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The old bachelor down the road
By Andrew Shearer
To be honest, I’m not very fond of my own company. Or at least I
didn’t think I was. You would always find me going out, down the
pub or out with the latest girlfriend.
I believed life was for having fun and being with other people. That adage
‘work hard and play hard’, the excuse for selfishness, applied
to me perfectly. I was fairly successful and I guess the number of people
that I would chat to down the pub, and the number of girlfriends I had
was a reflection on how well I was doing.
What was the point of being alone? You’d be alone forever when you
were dead. Living was for being with people. On the rare occasions I did
find myself alone, I hated it. I’d feel at a loose end. I’d
feel I was wasting time, wasting my life. I’d feel empty. Lost.
For someone as dynamic as I was, it was a surprise to start to find myself
alone more and more. The friends I had were getting married and starting
families. The endless supply of girlfriends was no longer endless. Sure,
there were some younger women that I went out with, who let’s say
raised a few eyebrows when I took them back to meet the family. But secretly
we all knew they were never going to last or, if I they did, they were
eventually going to cost me a fortune.
I tried dating agencies: a good way of getting out and about but they
were really only ever just a bit of fun and never lasted. Generally, the
only thing I had in common with these dates was a desperation not to be
alone, and that fizzled out eventually. There was always a tipping point:
when the fear of loneliness was outweighed by the final discovery of something
else you didn’t like about your latest partner.
The spectre of loneliness, constantly behind me, had caught up. I became
more and more anxious to have people around me. Looking back I think I
was in a constant state of subconscious panic as the social world around
me started to disintegrate. Whenever some company was offered, I would
take it without hesitation. But perhaps now I was appearing too eager.
The number of invitations was becoming less and less. I started to feel
like a junkie unable to get a fix.
Although I considered it, suicide was not a real option. I was too much
of a coward, unlike some of my ex- girlfriends whose attempts had thankfully
never been successful. The fact that there’d been more than one
attempt doesn’t reflect well on me. I’d caused too much pain
in my life, through my recklessness; my infidelities; my selfishness.
Perhaps my ex-girlfriends would be pleased to see that I was getting my
comeuppance now. Hopefully their lives were happier and they didn’t
give me much of a second thought, or at most regarded me as some mistake
that they had had some fun times with.
I tried to avoid self-pity, but with the increasing amount of time on
my hands perhaps it was inevitable. I told myself it was just a blip but
I knew the reality was that middle age was approaching fast or already
had arrived and I was alone. Perhaps those friends who I believed weren’t
truly in love but had got married anyway weren’t so stupid after
all. All I could see ahead was bleakness. And aloneness. I was going to
be the old bachelor down the road that nobody talked to; who didn’t
ever go out; who would be found at some point in his house only because
the stench of his six-month decomposing body was upsetting the neighbours.
Work, once a welcome distraction, became an obsession. I worked longer
and longer hours, late into the nights, weekends. Home was just a place
in which to collapse and leave the next day to go to work. But though
I was working hard, colleagues seemed to be less friendly than before.
There was less banter and chatter and they seemed to talk to me only when
they had to.
Eventually I started to get ill. I can’t remember when or how it
actually started. I think I had minor irritations that I would ignore
and work through, but then one day, I just couldn’t face getting
out of bed. The doctor said I was clinically depressed and signed me off
from work. Great. Home alone. It wasn’t quite what I thought I needed.
I was prescribed antidepressants but didn’t take them. It may seem
foolish but I didn’t trust them, the drugs or the doctor. Even though
I was at the end of the road, I still had the glimmer of self-respect
of not wanting to be addicted to antidepressants.
Initially days, weeks, were spent in bed. I would only get up to go to
the toilet, have a wash, have a quick snack of muesli or something. And
then back to bed, to doze, trying to block out the world, block out my
life. Once a week I would manage to venture out and get some shopping.
Mostly though I tried to sleep. In the twilight world between consciousness
and sleep I was aware of millions of thoughts racing round. I wasn’t
dreaming and yet I couldn’t recall anything of what I’d been
thinking when I was fully awake.
The days evolved such that I would get up and watch the trash on the television,
the types of programmes that previously I would be ashamed of admitting
even being aware of. I eventually began to venture out for walks in the
park or downtown, though that pleasure was tarnished with the preoccupation
of making sure I went at times when there was no risk of bumping into
anyone that I knew. I didn’t want to be seen as a lonely waster
or have to start talking, explaining what I was up to.
Eventually I did start to feel better. All of the silence, all of the
being alone, it was everything I feared and yet one day I came to the
realisation that I had grown to like it and even began to believe it was
therapeutic. I was immersed in the situation that I had forever been running
from and now I believed it was healing me. In fact there were days when
I was started to think I had never felt better or happier. Was it some
kind of psychotic euphoria or was it real? All I knew was that I seemed
to have an inner peace that I had never experienced before.
Of the few friends I had left, one was interested in writing, and suggested
that I write something every day: ‘Just write anything. It doesn’t
matter if it’s rubbish, nobody else needs to see it, but it may
help just to express what’s on your mind’. Remarkably that
seemed to work too. How, I don’t know. I just felt better for it.
I didn’t ever re-read what I wrote, maybe I will one day. But I
believed the effect it had was so significant that it became part of my
daily routine.
Eventually I went back to work. It was awkward at first. I was very nervous.
Having been so insular for so long, I didn’t know if I could cope
with people. Likewise, colleagues seemed to not know what to expect and
treated me cautiously. I was aware that I could be ‘the mad man’
that had returned; ‘He used to be such fun’. But in reality
there was none of that, people seemed genuinely concerned and pleased
to see me. Such were the pressures of the commercial world that it was
only a few weeks that everything seemed to go back to how it was before.
Well not quite. I didn’t ever return to being the one that was always
out. Sure there were times I enjoyed everybody’s company and would
go out, but there wasn’t the thumping perpetual subconscious effort
to avoid going home and being alone. In fact there were times when actually
I declined going out just so that I could have some time to myself.
Before I was ill, I would always stop for coffee on the way to work and
often be served by the same girl. We seemed to have a rapport and I was
pleased to see she was still there when I returned. She even asked where
I’d been. I wasn’t truthful and said I’d just been posted
to another office.
In spite of the dishonesty and after a few months of light-hearted daily
banter, we started spending time with each other outside of our morning
ritual. It was a good relationship, very easy, no pressure from either
side. She confided that she too had had a tough time. It took some time
for me to return the compliment and tell her of my breakdown. I guess
I felt embarrassed about it, but when I did eventually tell her, there
was nothing awkward and in fact it seemed like it was something else we
had in common.
We’re close and spend a lot of time with each other but we haven’t
broached the subject of living with each other. I guess the time will
come. The subject makes me nervous, things are good and I don’t
want to spoil them. I think that’s what I would say to anybody who
asked. But in reality I think what scares me the most is that perhaps
I will lose the opportunity to be alone. I don’t want to lose that.
And I’m not sure that anyone is going to understand.
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