have the freedom to do all the things that young urban people do in a big city like London - and I must admit I half fancied the idea. Five long months on I just want my life to be the way it has been for so many years. Singledom is not for me for the following reasons;
1) I miss having someone around who I can tell all my problems, stories, worries and fears to (buddies are OK but there is a certain degree of myself that I can't reveal to my closest friends, it's a guy thang)
2) By Wednesday night when the previous weekend is a distant memory, the lonely walk to the video shop to grab a movie and order a takeaway seems to reek of someone with "Past Sell By Date, Please Throw Out" emblazened on their forehead. (I realise that 26 is not old but paranoia is a big part of being single and besides, it's nearer to 30 than 20 isn't it?)
3) I've come to the conclusion that sex is like heroin - you can go for years and years without the need for it, but once you've got the taste for it, the rapid onset of it's denial to your person feels like HELL ON EARTH!!! (Lioncub sits in a corner, trembling, twitcing and scratching the carpet having gone cold turkey for some time)
4) I no longer get the opportunity to go to nice places like restaurants, quiet bars or cinemas as I feel the need to surround myself with crowds and noise in busy bars and clubs so as not to feel like the sad lonely fart that I occasionally feel I could become.
5) I have found myself becoming unfairly resentful towards my friends partners, subconciously blaming them for 'stealing' my friends away from me.
6) The weekends have taken on a far more sinister guise as my opportuntity to redeem myself and perhaps wake up next to person I'm going to be with for the next six years! - Inevitably I fail to meet anyone I'm remotely interested in or, even worse, alcohol and desperation kick in and I end up with somebody with whom I have absolutley nothing in commom with whatsoever and spend the next 48 hours spiralling into a whirlpool of pity and self-loathing, regretting the things that I said or did to end up single in the first place.
6) Being in a relationship since I moved to London has retarded my social skills to a certain degree, in that I haven't really gone out of my way to meet new people as I haven't felt the need to do so. And believe me, London can be a VERY lonely place.
7) I have found that my female friends have started to threaten to 'set me up' with one or more of their friends which (for me, and I know this is only my opinion) smacks of desperation and fills me with an unsumountable mountain of cringe.
8) I've started to relate more and more to the character 'Rob' in Nick Hornby' s 'High Fidelity' and fear ending up at the local picture house with my mother and father aged 35 on a wet and windy Sunday evening)
These are the thoughts that were charging furiously around in my head this morning as I awoke to a big, empty house with the rain beating down on my bedroom window. I don't always feel this negative about my predicament but it helps to vent a little spleen in e2.
Thanks for listening.