OS Singlies - We Do It Our Way!

LavenderBees

Byatt wrote: »

I
I don't have single friends where I live, which can sometimes make me feel even more alone. With the best will in the world, they don't know what's it's like to be alone. I'm often told how either they would love to have their own space, or how they'd never live with a partner again. Or, they are going to be alone at Xmas...except for their partner being there of course. :cool:

Yep, gets on my wick, too when none single people try to tell you they understand what it is to be single or worse, alone (because I do believe you can be single and not feel alone) ...

I try my best to not explode too loudly....:mad:

:rotfl:

LB xx

ellie99

BookWorm wrote: »

:wave: Ellie - how are you today?

I'm good thanks. I've been amazingly lazy today, probably used up about 3 calories all day :rotfl:
My biggest exertion was washing some dishes, and tidying a little bit of paperwork. I had the TV on in the background, 4 hours of the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, was quite pleasant. The pioneers in America was a interesting time in history, and the scenery is amazing.

JKS I thought us singlies were everywhere! how frustrating for you.

You've been very busy, good luck doing DSs room, lego is the worst to pick up I think.

springdreams

If anyone wants to claim it the alphabet thread are looking for an L

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5181314

mothernerd

I've had a really lazy day. Reading and sewing were the active bits with prolonged dozing in between. Still feeling boneless and heavy so I suppose my body needs it.

Quite satisfied with the sewing, promised myself I would finish off any started pieces of needlework and have a drawer full of small bits and several larger items. Hoping I can do the making up when I get strong enough to use the sewing machine and perhaps do a craft fair later in the year but just stacking finished pieces, using odds and ends of thread (have them all back in the proper order now) and discarding used patterns and ones I will never get round to (trying very hard to whittle down the ones torn from magazines) is very satisfying. More little bits of paperwork have gone as well (need another purge).

I love Montalbano, don't need to follow the subtitles all the time as the shrugs say it all at times. I remember that real Italians don't look like that. It's like Americans - there is a sub-species (lollipop heads, they look like wooden spoons) who live in Hollywood and the other 99% of the population who are four times the size of a normal person. Don't remember any women in Italy who wore a dress, they all had black trousers or slacks (the sort I remember from childhood that stretched and had little bits that went under your foot). In my usual black and full length skirts, I looked more like the traditional peasant woman.

Yesterday I thought of something about being single but the sleeping has driven it from my mind. I don't really do 'lonely' and while I get that the 'smug marrieds' comments don't help, being alone whilst supposedly in a relationship is far harder to take (my husband worked away for three weeks at a time, gambling all our money away, whilst I stayed home with a 5yo, 3yo and a new baby).

Apart from practical bits where you need someone to hold something whilst you measure or drill it, no obvious disadvantages spring to mind. My children never heard me swear (I didn't before I met my husband) until I tried to paper a large uneven ceiling on my own - it was so bowed that the second piece would not line up with the first, however much I leapt between the sewing table, sideboard and other thing I was using to stand on and get across the room. It was when it unpeeled from the ceiling and slowly wrapped itself round me, then in response I got faces of shock and awe followed by "I'm going to tell grandma you did a swear, a bad swear. She is your mummy and she will tell you off."

I do miss going to the cinema with DS3 as he now goes with his friends. I can go to the cinema on my own but shortage of money has meant I haven't been for a while. I worked out that the last film I saw at the cinema was 'The Boat That Rocked' which I thoroughly enjoyed and sang along to without anyone objecting (I can't sing). We even have a cinema in our town now for the past few years which I haven't visited. Previously the last film I saw here was The Care Bear Movie with DS1 a couple of weeks before DS2 was born in 1987. The cinema closed the same year.

I would like the freedom of being able to explore new areas that having a partner would give. Whilst I happily walked for miles in strange places when younger confident that I would get back to where I started (and indeed my parents would send me off with my two younger brothers and my mother sent me off with my father knowing I would get my brothers back safely when he couldn't be relied on) I am now much more afraid of falling and spraining/ breaking something out in the wilds. I enjoyed expeditions when I was on my environmental science course but have never had the confidence to join a larger walking group. I love all kinds of dancing but my husband couldn't do any ballroom and glared if anyone else looked at me so I didn't do that for years either and we only went out 2 to 4 times a year before he started working 300 miles away.

The less I actually see people the more reluctant I am to be in large groups. Even Fridays at mum's partner's house can be too much sometimes when both twins, their partners, 2 smallies and 2 mad puppies + mum and partner (+Alzheimer's, assorted deafness, malfunctioning or switched off hearing aids and sulking/ bad behaviour from the 'adults') are there.

Anyway Montalbano waits and if I fall asleep again it will do for tomorrow. Will probably remember the alone thing at 2am. In fact have slept so much today I may be back on the whole being awake from 2am till 6am and falling asleep properly when it's coming light. Good job I don't work regular hours. Hope your week is not too grim and here's to next weekend.

BookWorm

Hey everyone. Hope Monday is being/has been kind to you all

ellie99

I've spent the whole evening setting up a second hand laptop I bought on ebay, my brain is tired!
Taking anti virus out, finding out how to put anti virus in, updating windows, trying and failing to find internet explorer...I like using a computer but I've no patience for all the technical stuff, why does it take so long!...restart, update, restart again, wait a wee minute..go and make it a cup of tea...:rotfl:

However now confident enough that it's protected, so am typing on it now

Was chatting to DS2 on the phone, he's saying "oh, you've got a new laptop, I haven't got a laptop"...I can see what he's thinking already, every time he visits he's borrowing my laptop!

LB, I noticed a thread on the relationships board earlier, asking for advice on fostering, did you see it?

Byatt

Thanks for your post Mothernerd, it has given me some thought...whilst I was wide awake at 4...then 5...then 6 am...:cool:

I realise I don't miss having a partner...although it would be nice to be adored ...and my marriage, almost 30 years had some very lonely, some deadly boring, moments...but I miss the comings and goings of people who know me really well, I have no family to speak of, so it's the non sharing of my past...memories, experiences...that I find the hardest.

I do go out and about, I have to with my job and have overcome my fear of the dark.

I don't think of married/partners as being smug...just that they don't get it...I assume I didn't when I was married.

If my relationship with my daughter was more reciprocal, then a lot of my loneliness would be diminished. Plus of course if it was less drama filled and introducing me to characters I wouldn't go near under normal circumstances, then her friends would be part of my life too.

Not sure I'm being clear over what I mean...:o

Well done Ellie, I hate all the setting up stuff, although compared to what it was like when I first had a computer, it's a lot less aggro...:eek:

Anyone watch the food we eat series with a family going through the decades from the 50's? Just watched the 60's one.


The wind is getting up again, weather...weather...:rotfl: it's been relatively mild today.

LavenderBees

Hi, Ellie - no, I had a quick look just now but can't see any obvious fostering thread. I might start my own at some point

I'm watching the Back in Time for Dinner prog. It's interesting...70s tonight which I expect to remember :eek:

Well, better drag myself to the shower. Enjoy your day, All. Blowin a hoolie here :eek:

LB xx

Bigjenny

LB here's the thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5208324

JustKeepSwimming_2

ellie99 wrote: »

...JKS I thought us singlies were everywhere! how frustrating for you.

You've been very busy, good luck doing DSs room, lego is the worst to pick up I think.

Haven't started DS's room yet - not really sure what I've been doing but the Easter holidays seem to be whizzing past. Its on my list, but I need to go into town to get storage boxes first, which will involve a few hours as I think I'll have to do multiple bus trips.

It sounds mad, but its so windy here I think the walk from the bus stop back to mine carrying very large boxes may provide far too much amusement for anyone watching :rotfl: I went out to pick up my bins, all of which had blown over in the night & the wind was so strong I had to wrestle with them. The wind also manged to blow over a heavy TV table that's been sat in my garden for months, waiting for someone to give me a hand getting it to the recycling center.

Has everyone's garden survived? I remember the wind waking me a few times in the night, & that was with all the windows in my house shut.

Ellie - it is frustrating feeling like you're the only singlie in the village (or a large town in my case) I'm feeling more than a tad p'd off today as I'd love to go somewhere with someone else for a change, but I'm feeling thwarted, so apologies for moaning.

mothernerd wrote: »

...I would like the freedom of being able to explore new areas that having a partner would give. Whilst I happily walked for miles in strange places when younger confident that I would get back to where I started (and indeed my parents would send me off with my two younger brothers and my mother sent me off with my father knowing I would get my brothers back safely when he couldn't be relied on) I am now much more afraid of falling and spraining/ breaking something out in the wilds. I enjoyed expeditions when I was on my environmental science course but have never had the confidence to join a larger walking group.

After my walking accident last summer while out alone & in a quite remote place, I'm too mindful of what can go wrong, so I rarely go walking anywhere exciting these days. We do have a few walking groups in the town but they either meet in the daytime when I'm at work, or they meet at the walk's starting points so I'd need a car to get there - not a hope of a bus going anywhere near the walk start point (since they tend to meet in car parks ). I did ring & ask if they ever did car sharing or offer lifts for the carless, but I can't have explained myself very well as he thought I was just asking for a free ride & he said he didn't think that was fair of me to ask - I did say I'd be donating towards the petrol, but he said that wasn't how car sharing works....

I've contacted the local wildlife trust, of which I've been a member for years volunteering to help out at some of their reserves - again, as I can't get there by public transport, they don't want me. I looked at some of the trips they offer on the weekends, but although they hire transport they leave from a town about 15 minutes drive away (not walkable as that's using main A roads), it has a poor bus service so I can't get to the meeting point

I've tried meetup - again transport is the issue; even if I can get somewhere I usually can't get back home again after :rotfl:

I think I just live in the wrong town. Its a real commuter town & the roads are usually rammed each morning when I walk to work, & we have a problem with parking as there are just so many cars & not enough parking spaces, so I see a lot of illegal parking (but hardly any traffic wardens ). Makes me so glad I'm not struggling with a pushchair, or in a wheelchair as many cars park on the pavements & block the dropped kerbs - probably because they can.

I'd get to a lot more things if I lived in a bigger city - the bus service here has just been cut again as the council have changed the times free bus passes can be used, so there are very few buses running before 9.30 now. There are a few for commuters, but these are always packed & acquaintances who catch them have to walk 20 minutes into town to get on at the start of the route, otherwise the bus just sails past their stop, already full.

I'm so relieved I can walk to work.

Byatt wrote: »

...I realise I don't miss having a partner...although it would be nice to be adored ...and my marriage, almost 30 years had some very lonely, some deadly boring, moments...but I miss the comings and goings of people who know me really well, I have no family to speak of, so it's the non sharing of my past...memories, experiences...that I find the hardest.

I do go out and about, I have to with my job and have overcome my fear of the dark.

I don't think of married/partners as being smug...just that they don't get it...I assume I didn't when I was married.

If my relationship with my daughter was more reciprocal, then a lot of my loneliness would be diminished. Plus of course if it was less drama filled and introducing me to characters I wouldn't go near under normal circumstances, then her friends would be part of my life too.

Not sure I'm being clear over what I mean...:o....

I think you're pretty clear Byatt - the non-sharing of past memories (& knowing that the memories you are making now & most likely well into the future) won't be shared by anyone is hard, very hard. The validation (not sure if that's the right word) that others get from family members/partners/wider circles of friends surely builds confidence that you're a good person that others want to spend time with - & that is what I'm missing, especially today.

I know a lot of people lead truly awful lives with family/partner problems, & I'm relieved I'm not still stuck with a partner who makes it clear he doesn't want to be with me. I'm glad my mother isn't yet at the stage where she needs full time care, although that's coming around the corner at me at some point. I know I have a good life compared to many, yet I'm struggling today to be thankful.

The few real friends I have nearby are all away, or doing things with their large families. I should go for a walk & get some exercise, but the weather looks a bit dodgy today so I'll probably give it a miss. I could go into town for a coffee, but I don't think I can face sitting alone yet again in a place that is full of others having fun together - I don't think that will help improve my mood today :rotfl:

Sorry for being on a downer all - will try harder tomorrow not to feel quite so sorry for myself