I’m starting another Friday-night shift in the basement of a retirement home, doing laundry. Later, I’ll go home, microwave something, and spend time with my cat until bed. I already know the outline of the night. There isn’t much on it that could surprise me.
There’s nothing wrong with an evening at home with a cat. I’m glad mine will be there. But after a long, hard couple of years, I’m tired of that being the whole answer to what I’ll do after work. I want someone to talk to, and I want a dating life that exists somewhere beyond wishing for one.
The difficult thing to explain is that I do try to meet people. Being lonely hasn’t made me unaware that other people are out there. I just keep trying without anything seeming to change, and eventually even describing the problem starts to feel repetitive.
My city doesn’t offer many options for hobbies with other people. My opportunities to meet someone online or in person are limited, too. Then there’s time. Working enough to pay rent takes priority, and there isn’t much left over to make things or build a social life from scratch.
I don’t need every Friday to become an occasion. An ordinary conversation would be a good start. Someone I could tell about my day, someone whose day I could ask about. The kind of small exchange that might barely register if it happened all the time feels like a lot when it doesn’t.
Tonight, though, I’m here at the beginning of another shift. The laundry needs doing, and afterward there will be something warm from the microwave and my cat nearby. I want that routine to have room for another person. I just don’t know where, in the life I actually have, I’m supposed to start looking.
