Dear Susannah:

When you wrote: “I realize that the deep feelings I have, make me feel more lonely than I would without them”- by “deep feelings” are you referring to your need and desire for a “deep emotional & physical connection with someone”?

You mentioned in your post two men you did not have a relationship with. Can you share about a relationship you did have, a meaningful one?

anita

Dear Susannah:

You are welcome. If you would like to examine the reason/s for your situation (I suspect such exist), do post again, even though the timing is long.

anita

Hi Susannah,

I can share my experience as a guy, but don’t know if it will be helpful to you or not. First, I want to say that you’ve shared some things brilliantly, such as: “To tell you the truth, often my life feels quite empty and not too meaningful since I do not have a relationship. (Yeah, I love myself and some other blah blah truths.) It is just that to me life feels most fulfilling when there is deep emotional & physical connection with someone.” Well, I happen to agree, and don’t think it’s useful when if you say you’re lonely, people respond by saying you don’t love yourself enough, etc.

Anyway, this is what I have found in women as I have dated in my mid-50s: Basically, a mixture. My work environment is not good for meeting people. When I have thrown myself into hobbies and activities, I find that single women often travel in pairs and create kind of an emotional wall, and gravitate toward the model-looking, extraverted guys. Sure, I get that that is normal, but since I don’t look like a model, and I’m on the quiet side, I’ve had to try other things. On-line dating has been working for me because I’ve gotten a lot better at screening. In particular, I examine the profiles, or end up asking the women directly, if they’ve done any serious personal growth, particularly through psychotherapy. This comes out of the experience of my last relationship in which I totally loved this woman, but her behaviors were highly avoidant and she had no interest in working on herself (and never had). As a result, I don’t even want to date a “nice” woman if she hasn’t dealt with her stuff, because eventually it would come up, and I won’t go back to a situation where I have, am, and will work on myself to be the best partner possible, but my partner isn’t doing the same. Never again. But that’s just me.

Craig

You’re welcome, Susannah. And they are simply my thoughts and my experience. So, for example, even if I do think everyone needs psychotherapy, that doesn’t  mean I’m right – it would simply mean that that is what I think. And to be clear, I don’t think everyone needs psychotherapy to function and be happy – I see it as one way to move toward wholeness and overall health.

I hear you about wanting a “one and only” to share life with. It the same thing for me. I think it’s an integral need, maybe even encoded in human DNA, to have a deep and abiding connection with a partner. Unfortunately we humans have learned so many ways to confound our relating. My search is for someone 1) with whom I have chemistry – that has to be there, and 2) who shares a commitment to learning and developing healthy ways of relating. If people already knew how to relate in a healthy way, then almost no one would be single. That’s the way I see it, anyway.

Could be you’re just going through a long drought period. People come and go. Hopefully someone will come into your life that you love and who loves you, and you both figure out how to be together peacefully until the end.