Year Without Love, an update

I’m coming up to the half-way point of my Year Without Love, so I figure it’s time for an update. In no particular order, here are some of the things I’ve learned so far.

• It has become obvious to me that I didn’t do a decent job of explaining myself in my previous post, back in January, because ever since then I’ve been on the receiving end of well-meant comments from friends that don’t match up with where I’m coming from. Some friends have offered tips on attracting that perfect someone, including “dress sexy” and “you just have to visualize and put it out into the universe.” People seem to think I’m “closing the door” on love, and “setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy.” I can see how one could arrive at this impression, but I promise I’ve considered this and don’t believe I’m delusional: I have not closed any doors, I’m not walling my heart off out of bitterness. If the universe sees fit to send me some wonderful partner, I’ll most certainly welcome that. I’m simply not waiting around for this to happen any longer. I’m moving forward to build a life based on my evidence-based assumption that I’m most likely in this lone mode for the long haul, to build myself a solo life that’s as good as possible. I’ve lived for 7 years now without love, and while I’d love to be loved (like everyone else), I am not going to let societal fantasies about the inevitability of love blind me to the reality of my situation. I live on a small island populated primarily by married people, the ex-husbands of my friends, and men around my age who are single because they ought to be for a variety of reasons ranging from their own choice to garden-variety narcissism to dangerous personality disorders. I’m over the age of 40, which means I’m part of a cohort of women who are competing for the attention of a smaller cohort of single men, most of whom are much more interested in women who are younger than we are (don’t believe me? Click here for an evidence-based look at the numbers). And I’m plain done with selling myself to prospective partners and with protecting the male ego; anyone interested in me gets all of me, fully present and fully myself, without any dissembling. That’s a bit much, really.
• Related to that last point, I’m beginning to suspect that the more I enjoy keeping my own company, the less likely I am to be attractive to anyone else. I’m not sure how to explain this, but in a nutshell, it seems that as I spend less energy pursuing (actively or just in my dreams) a happy, romantic ending/beginning for myself, the less lovable and attractive I become. Based on personal experience, I can say that I am a One Coffee Woman. Decent men might ask me out, but only once. Of course, because this is how life works, men I don’t want that first coffee with seem bent on asking me out more than once. It’s the classic circular ride: I long for the men who don’t want more time with me, while men I don’t want any private time with long to spend their time with  me. I’m doing my best to stay off that carousel now and it’s both lonely and freeing at once. It seems that when I broke up with love, it broke up with me, too. If I were in a movie, love would find me once I had the hubris to badmouth it; since this is real life, I can shoot my mouth off all I want without that happening.
• This is all survivable because I’m learning that I do enjoy my own company. I’m learning to hold two truths in myself at once: 1. I am lonely and that sucks. 2. I am enjoying myself in spite of being alone and sometimes because of it. Both are true. Being lonely is no fun but being alone frequently is. And it’s possible to be lonely while you’re not alone, alone but not lonely, and both lonely and alone. In any given day, I’m likely to be all three.
• I’m not at all sure I’m making much working towards any of my original goals for the year. I’m just muddling through, really. But I’m still kicking, my kids are both growing, my dogs seem to like me, and I have some amazing friends. Sometimes that’s plenty.