Being Alone

Am I alone?

My friend lives on her own and one of the common issues is how lonely she feels much of the time.  She spends a lot of time coming up with things to do and places to be in order to fight off the feeling of loneliness.  She also says that anyone who comes over or wants to 'hang out' becomes an attempt to hook up, so she would rather be alone...but then she feels lonely and gets in her own head about everything and ends up depressed.

I also get in my head and feel lonely, the difference is when I go home I have people around me.  In my mind I think it would be better to just BE alone.  Much of what I do for enjoyment is alone.  I do not have any close friends in this city, just some people I know on one level.  With my work and my wife's involvement with her activities we do not go out together very much.

I try, I really do.  This weekend I wanted to take her to a concert with me.  It is a person I have wanted to see for a very long time, my kind of music.  We used to have similar taste in music...not so much any more.  I ended up going alone.  I enjoyed the music...but I was very lonely the whole time and came away feeling depressed.

At home I cannot stand the programs she watched on TV...she is not a fan of the ones I watch.  There are a few we both like, the issue becomes time.  With her schedule and mine there is not a lot of time we have to sit at the same time.  I end up watching the show without her.

My sport that I play a lot.  Nobody in the stands anymore.

I go out to eat alone...

I go play games in the park alone...

Should I look to change things?

I can't remember always being alone but I guess I always have.  I was always going to school or working.  When I was not doing that I would go hiking, golfing, bike riding...etc...and I was almost always alone.  Now, my memory sucks balls (the bad kind of ball sucking), so I can't remember why I was always alone.  I am told, harshly, that I never invited my wife and would just go...which always bothered me because that I not what I usually do but I let it go, I do not want to fight.

As I was at the concert the other day after trying to get her to go with me, I was thinking about the past and the future...basically getting all up in my fucking head again...and I remembered something.  Just like she does now, she always claims she can't go or makes up an excuse to not go.  The other day I seriously had to get into a fight to get her to go out and do something fun...she eventually did it.

During the whole adventure she would go between lightly complaining to marginally cheerful.  The whole time blaming me for "making" her do this.  She seemed to be having fun.  In the end it started a non-stop river of complaints about the activity and her skill and involvement.  When the people we did the activity with asked me if she had fun, I had no idea how to answer.

It hit me, I did and do ask her to go places and do things with me.  However, she ALWAYS resists going anywhere and doing anything.  I am also the planner and dooer, she is the homebody. 

"You just go." is something that is said quite often.

So, I believed her, and I don't want to spend an hour convincing someone only to have it go to a fight.

and I just go...

She did tell me she had fun with the activity that we did.  It was a soft moment with us and she smiled and thanked me.  I then said we should go again, the couple we went with had fun and has been asking.  She frowned, rolled her eyes, laughed and started complaining...I felt that click in my brain where I turn everything off and turned away.