With a little help from my friends

I had a good Sunday. I went over to my friends’ house and had lunch, drank some wine, chatted, laughed, played some computer games. There were five of us to start with, then one of my friends and his girlfriend left and for the rest of the time it was me and another couple, both of whom I knew as individual friends before they got together.

They’re really good friends in all senses: they are people I enjoy spending time with and I know I can rely on them. Earlier this year I was quite ill and they visited daily and helped me in all sorts of ways. They’re probably the friends I spend the most time with currently and when I’m with them there’s no sense of me being a third wheel. On those days when I am feeling most down about my lack of relationship, (not to mention my job and where I live) when I’m feeling like a failure because I am no further on in life than 15 years ago, I remind myself that I am lucky enough to have friends like them.

There have been times in the past when I have not had many friends in my life. For a while I only really had one friend, albeit a very good one who is still my best friend. She was the only person I socialised with and opened up to and I came to rely on her a little too much.

At the time I was feeling particularly depressed about still being single and there were many times when I found myself crying on her doorstep as I tried to say goodbye and leave for home. Sometimes it had been building during the evening, others it seemed to come from nowhere, but always it was the same: sobbing rather than simply crying, noisy, messy sobbing, gasping for breath and finding it difficult to get the words out, which were always some variation of what’s wrong with me, am I ever going to have a boyfriend. I was also having problems with jealousy and I think a little paranoia.

My friend eventually told me I had to get help. I plucked up the courage to visit my GP. He asked a lot of questions (including “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “Have you ever had a boyfriend? How I longed, and long, to be able to say yes to at least one of those) but I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell him the whole story. I didn’t mention the uncontrollable sobbing and the paranoia; I just said I sometimes got upset when talking to a friend. I asked if I could be referred to a counsellor but he said he didn’t think I was depressed and told me to go back if things got worse. I never did.

Luckily I didn’t get any worse. I started spending time outside work with a colleague and managed to develop that into a friendship. I made efforts to keep myself busy. I stopped myself from reaching rock bottom. I know that if I didn’t have good friends now and if I didn’t have my classes and swimming, if I had nothing in my life apart from work, I would be back in the same bad place I was then.

It’s not that friends and keeping busy stop me wanting a relationship. They don’t stop the loneliness, they don’t stop the worry that I will never find someone, they don’t stop the hurt that comes from knowing that nobody has been in love with you, that nobody has liked you enough to even want to try being in love with you.

But my friends do make me feel loved and cared for. Spending time with them means I have evenings and days which I enjoy, when I have fun and when I laugh. It means that I don’t spend every waking hour thinking about my situation; it doesn’t completely dominate my life. I won’t, and can’t, let it dominate my life. If I did I fear it would completely overwhelm me.

My future self?

I spent a few hours at the shops today, mainly on the seemingly never ending search for a pair of jeans that fit perfectly. Just as I was standing in yet another fitting room wearing yet another not quite right pair I got a call from a guy friend.

He’s probably the most sociable person I know. Actually he’s probably the most sociable person I’ve ever met in my whole life. He loves going out, being with people and meeting new people and if he’s going out for a drink he’ll often invite pretty much everyone he knows. I prefer to see friends one-on-one or in a small group where I know everyone, so I don’t always feel comfortable at his gatherings. I get on well with him though and we’re going to arrange to meet up next weekend. Plans for two weekends in a row! Must be all that complaining I did...

My friendship with Sociable Guy gives me hope that I will find someone one day. He seems to find me interesting and worth spending time with, and says that I’m lovely (usually after a few drinks, but hey, a compliment is a compliment), that I really shouldn’t be single and that I need to find a man. I figure that if he finds me interesting enough to want to be friends with me, then surely there’s someone out there who will find me interesting and attractive enough to want to date me. I finished the call feeling quite cheered.

About an hour later I was waiting in the queue at the supermarket checkout and was watching an older woman on her own (about in her 70s) pack and pay for her food. And that prompted the thought: That’s me in 40 years. I was standing there having visions of me at that age, still single, shopping alone, going home to eat alone. I felt a little sense of panic.

Of course I had no idea whether the woman even was single. She had no wedding ring, but that might not mean anything. A husband might have been at home. She might have been widowed. Even if she was single she might have had a very active and happy life.

I always feel a little sad when I see lone older people, men or women, buying just enough food for one, counting out what looks like their last few coins to pay. Mostly I don’t relate it to myself, I just wonder what their story is and feel sad. I always hope that, no matter what their circumstances now, they’ve had a good life and that they have family and friends who love them.

I’m going to try to keep the cheery feeling I got after the call from Sociable Guy, and forget about the old lady future self panic.

Oh, and I did eventually find a pair of jeans. Not quite a perfect fit, but pretty good.

‘Tis better to have loved and lost....

...Than never to have loved at all (Alfred Lord Tennyson). Really? I have to confess that I am in two minds about whether I think this is true or not.

On the one hand, as someone who has never been in love (or been loved) whenever I hear this said it brings back all the hurt I feel at never having been in a relationship. I think, well of course it must be better to have loved and lost, to have experienced feeling that someone is the most important person in the whole world to you, to have known that you would do anything for them and them for you, to have wanted to grow old with someone. I would give anything to have had that, even if I ultimately lost it.

On the other hand, when I see what losing love has done to some of my friends, I begin to wonder.

I have one friend who has been in a very bad place the last few months. She was sleeping with a married guy at work (which she knew she shouldn’t have got into, which her friends advised her against, but she somehow couldn’t stop herself and ended up in love). Her left for a new job and the whole thing finished leaving her an emotional mess. I would never want to feel the way she has been – seriously depressed, having suicidal thoughts, feeling that most of her friends have deserted her because they disapproved. My situation may make me feel lonely, miserable, unloved, afraid, like a freak, I may cry myself to sleep from time to time, but I’m fairly sure I don’t feel as gut-wrenchingly awful as she does. If that’s what losing love does to you, is it really better than not having experienced it at all?

Of course, it may be that I am just trying to convince myself that Tennyson was wrong to make myself feel better, to make me think that I am not missing out on something wonderful. I think I’ve become quite good at trying to make myself think that over the years. I never quite succeed though...