This isn't the kind of post you'll see from me very often. 99 days out of 100, I love being single. When I make plans, I don't have to check with anyone else's calendar. When the house is a mess, it's my mess and no one else lives there to be bothered by it. If the dog barks for ten minutes straight at nothing in particular, the only person annoyed is me. When I'm exhausted from a long day of work and class, I don't have to save any emotional energy to put into anyone else. No one distracts me from my homework, no one steals the covers or hogs the bed, and there's no one to notice if I stay in my pajamas all weekend.
But then there's that one day when going home alone while all of your couple friends go home together holding hands and giving each other that look. That day hits you like a ton of bricks and puts as much emotional angst into that sucker punch as the other 99 combined. That day being single isn't all it's cracked up to be and curling up in a queen-sized bed with nothing but the cat to say goodnight to....hurts.
It's never really one big thing that shows up and causes you to rethink your entire life of bad relationship choices. It's lots of little things. Lately my back and my legs have really been inexplicably aching. When I sit, when I walk, when I lay in bed, I ache. The weather has been unseasonably cold and rainy. I've been racked with some serious financial concerns. Midterms and papers and piles upon piles of readings have been taking all of the mental energy I possess. There is an exponentially large pile of paperwork that increasingly piles up on my desk at work every day. And at the end of the day, when I'm at the end of my rope, I don't have someone else to fall back on who will rub my shoulders and give me a hug and tell me everything will be okay. And that's a hard night to get through.
And the guys. Even though I'm not looking for a long-term relationship because I don't have the time or the energy or the emotional capacity to deal with it at the moment, it's nice to go on a date every now and then but the scarcity of single males in my life makes that difficult. There's the guy you've known for over a decade, who you've given chance after chance to, who has made it abundantly clear through his inability to commit that a relationship would never happen, but for some reason you always say yes when they ask you out even though they'll probably forget you had plans and stand you up. There's the friend that's still so hung up on their ex that most of the time they forget you exist until they see you, fawn all over you, tell you how much they miss hanging out with you, and then never calls. There's the friend with benefits that works out perfectly until something new and shiny comes along. There are the cute boys you know vaguely from work and would love to ask out on a date but are quite certain are way too attractive to have noticed you. Dating is hard. I hate it but spending every single night by yourself gets trying too. I know there's no easy answer to my dilemma except to suck it up and remember that tomorrow I'll probably be my usually cheerful self.
I hope.
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