I'm sorry you're going through this. It is tough to be single at times.
Thanks for understanding. I don't think being single would be tough for me if I had never been married. I was not even looking for a man or to get married when my late husband happened along. Of course I cannot know what would have happened if he hadn't, I might have met and married someone else or I might have stayed single.
Dating sites are disheartening. I don't use them anymore because it was so seldom I'd match with someone, and even more seldom it worked out.
I blame the awful algorithms! Most dating sites put the users with the most swipes at the top of the algorithm, which makes it so very unbalanced. If you are going to use them, don't put all of your faith in them. Maybe use them as a side thing to increase your chances of meeting someone by 1%.
That is good to hear from someone who has actually used these sites. All you ever hear are the success stories, you never see the other side of the coin. Having given up on the Baha'i dating sites and some others with no success, I though eHarmony might be better, but it has proven to be the worst one! The men they match me with are not matches at all.
The best site I have been on is Spiritual Singles, but most of the men I like live too far from me. I have had messages going back and forth with a man who lives in Kansas for quite a while, but he is not moving nor am I, but it has become a good friendship. He was also widowed and has no children so we share that in common.
My brother met his wife on a Baha'i dating site but I guess he was just lucky.
Why don't you socialize in groups? Are you in any groups?
There aren't any groups I am interested in joining. There are the Baha'is, but they don't really socialize. All they do is have devotionals and study groups and I find that boring.
That's pretty much how I feel. However, being agnostic, I can't rely on that belief too much. I know what I want, I don't know if it's written in fate, so I'm going to give it some elbow grease. Of course, having self respect makes it a very slow process unfortunately. Just as keeping an eye out for opportunities is a big part of the game, patience is another big part of it. Faith in God helps with that patience.
In spite of the fact that I believe it will be fate if I find a man or if he finds me, I am not leaving it to fate, since if I don't do any looking I probably won't find anyone. My first marriage was a fluke but I don't expect that to happen again, not unless some nice Baha'i hears me talking or reads my posts and sets me up with a Baha'i man. Yes, I know I need to exercise more patience. I have a patient personality but I also feel like I always need to be doing something, and then when nothing happens as a result I get discouraged.
I think I know what you mean when you say "I don't want to do fun things all by myself." If I'm watching a show and yell in excitement, or laugh at something funny, I wish there was another person to share that joy with. If I'm out on a car ride and singing to a song lyric by lyric, I wish there would be someone there to sing it with me. When I go to diners it'd be nice to have someone to talk to. etc. -- Am I close?
Yes, you are close. I am okay watching a TV show or a movie alone but it would be nice to have someone here to share that with. But it is mostly going out alone I cannot do. I mean I am not going to go to a restaurant or a movie and sit by myself. The most I would do is go to a fast food restaurant alone. I go for walks alone and that is okay, although it would be nice to have someone to go with.
Honestly, the hardest part of being single is having to deal with taking care of this house all by myself. I was doing that when my late husband was alive so that's nothing new, but I always hoped that if I got married again I could find a man who was handy and liked doing yard-work. It is also difficult to take care of eight Persian cats all by myself. I can do the physical labor like litter boxes and cleaning, but I cannot comb out some of them all by myself since I need another person to hold them. I am going to have to call a mobile groomer soon.
I think it's important to enjoy these things anyway, so that we don't lose our sense of self. Joy can slip away from us, we can become numb. We have to laugh, we have to be free spirited, we have to enjoy life, even if there is nobody there to enjoy it with us.
You raise a good point. Last Saturday the CPA who does my taxed told me I need to do something for myself so I stopped on the way home and got some Chinese food. I haven't had any of that in a long time so t was a nice change. Every little thing counts and for me it is baby steps.
It would be nice to be married again, but I don't really need a husband in order to go out and enjoy life. I could do that with a boyfriend or even a friend if I could find one. My CPA who is 10 years younger than me was widowed 15 years ago and he also lost his only son who was 10 years old. Even though he isn't married or dating he has friends to do things with, including traveling because he has lived in this city since he was born and he has a lot of friends here. I have moved from state to state so I never made friends, and I was always too busy to make time for friends. I had one friend and now he is gone. I have one other friend, my best friend, but he lives in a distant state.
Sometimes it is a good thing to push your limits. Walk a block further from what you're comfortable with and you may just find a pot of gold on the trail. But you know your own limits, and it's good to respect them lest you overburden yourself and exhaust yourself more.
I just take one day at a time and do what I can do on that day. I am still in a state of shock and disbelief over what happened last year because it was very sudden and I had no time to adjust to the idea of being left alone, like most people who lose a spouse from a long drawn out illness. It is hard to talk about and even harder to think about so I stay as busy as possible. I do have a counselor I talk to on Zoom every two weeks.
A couple of months ago I stepped out of my comfort zone when I joined a GriefShare group at a church and I attend that every Saturday for two hours. Even though it is a serious subject, it is a social event for me and it gives me practice socializing since I have never been social.
Good luck, Trailblazer. I hope the best for you!
Thanks, I hope the best for you too!
