what do you do in the evening and weekends?

Kim_kim

Ilona wrote: »

Erm....no. I have lived alone for the whole of my life. Worked for 45 years, now own my house, and having a brilliant life on a pension.

I used to go out a lot when I was younger, been there, done that, but now I am in almost every night. Recently done a six week sewing course at college on a Tuesday night, and can't think of anything I want to go out for in the evenings. I sew, walk my dog, watch tele on the computer, and write a blog. My weekends last seven days, I go walking a lot, get out and about visiting family, day trips out, youth hosteling, city breaks. Life is wonderful, no more work. :j
Ilona

I'm afraid facts are facts, it costs far more for two singletons to live seperatly than for a couple to run one shared home.
I'm not saying that you personally can't run your home within your budget, but two of you could live cheaper together than two of you seperatly.

Lily-Rose_3

Ilona wrote: »

Erm....no. I have lived alone for the whole of my life. Worked for 45 years, now own my house, and having a brilliant life on a pension.

I used to go out a lot when I was younger, been there, done that, but now I am in almost every night. Recently done a six week sewing course at college on a Tuesday night, and can't think of anything I want to go out for in the evenings. I sew, walk my dog, watch tele on the computer, and write a blog. My weekends last seven days, I go walking a lot, get out and about visiting family, day trips out, youth hosteling, city breaks. Life is wonderful, no more work. :j
Ilona

Kim_kim wrote: »

I'm afraid facts are facts, it costs far more for two singletons to live separately than for a couple to run one shared home.
I'm not saying that you personally can't run your home within your budget, but two of you could live cheaper together than two of you separately.

It's not a 'fact' that a couple will be better off than a singleton. You can't compare living as a single person and living as a couple, because it depends on the income and the outgoings. There could be many single people with more surplus income than a couple living together.

For example, a couple with £1200 outgoings (incl say £500 mortgage or rent) who are bringing home £1800 between them, are not going to be as well off financially as a singleton who has £1200 outgoings and has £2500 a month income.

Plus couples are more likely to have children, which would take quite a bit of any excess income they may have, whereas the singleton would not have to put out money for supporting children.

AND *the singleton is more likely to be a 'career woman' than the married woman (especially if she has children.) Ergo, she will most likely have a higher salary than the married woman in the couple, (and in some cases, a higher salary than the married man in the couple.)

*That comment may not sit well with some people, but it's true.

LostSoulForever

purpleshoes wrote: »

I have cats. Plural

Seriously, when you get to 40 something with cats, the number of people who judge you, ridiculous

Ive had cats all my life, as my mum has before her, she now has a pet rabbit as well. I got my first pet cat of my own when I was 28.

Cats are fab. Sometimes I think women get a raw deal because when people look at you and go, you are over 40, you are single, you live on your own and you have cats = sad

Theres nothing sad about my life, only in other people's eyes and what do they matter

My cats drive me round the bend every day, but they make me laugh every single day, you cant put a price on that.

There is definately a stereotype with regards to certain ladies of a certain age who are single & have cats, no idea where it all started but it kinda stuck..
I must point out i don't agree with it

LostSoulForever

calleyw wrote: »

I am ok most of the time. No work today. So only spoken to the postie as they knocked on the door with a parcel. Other wise a normal non working day I don't speak to any one.

But when I do work I find it hard some days to come home to an empty house. I have a light on timer so I don't come home to a dark house.

I am going out on what would be called a date tonight.

Yours

Calley

Coming home to an empty house every night can be a bit of a downer, shut the door & another day done..

Hope your "what would be called a date" went well

Kim_kim

Lily-Rose wrote: »

It's not a 'fact' that a couple will be better off than a singleton. You can't compare living as a single person and living as a couple, because it depends on the income and the outgoings. There could be many single people with more surplus income than a couple living together.

For example, a couple with £1200 outgoings (incl say £500 mortgage or rent) who are bringing home £1800 between them, are not going to be as well off financially as a singleton who has £1200 outgoings and has £2500 a month income.

Plus couples are more likely to have children, which would take quite a bit of any excess income they may have, whereas the singleton would not have to put out money for supporting children.

AND *the singleton is more likely to be a 'career woman' than the married woman (especially if she has children.) Ergo, she will most likely have a higher salary than the married woman in the couple, (and in some cases, a higher salary than the married man in the couple.)

*That comment may not sit well with some people, but it's true.

You can only make a comparison on people of similar income & outgoings, & in that case it's cheaper to live as a couple, than 2 singletons.
Biggest expense being one roof to pay, rather than two.

Retroguyuk

I think the first question to ask yourself if you're in this situation, is are you actually happy going on the rest of your life like this? If you are, that's fine- you don't have to 'conform' to what other people think you should do or be to be happy, as long as you're happy in yourself. If you're not though, well, you have to change that yourself. Sure, you could get lucky and something random could happen to introduce you to new friends, but you can't rely on that. You have to be the agent of change in your life if you really want things to be different.

Reading between the lines a little in your posts Calley, I get the impression that you want to find something new to do, but don't want to give up all of your spare time to it. I'm an introvert. Sometimes I like to be in my own company, doing my own thing, and then there are other times where I want to be surrounded by people. I need a balance- if I suddenly find that I'm out doing things for the next 5-6 nights, I start to get a little precious about my nights in, and regret making plans, even though I didn't have to. The solution for me was to find a social activity that's flexible, which is dancing. I can do it almost every night of the week if I want to, but I'm not constrained by having to do it on a set day. Plus, it's great exercise. I'm not saying that it's the solution for you (and as others have said, there's no point starting an activity that you know you're not interested in or won't enjoy), but there are lots and lots of things out there to try, even just groups that meet up socially rather that doing any specific activity. But you will have to find some way of changing your life, or just accept it as it is.

The other thing I would add is keep dating separate from 'finding something to do with my free time', rather than seeing them as one and the same. Ideally, you want to be reasonably happy in your own life before finding someone. Otherwise, you run the chance of viewing them as a magic cure-all for all your issues, which puts extra pressure on the relationship. And, if it doesn't work out, you have to go back to a rather less pleasant life than if you had a healthy, happy one beforehand, which makes it worse. Plus, you're always more attractive to the opposite sex, when you're happy in yourself.

Lily-Rose_3

Some people seem to want to make friends and/or meet a new partner so badly, that they invest every scrap of energy they have, into finding friends, or finding a boyfriend, by joining groups and societies. And in my experience, this never (or rarely) works. You can't force relationships and friendships. They happen naturally, and usually by chance.

Although I had loads of friends and a good social life through my teens, 20s, and 30s, by around 40 (some 10 years ago,) the friendships started to fade and dwindle for various reasons. After several years, (say about 5 or 6 years ago,) I hadn't got anyone that I could call a friend. I got on OK with people at work, but didn't have any friends there, and I didn't enjoy the job and disliked being there. (It used to be OK, but many things changed, and it got stressful, and I disliked it by the end.) (I left it several years ago, and am now retired.)

Also, I had a very good friend who lived near me, (between 2000- and 2005-ish) who had a child the same age as mine, and we were close for 4 or 5 years, and then she left the area, moved 300 miles away, and eventually ceased contact. I felt quite bereft when she went, because we were very close, and did lots of things together.

I had a good friend at work though, who I went for lunch with every other week, and then a few months after my neighbour pal left, she left the workplace, and I stopped seeing her as often, and after a few months, we also lost touch. Then I seemed to find myself with no friends.

Even though I had my daughter and hubby, and several close family members, I craved social interaction with other females of my own age. Over a period of about 3 years, I joined hobby groups and courses, and fitness groups, and swimming groups and all sorts, and although people were mostly friendly and courteous, I never made any friends there. I found that many people came in pairs, (and threes!) and most groups were quite cliquey. People would sit in the corner and talk amongst themselves, and leave me out. I would just end up talking to the tutor or instructor, or I would sit there awkwardly, looking at my hands.

Even the mums at the school had their little groups, and never included me, or invited me anywhere. They just dumped their kids at my house to play with my daughter and then went off for the day. I tried to become friends with several of them, (by asking them in for coffee and so on,) but it was just forced, and I felt uncomfortable, because I don't think they wanted to be there. I had nothing in common with them, and so it didn't work out.

So after several years of trying to make new friends, I gave up, and didn't bother anymore, and resigned myself to the fact that I am not going to have any friends ever again.

Then in 2010, we moved house from the area we'd been in for 10 years, and moved into a private let house, and instantly the neighbour next door spoke to me and invited me and my hubby and daughter to a party. In the 10 years we lived at the other property, we never had a neighbour invite us anywhere ONCE (even though we invited them.) And another woman closeby, offered us her husband's mechanic services, and we became friendly too, and went for meals now and again. And the landlady at the local pub asked us if we wanted to join the local pub teams. Our old area (a cul de sac in a cul de sac in a cul de sac) didn't have a pub for 2 miles! We had more people being friendly to us in the first 3 months in that area, than in the entire 10 years in the other.

6 months after I moved there, I bumped into an old friend by chance, who I had not seen for 15 years, and we meet every 4 weeks now for lunch and have become very close again. My daughter is going to be a bridesmaid for her daughter next spring.

Then after 3 years of living in this private let, we moved to the fringes of a small town, in a bungalow, 30 miles away. I still see the old friends in that neighbourhood every couple of months, as I didn't want to be that person who lost touch, as it had happened to me several times, and was quite hurtful. I see the friend who I met back up with after 15 years, every 3-4 weeks, and we are in regular contact.

Anyway, I joined the art group in this town, as I like to draw and paint, after a woman in the local shop told me about it, and I have a couple of good friends there who meet me for coffee every month, Then last summer, I met a lovely woman who lives a mile from me; she was walking her dog, while I was in the woodland taking a walk. I meet her at the pub every few weeks. As I said, I still see my old friend who I hadn't seen for 15 years too, every few weeks.

These last few things all happened by chance, and I didn't force anything. All the friendships are natural and casual, and nobody has any expectations; we just see each other when we can.

As I said, trying to force friendships and relationships by joining groups and societies purely to try and meet people rarely works, as things are more likely to happen by chance.

onomatopoeia99

I'm single and have come home to an empty house every day for more than a decade, so am not inexperienced at being alone.

What do I do in the evenings? Once a week I go to an evening class to learn Italian. This is the fourth year. Going to the first lesson in the first year was really, really hard - like others, I am particularly shy and don't like talking to a group (typical nerdy IT bloke really), and learning a language involves a lot of talking to a group. But somehow I got to and through the first lesson and have kept at it. I still find talking to the class very difficult, it never gets easier, but persist because I want to speak the language, at a level beyond vorrei due birre. It wasn't as a way of meeting people, and although I get on well with the three other people in the class (we are down to a hardcore of really serious learners now and pay the tutor from the council adult learning service directly, as there aren't enough in the class for the council to run the course) we don't meet socially.

That's one evening, the homework and other study easily consumes another, sometimes two. Besides that I'm on motorsport committees of various sorts (doing / organising motorsport is my hobby), enjoy reading fiction, TV drama and film and don't mind going to the cinema on my own - I don't care what others think of this and in any case am far from the only person that goes alone at my local multiplex. Last of all, the home I bought a few years ago needs complete renovation (seriously underestimated the amount of work when I bought it), and I'm doing it one room at a time. It's hard to get started after a day at work so usually I only do it at weekends if I'm not at a motorspot event / committee. Most evenings do end up as relaxing on the sofa in front of the telly or with a book though. this suits me well enough as if I go out two evenings in a row, just being with people starts to wear me out.

I should, perhaps, try online dating as something happened in my 30s and I stopped meeting new people, or at least single ones. Now I'm 45 and the situation hasn't changed.

Retroguyuk

Lily-Rose wrote: »

Some people seem to want to make friends and/or meet a new partner so badly, that they invest every scrap of energy they have, into finding friends, or finding a boyfriend, by joining groups and societies. And in my experience, this never (or rarely) works. You can't force relationships and friendships. They happen naturally, and usually by chance.

{SNIP}

As I said, trying to force friendships and relationships by joining groups and societies purely to try and meet people rarely works, as things are more likely to happen by chance.

Whilst I'd agree that it's probably not a good idea to use every ounce of energy to find friends (you can seem overly keen in all relationships, not just romantic ones), I disagree with your main point that joining groups and societies to meet people isn't worth it.

Sure, friends do indeed happen by chance (you'll probably want to have other things in common rather than just the activity you meet at) , but you can totally increase your chances by doing things like joining groups and doing social activities. As I said in my post, there are also groups that meet pretty much for the sole purpose of making new friends and expanding your social circles. They wouldn't exist if it didn't work, for at least some people.

Your chances of making new friends are much higher when doing things that get you talking to new people. You could rely on the odd chance random conversation when you're out and about, but if you want more friends, you might as well increase your chances.

calleyw

oh I do know the answer is to be happy in myself. And a relationship is not the be all to everything.

Just come out of a on/off thing where I would go up two weeks with no contact. now I know that people have things they want/need/would like to do. and I even encouraged him to take up his hobbies again. but he was never allowed to do what he wanted when he wanted before. so has gone the opposite way now!!!

As I said I am happy most of the time. But don't want to live in someones pocket. But would like company sometimes. to do the stuff that I don't want to do alone.

I have loads I could be doing reading, cross stitch, decorating. But I am 42 no kids. So I am lucky to have plenty of free time, And feel guilty sat around doing nothing when I know that I loads I could be doing.

Yours

Calley