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So I’ve decided I’m giving up. I’m never going to get a woman, and I don’t even want to at this point. I’m now trying to figure out how to spend the next however many decades alone, because there are most likely many in front of me. It’s not ideal, but it’s my only option. Does anyone else have advice for going through life alone?
In my experience, relationships form when you're least expecting them. You're not on the hunt. When you finally say nope, I'm moving on for now. Then poof they happen. I wouldn't say you're giving up for the rest of your life. Just take some time for yourself. How old are you? To say you're going to be alone for decades isn't healthy. Humans need other humans.
"Get" a woman. Is that something like catching a fish?
Like fishing, it depends on the bait. In the 80's it was a brand new T top black & red Camaro Z-28. My social schedule was fairly filled with flirty blonds. When I moved to New England in the 90's I bought my first house. I managed to find an assortment of better prospects and took my time. The sports car was swapped for a truck and the women went from just looking for a good time to looking for a good provider. My priorities shifted to finding someone who's world view and opinions closely matched mine.
I must have made a good choice. After 26 years I still got her. Like I said, You've got to have the right bait.
So I’ve decided I’m giving up. I’m never going to get a woman, and I don’t even want to at this point. I’m now trying to figure out how to spend the next however many decades alone, because there are most likely many in front of me. It’s not ideal, but it’s my only option. Does anyone else have advice for going through life alone?
Never is a very very long time. So is forever. Your decision is premature and you've voluntarily walled yourself off from a lot. You may think this makes you independent but it really makes you rigid and defensive like a hedgehog. You've taken your toys and gone home pouting.
Stop thinking of "alone" as a crippling injury and that you are the victim. You have family, right? You have friends, right? You have a career, professional and recreational interests, right? If you don't, there's your problem! You have been hyperfocused on just one aspect of living. Stop. Everyone has offered good suggestions, but if you drag this "I'm defective so need to drag myself along for the rest of my life" attitude through the years nothing will make your life fulfilling. Don't look at everything else as poor substitutes. It will also tend to put others off. People don't enjoy spending time with sad sacks. Value your friends, family, your abilities, your advantages, your health or whatever else is yours for what they are. Enjoy your independence.
FWIW, I am also "alone" and have lived over 60 years that way. For whatever reason I haven't formed a romantic attachment with someone else. Maybe the planets just never aligned themselves. I wondered about it decades ago when many of my peers were pairing up, but stopped. There are so many other things to spend mental energy on. I have friends I love (married and single of both sexes), work I enjoy, interests, causes, and recreations that make my days great.
BTW, those planets are still in motion so anything could happen. I don't reject, I don't resent, I don't try to conform, and I also don't expect. It is very liberating.
A favorite character in a book commented:
"Life is a river. If you wait, almost everything you might need will come drifting along sooner or later. Just don't forget to open your net!"
Last edited by Parnassia; 03-14-2021 at 03:56 PM..
I'll throw in with the others who say to just make a life for yourself. I should have accepted that I'd likely be single all my life, but I was so desperate and felt so valueless at the prospect of never being married that I married someone I shouldn't have. It cost me years of emotional pain as well as financial damage that took nearly two decades to get out from under. The bright spot in those terrible years was the daughter born of the marriage, but I was not able to give her a stable family life or the financial advantages that many other of her peers had, and I can't go back and fix those things. She's doing all right, but it affected her.
Post-divorce, I hoped for another chance and tried a bit, but it didn't come for about 18 years, and then it was totally unexpected. A late-life love.
However, in those intervening years, I came to the place where you are now, the knowledge that I was to be alone, possibly forever, and I accepted it. I made a life for myself. I paid more attention to my career and did better in the last 15 years than I had done in the first 20. I took up writing and met people through conferences and writers groups. I moved to a new area and made some friends through social organizations and by volunteering to serve on my condo board and meet neighbors. I took the time to immerse myself, almost always alone, in natural settings in my area and connected with the trees and water and birds and other creatures. I read books. I found City-Data, lol.
I could have kept up that way and been satisfied. When the unexpected love came along, I embraced it with joy, but we are both up in years and time is precious. There is no room for the long-term plans couples make when they are young, and the time may come when I am alone again, and I will survive. I know how.
Are you from the UK? I have a friend from Scotland who uses 'takeaway' in place of 'takeout'. I actually prefer it, heh.
I'm in Australia, but I've been a frustrated Brit my whole life.
Back on topic, I can only be alone. After growing up eyeball to eyeball with my very churchy and insanely overprotective mother, I don't want to live with anyone else ever again. I now have all the privacy, solitude and personal space I wasn't allowed in my former life and, although it came at a terrible price, it's glorious.
It occurs to me I'm now the same age (44) my father was when he married for the third time.
1) Oof...
2) Eek!
3) I remain determined to learn from his mistakes and not repeat a single one, pun intended.
He likes to look at me over the top of his glasses and say 'it's your turn now, boy.' Yeah, no. The old man's had more than enough weddings for the both of us. The first one shouldn't have happened and produced a godless, mutant freak child in the shape of me, the second went belly up when he came home to an empty house (literally- she cleaned him out) and the third is still going strong after thirty years although they argue like cats and dogs. I don't need that in my life.
Can we, by which I mean human beings in general, not specifically you lot, stop with 'you just haven't met the right person' and the mentality that if relationships, marriage or kids don't happen, you have somehow failed at life? I'm quite capable of failing at life without a partner or a family to make mine even more complicated.
Last edited by scribbles76; 03-14-2021 at 04:10 PM..
So I’ve decided I’m giving up. I’m never going to get a woman, and I don’t even want to at this point. I’m now trying to figure out how to spend the next however many decades alone, because there are most likely many in front of me. It’s not ideal, but it’s my only option. Does anyone else have advice for going through life alone?
I do not believe that you can't get a woman. It's pretty easy for men. You have a much broader range of ages to choose from, women are not as picky about physical appearance as men are, and there are more women than men who are available. You are in short supply.
Maybe it's where you live. Do you live in an area where most people are married? A small to mid sized city, or worse - a semirural area? Single women move to larger cities where there are more job opportunities and the pay is better for women.
Are you outgoing enough? There are many shy women who won't take the first step. I feel for men because they have to learn to take rejection. I don't know if I could. But that's the way it still is.
When you get elderly, don't think your options will decrease. They will INcrease, because you will be a rare commodity: an available older man who is still alive. The trick to this is to stay healthy, though. No one wants to take on the job of being a caretaker in her golden years...unless you're willing to guarantee her an ample inheritance. But you don't want someone like that, I hope.
I divorced decades ago and have been alone ever since. I will die alone. Men don't fare well doing that. It's difficult enough for women, but studies show that men have a harder time of it. I urge you not to give up.
As for living alone, you absolutely can do that. Develop interests & hobbies, and make sure to have buddies, so you can do hobbies together (shooting range, golf, whatever else men do), or just meet at Starbucks once a week for coffee. But if you don't develop/have hobbies & pals, you may not fare well. Oh...and make sure you have enough money to live a decent life w/o worrying about it. (So don't pick an expensive hobby.)
When you finally say nope, I'm moving on for now. Then poof they happen.
Only if you let them. You'll have to take my single life out of my cold, dead hands.
I can trace this way of thinking back to 1989, when my failure to try for a clumsy snog behind the bike shed with the girl from my high school chess club who wouldn't leave me alone resulted in her 'dumping' me for someone who was only too eager to exchange saliva. I should have been heartbroken. Instead I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders and thought 'thank God THAT's over.' All this as puberty had barely begun. Clearly my hormones were far from raging and now, in middle age, they're practically comatose.
So I’ve decided I’m giving up. I’m never going to get a woman, and I don’t even want to at this point. I’m now trying to figure out how to spend the next however many decades alone, because there are most likely many in front of me. It’s not ideal, but it’s my only option. Does anyone else have advice for going through life alone?
Only if you let them. You'll have to take my single life out of my cold, dead hands.
I can trace this way of thinking back to 1989, when my failure to try for a clumsy snog behind the bike shed with the girl from my high school chess club who wouldn't leave me alone resulted in her 'dumping' me for someone who was only too eager to exchange saliva. I should have been heartbroken. Instead I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders and thought 'thank God THAT's over.' All this as puberty had barely begun. Clearly my hormones were far from raging and now, in middle age, they're practically comatose.
No one said you had to get married. You can have a relationship without marriage. Sounds like you need to move on with life.
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