Household of One – faith, dating and loneliness in lockdown

Every Christmas there’s a time between Christmas day and New Year that for me is like a very strange sort of vacant space. Like many people, I spend Christmas day with my family; we eat, we open presents, we play games, we laugh and generally just enjoy each other’s company. It’s fun and its one of my favourite days of the year, but after Christmas day and before new year there is a strange 6 day period. It’s the time most people spend travelling and visiting family, but for me, apart the occasional trip up the road to visit my dad or my sister and her family, I tend to spend it on my own. I am a bit of an introvert, so alone time is something I enjoy; I can read and write, watch trash TV, and eat whatever I fancy whenever I fancy it. It definitely has its perks, but it is also the time of the year I feel the absence of a partner most keenly, and the ache of its absence gets louder and louder as the week goes on.  By the time new year comes I am relieved, and grateful to be getting back to work, glad that life has gone back to normal, and the buzz of other people’s lives has filled mine again.

Lockdown for me has been like a perpetual post Christmas groundhog day.

I am fortunate to still be working, although supporting community projects and churches when everything is largely closed, is a unique challenge in itself, but thankfully I have remained pretty busy. However being largely on my own, day-in day-out, has meant the ache for a partner has grown more and more.

I know that being in a relationship is not the be-all and end-all. I recognise that being in a relationship does not mean you are not lonely. I recognise that there are some relationships that will not, have not, survived lockdown. I recognise that some relationships have become increasingly dangerous and violent during this time. If you’ve followed my social media posts at all, you will know that domestic abuse is something I have been particularly concerned about during the crisis (see “Its all gone quiet now” a spoken word piece about domestic abuse).

I also recognise that for families with children to occupy, entertain and attempt to home school, whilst also trying to carry out your job, life has been nothing short of impossible in lockdown, and a bit of ‘alone-ness’ is probably something that you crave. I am not comparing my situation to yours; this has not been easy for anyone and my situation is not worse than anyone else’s, but it has been lonely and achingly so at times.

Recently I was listening to a podcast by Brene Brown and Dr Vivek Murthy on loneliness and connection. They talk about, what Dr Murthy refers to as, the three dimensions of loneliness. Which they describe in the following ways:

• Intimate or emotional loneliness: the longing for a close confidant or intimate partner, someone with whom you share a deep mutual bond of affection and trust.
• Relational and social loneliness: the yearning for quality friendships and social companionship and support.
• Collective loneliness: the hunger for a network or community of people who share your sense of purpose and interests

I want to be clear about the loneliness that I am struggling with. I am not experiencing relational or social loneliness. I have a great network of close friends and family, who I have regularly kept in touch with through zoom calls, socially distanced walks and garden catch ups. I have particularly enjoyed the fact that being at home has meant I have had more conversations and connection with my neighbours, some of whom I have never really spoken to before.

I am also not struggling with collective loneliness; through my work, friends, and social media I am really fortunate to be connected to a wide range of people who share my values, my expression of faith, and who seek to live that out in their daily lives.

I know I am really fortunate to be able to say that, I know not everyone can. I am grateful for all of it, but it doesn’t shake the nagging ache that has become so much louder during lockdown.

Is it possible to miss something you’ve never really had?

I do not know, but it definitely feels like that. For all the wonderful relationships I do have in my life, when my front door closes, I am alone, and sometimes the silence screams at me.

I know I am not the only one who feels this way, I know many other single people feel it too. Whether male, female, gay, straight, bisexual, or transgender, for many of us the longing for a partner to share life with is something we crave. The longing to be known, seen and loved by someone, is a deep longing of the human heart. I think it is part of what makes us human, our need for intimate emotional connection with another person. I suppose that’s part of the reason I am writing really, because I know I am not the only one who has been struggling with this, especially at the moment, and so I wanted to give voice to something I think a lot of us struggle with.

If you are reading this and feeling the same, please know you are not alone, there is nothing wrong with you, and this stuff is really hard!

Now let’s be honest, no one wants to admit they are lonely, because to do so is to risk being defined by your lack of something, by a deficit, and that can make you feel like you are not enough.

There is such a massive stigma attached to loneliness, and even admitting in this blog that I feel lonely makes me feel a little anxious. I can imagine other people reading it, and I fear their thoughts and opinions.  Perhaps some people will read this and not really know what I am talking about. You might feel a sense of sympathy, perhaps even pity, for me and those like me. On one level that’s kind of you, but I don’t want pity, because it makes me feel less than you, and I’m not. If you haven’t at some point experienced this kind of loneliness yourself, then just be glad, and don’t take for granted what you have with your partner.

Perhaps others are reading this and thinking I am something of a sad and pathetic figure, someone who ‘cannot get herself a man’. You would not be thinking anything I have not thought about myself, and it is the story I tell myself in my particularly dark moments, but that’s not true either.

If you read this and your impulse is to ridicule me, then perhaps you need to take a more honest look at yourself. Often it is easier to deflect, than to admit to your own struggles.  Honesty and vulnerability are not things to be ashamed of, and so I won’t be.

I know I have some relational hang ups, but who at my (undisclosed) age doesn’t! That being said, I can honestly say that I like who I am; I like who I have become and who I am becoming. I love my life, my friends and my family. I know I am not perfect but, most days at least, I know I am enough. I know I am someone worth loving, and I know I have the capacity to love another deeply and faithfully.

I have been told I am too picky, or that I am not pushy enough, or that I don’t put myself out there enough (does this blog count as ‘out there enough’ btw?!). I do get it though, and maybe they are right, but I have a great life, one which I cherish, and while I long to share it with someone, I wont share it with just anyone. I know the misery of life with the wrong person and I won’t do that again.

A few months ago, I was having drinks with a friend who was telling me about his wedding. He told me he and his wife had a conversation the day before their wedding. They had both been married before and they were talking about why they were getting married. He told me they said to each other that they were getting married because they were better together, they were ‘more’ together, than they were on their own.

I know that no relationship is perfect, I know that relationships take work and commitment; you can call me naïve if you want to, but I want a relationship with someone where we are ‘more’ together than we are on our own.  That’s it, that’s what I am looking for!

So if that’s what I long for, where do I find it? Well that’s the million pound question isn’t it!

I decided that in lockdown perhaps online dating might be worth trying again. I am not new to online dating, indeed I have dabbled on a few different sites for a number of years. I have friends who have met and married the love of their life through dating websites, and so I know that it has worked for some.

Perhaps it’s easier to meet someone online anyway – after all, in my day to day life I don’t meet single men I am attracted to very often. When it does happen, I often end up feeling and behaving like a 15 year old school girl (well I did say I had a few issues!). This was illustrated again earlier this year when an attractive guy sat next to me at a church service. I was so self-conscious and blushing so profusely, that when he did speak to me, I could barely look him in the face to respond. If I had, we might have had an interesting conversation, we may or may not have had anything in common, but I will never know because I could barely speak to him.

In my working life I am a confident, relatively articulate woman, and yet in my private life, when faced with an attractive single man, I become an inarticulate babbling teenager.

This has become a funny story I tell my friends about my ineptitude with men, and it is amusing, I am chuckling at myself as I write, but it is also a sadness to me because it is part of the reason I find myself in a household of one.

So back to the internet dating: as I said it is not a new experience for me, but if I’m honest it is not something I particularly enjoy. I have managed to get to the stage now where I can write a half decent profile about myself. To begin with it made me feel a bit like a used car, ‘a few miles on the clock and a couple of not so careful owners’ – well that was at least the narrative that played around in my head at the time.

Then there is the scrolling and searching, looking for men that I might be interested in getting to know. Oh the sea of possibilities, and just like the sea it goes on and on and on. So many faces, and I can choose to read about them or scroll past, just as they can choose to do the same to me.

Scroll, read, wave, message, scroll, read, wave, message, scroll scroll, read read, wave wave, message message, scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll – feeling exhausted yet, because I know I am!

And then there is the faith issue. I have tried a few different dating websites in my time, a couple of the classics and I have spent quite a lot of time on Christian websites too. I do not have the sort of faith and belief that means I think ‘Christians should only date Christians’. I perhaps did once but my faith has grown and changed quite a lot since then. However faith is absolutely core to my life, it is a wide expansive faith that believes all people are made in the image of God, and I try to live in a way that follows the life and example of Jesus Christ.

It is too rich and deep and vast and intimate to put into words. Indeed, it is the divine mystery I know I will spend my entire life discovering more of. It cannot be captured simply in statements of beliefs because it is the rhythm of life, and it is lived out and worked out, day by day. For me faith in Jesus Christ is an ongoing commitment to good and right relationships – with God, with others, with ourselves & with creation. It involves justice & mercy, peace & reconciliation, healing & fullness of life for all. This is the kingdom of God that I cannot ever adequately describe, and it is a kingdom that we are all invited to participate in. For me it is not just the thing I do at church – I actually don’t really like church services all that much if I’m really honest, but I love people. I love community and believe that God is present in our encounters with one another. So you see my faith, my relationship with God, is weaved into the fabric of my life, and I am enriched by it; and so to not understand that, or at least to not have some appreciation for it, would be to not understand me.

That’s all very well and its certainly true, but it hardly makes for a great online dating profile does it!

So herein lies the problem, (one of many) and it leaves me not really knowing what to do, and so I am writing about it, because writing is at least something I do know how to do.

I have met some really good guys on dating websites over the years, although some more quirky than others. I have been on some fun dates, and some really awkward ones. The very first time I met up with someone I met online was, well, awful! We had been exchanging messages for a few weeks and agreed to meet for a coffee. I tried to be on time, but my usual way of underestimating how long things take, meant I was running late. When I did get there, he was waiting outside and within a few minutes of introducing ourselves to each other, it was clear he was quite shy, although perhaps it was just nerves, I will never know. I was very nervous and because he was quite quiet, I basically filled every gap in the conversation with inane babbling. The poor guy, I just talked and talked and talked at him. Needless to say, I did not hear from him again.

More recently there was the evening spent exchanging messages with a guy online, I got to know more about him in one evening than some other guys I’d been chatting to for weeks. A nice evenings interlude, but not long after that I discovered he’d deleted his profile.

The weeks spent in a light conversation with a guy, mostly about his dogs, but as soon as I asked him something a bit deeper about himself he just stopped replying. I don’t hold it against him, I have done it myself, sometimes you just run out of energy, and trying to keep a conversation going with someone that you don’t really know can be hard work. If you are reading this and I’ve done this to you, then I really am sorry.

In truth I find it exhausting after a while, putting myself out there in the hope I might connect with someone I actually click with. Sometimes it feels like I’m putting my hopes through a meat grinder, but other times it gives me hope, because it reminds me that others are looking for that same sort of connection too, and well, maybe, one of them, might… just… click… with me.

Hope is all I have really, and it is hope that keeps me putting myself out there.

Hope and a belief in a God that did not make us to be alone, who made us for relationships, of all shapes and sizes. If lockdown has shown me anything it has shown me how much I need people in my life – hooray for support bubbles!!

It is faith, hope and love that encourages me to keep being me in the world, and perhaps, maybe one day, I might actually meet someone who sees things in a similar way. I can but hope!

photo from Pixabay