Most of the time I don't mind being single. I'm okay with it. But sometimes, being single sucks. Sometimes it's so lonely. Sometimes it's not fun being the third, or fifth, or seventh wheel, again. Sometimes, when hanging out with a group of friends, it's hard to not be acutely aware of being the only person not half of a couple. Sometimes it feels as though I am being deprived of some basic and elemental human experience. One starts to wonder sometimes if something is wrong with oneself. Sometimes I tell myself it's because I have high standards, to make myself feel better. Usually, I'm okay. But when it arrives, it is deep and sharp. These brief moments of longing and sorrow and wretched patheticness. They give way to an ever-present ache, with which one learns to coincide, and with which one comes to be content.

I wrote this a while ago, but did not actually post it. This is not generally a place where I get very personal (there are not many places, or people with whom I do). I am afraid of being vulnerable. And with this, I am afraid of appearing desperate and pathetic. Desperate I am not. Pathetic I sometimes feel. I am also afraid of all the things I've heard already, the things I know already, the things people say when they think they're being helpful, or when they want me to feel that they understand (though most of them don't really. Those things are easy to say when you're in a relationship, or happily married). Well-meaning people, who don't know what else to say. And so, to avoid all this, I pretend I don't care, I don't want. Though sometimes, I do.

There's a beautiful song by Sarah Slean. It's about me I think.