Desert of Singleness

People talk about their “season of singleness” like it’s a badge of achievement. They see it as something they went through on the way to a relationship, or something that they’re currently in that they enjoy regardless of how long the season lasts.

I hate the phrase.

To me it doesn’t feel like a season.  It feels like a trek through a desert that I’ll never cross.  I see mirages, but nothing that’s real.  Just shiny images between the sun and sand as I continue to drag my exhausted body through the emptiness. 

And at this point, I feel like I’ve been in the desert for so long, that I don’t know how to get out of it.  Maybe a mirage isn’t a mirage.  Maybe it’s real.  But I’ve lost the ability to tell real from fake.

Because all I see are mirages.  One false image after another.

The online dating thing – I just don’t get it.  I’ve tried it.  On various sites. Secular and religious.  And it starts ok – chatting/messaging/etc. Then after a couple of days, they don’t respond.  They’re bored.  Or they’ve decided that I’m not into a hook-up.  Or whatever.  Sometimes I stop responding because they make it clear what they want, and it’s now what I’m looking for.  Any time I try, it ends in disaster before we even meet face to face. I’ve gotten better at passing this mirage by.  It’s never been worth it, and an online algorithm can’t accurately find what I’m looking for.

Being hooked up with a friend of a friend? Potentially even worse.  Because inevitable what I’ve found is that the friend that has done the hooking up, doesn’t really know either of the people that they’ve hooked up.  And now you’re on an awkward first date with someone that you have nothing in common with except one person that you’re both friends with. Yet this is the mirage that I fall for the most – I guess I keep holding out hope that there’s a friend out that that gets what I’m looking for, and knows someone who’s looking for someone like me.

As for meeting someone in the real world all by myself.  That’s laughable. I’ve forgotten how to read signs. (Maybe because in the desert there aren’t any.) When you laugh are you humoring me, or do you actually think I’m funny.  Are you talking to be because you want to, or are you doing it I can be the butt of a joke later with your friends.  When you caught my eye across the room and smiled is it because you were interested, or were your eyes just drawn to the largest thing in the room. Real or not – I usually feel too insecure to try this one.

And so I’m stuck in the desert.  Sand all around me, but not much else.  Glimmers of things that make me an optimist, but nothing solid. It’s frustrating.  But I keep going in the hopes of finding something real.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep it alone.  Being in a desert is no reason to stop living.