Yesterday I felt the sting of being single. 

During the week, I rarely notice. I am busy with work. And travel. And the gym. I usually manage to make it out for drinks or dinner a few nights a week.  By the time I get home I am so exhausted I just pour myself into bed. On the nights I am at home, I am grateful for the peace and quiet. The chance to catch up on Google Reader. To veg out to a Bones marathon. To bond with Psycho Kitty.

Weekends are harder.  Most of my friends are not single. They are in relationships. They are married. They have kids.  Weekends are about family. About making up for the time lost during the week when everyone is just. so. busy.  I don't have work to distract me. And while I am usually grateful for some downtime (so I can be really glamorous and do laundry and clean my bathroom), it is often weekends that I feel most lonely.

Holiday weekends are the hardest. Yesterday was hard. 

It was one of those glorious, sunny spring days. A day when you want to be outside reveling in the fact that winter is indeed behind us. A day to be at the beach. Or the pool. Or in the park.  A day to be active.  A day to  be outside doing something.  I made it outside for the world's most pitiful 15-minute, 1.6 mile run before returning home and wondering why there wasn't anything better on TV.  I thought about driving to Target and soothing my soul with some retail therapy. I thought about going to the movies.  But none of that seemed right. I thought about doing something useful. Like working on my pile for Blogger's Spring Giving.  Or baking muffins for a friend who is heading to the hospital later this week for a procedure. But I was depressed unmotivated. What I really wanted to do was drive to the mountains and go for a hike.  Or drive to the lake and have a picnic.  But I had no one to do it with. And it didn't seem like the sort of thing one should do alone.

As I said - the sting of being single.

Here's the other thing. I don't want to date. I thought I did but I don't.  I keep getting emails from strangers on JDate trying to engage me in conversation, suggesting we get together and meet, and I just can't bring myself to reply.  I like the ease of being with my friends and being able to be me.  A little raucous.  A little obnoxious (ok REALLY obnoxious during the Duke-WV game on Saturday).  A little crass. Exceptionally neurotic. Over the top. In your face. Totally Sassypants.   

I don't want to have to pretend to be perfect because I am far from it. I am not ready to reveal my baggage to a stranger and while I know having coffee with someone doesn't mean sharing my most intimate secrets and moving in together, I think on some fundamental level I am terrified of eventually getting to that place with anyone. Because what if they say No? What if my baggage is too much?

It's ironic. Hating being alone and yet being afraid of taking the steps I need to in order not to be alone.

Yesterday was hard. Yesterday I really felt the sting of being single.

PS You're welcome for the Monday morning overshare.