From: utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!seismo!hao!woods
Newsgroups: net.singles
Title: Single
Article-I.D.: hao.403
Posted: Thu Jan 20 03:10:46 1983
Received: Sat Jan 22 06:51:56 1983

   I have been pondering this question for some time due to my fear
that lonliness is "self-perpetuating", a fear reinforced by the recent
discussion on why lonely people have extra trouble finding someone which
occured in this newsgroup.

  I have come up with the following good/bad points to being "single"--
by "single" here I really mean unattached, i.e. a psycho-emotional rather
than legal state. If you are living with a MOTOS whom you sleep with in the
same bed regularly, you are not single by this definition, even if you are
not married. Actually living together is not necessarily required to be
attached (I'll use that word from now on). You get the idea. P.S. I am
unattached (at least for now)

GOOD: I have total control over my own life. Outside of work, I do not
need to consider what anyone else thinks of my actions (short of breaking
the law, of course! I still can't kill someone I don't like) If I want to be
here at 2:45 AM (note the time of this article!) and sleep til noon tomorrow,
there is no one to harass me about it. If I want to leave dishes in the
sink for days, there is no one to harass me about it. If I want to read
in bed til all hours, there is no one to be kept awake by it.
If I am in a depressed mood, there is no one else to be hurt by it.
In fact, if I never go home, no one cares. (Many of my "attached" friends
have a problem with this, even for "innocent" activities like duplicate
bridge!)
  Basically I am much freer to be impulsive and change my plans at
the last minute than I was when I had a girlfriend (I do not need
to consult anyone else to do this).

BAD: There is lots of warmth, love, and yes, sex missing from my life now.
All of that I see comes from a lonely 39 year-old divorcee who lives in
Kansas (I am in Colorado) whom I only get to see 3 or 4 times a year,
and usually at high cost (financially). (Note for those of you interested
in the age difference issue, I am 26)

  So, the whole thing seems to be an issue of control vs. physical and
emotional satisfaction. My attempt to fight lonliness is based on turning
my energies away from looking for a lady (which has been worse than
unrewarding, going all the way to frustrating!), and more towards
taking advantage of the extra freedom (if it snows tomorrow, you can bet
I'll take off work early and go night skiing up at Lake Eldora!)
So far, it has worked better than I expected. I am far happier now than
I was even 2 months ago. The hardest part about it was getting used to doing
things alone (if you are dependent on friends, there goes your control!),
and impulsively (I am a Mr. Spock type who normally likes to have things
well-planned, and hates doing things at the last minute).
As an example, instead of trying to round up a bunch of friends for a party
on Friday night, I'll just go out to a bar by myself and talk to whomever
I meet there. I've met some real assholes of course, but also some very
interesting people. The new outlook has worked so far, but it's too early
to tell whether I can hold it together indefinitely. Any comments?
Flames will be sent to /dev/null, but I'm interested in any realistic
remarks on the subject.
  I'm afraid to post this to the net really, but Carl Yaffey wanted to
stimulate discussion and this should do it (you can thank me now, Carl).


     If it weren't so late I'd be smart enough not to post this,

                        GREG
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