Not nec­es­sar­i­ly lone­ly, but sin­gle.

Maybe it’s because I got accus­tomed to liv­ing with some­one. Coming home to anoth­er per­son in the house. Going to bed with a warm body next to me.

My cud­dle bud­dy has decid­ed that she’s off-lim­its¹. I haven’t made out with any­one, let alone had sex, in months.

Dry spells are fun­ny things.

During my last one, I was too stoned to even think about dat­ing. The one before that was more of a chal­lenge.

Sometimes peo­ple tell me they want to “intro­duce” me to some­one, but I’m always antsy about hurt­ing mutu­al friends or acquain­tances.

One per­son even gave me the card of a girl they thought was “per­fect” for me, whom she met while get­ting a mort­gage approved at the bank. “Perfect in what way?”, I asked. “Every way”, she said, “Gentle, polite, petite”. For months after­ward, she would ask if I called this per­son, and give me a dis­ap­point­ed look every time I said no, like a moth­er find­ing out that her son has­n’t borne her any grand­chil­dren. I wish I could meet this girl, just to see what some­one else believes I’m look­ing for.

My friends, who are in seri­ous rela­tion­ships or mar­ried now, talk about being sin­gle as if it was akin to their hous­es burn­ing down. They’ve been in their rela­tion­ships for so long that the idea has become for­eign to them. “I’m too old to date”, they say, “Trying to find some­one new, won­der­ing if they like you, fig­ur­ing out if you’re compatible..I could­n’t start over again”.

I always laugh, and think, “Then where does that leave me?”.

1. I hope it was­n’t because she thought I was lead­ing her on [↩]