Never Been a Valentine

I look out the restaurant window and watch the public light rail system click on by.  I have just been reminded that Valentines Day is around the corner due to the lovely restaurant special.  The meal looks delicious, and is planned for two.  But I am just one.

I have never been a valentine.  I am 30 and I don't understand the concept of "couple."  I see couples walk the city sidewalks together - holding hands - and I don't get it.  I don't get how they get there.  I don't get how someone likes someone enough to want to spend enough time with them to be considered a significant other.

Mostly I don't understand how someone could like me enough to want to be my boyfriend, let alone someday want to be my husband.  I don't comprehend it - and most the time I don't believe in it.  I can get real gun-shy with thick walls and no guy so far has wanted me enough to be patient with my lack of believing in a relationship.  And it doesn't mean I don't want one - because I do.  I just don't know how.

I think I'm pretty cool - but maybe not cool enough to get someone that I think is cool too.  And the guys who do show interest in me, I am bored with before the first or second date is over.

I lack a lot of self-confidence in this department, and sometimes I am surprised by my lack of self-esteem.  Most the time I am a loner - which sometimes I equate with loser.

There is one exception.  There is my soulmate - the man I love, who has helped me believe that love is real.  But we are not a couple.  And never made it to couple status even when we were falling in love and going out.  You see, if we had made it to couple status, he would have introduced me to his friends, or he would have had me over to his house regularly to watch a show or just do nothing.  And we never really did any of that - and I wish we would have.  We just spent lots of time together at work and went out several times to dinner, etc.  But nothing informal.  None of the day to day.  But after-hours is when life happens.  That's when I believe he's really interested if he wants to be with me after work.  But there were reasons, I guess, why we never made it to official couple status.  So I guess I could say I do believe in love, but am having a hard time grasping the belief of a relationship.  Frustration.  Why is it when I do meet a man that I would want to spend the rest of my life with, that it doesn't work out, even though I still think it should, and I hope things will change.

Sometimes I get really angry about this.  Really angry, or extremely sad.

And sometimes I hate my job, because that's all I have.  And that's the last thing I want to hang out with after work or on the weekends....more work.  

I do love to be out.  I do love to be around people.  I do love being social.  And I try.  But for whatever reason I remain a loner.  And most people don't want a loner.

Some people have somebody, others don't.
Some people are lucky with love, others aren't.
Some people have someone to come home to, others come home to silence.

I just happen to fit into the latter category.

But I am trying to learn to become okay with this. 

The light rail passes by again.  There are pink and red hearts all over one of the cars, and I am reminded that Valentines Day is around the corner.