At one of the most important turning points in my life, I left behind someone I loved and the life I had grown accustomed to in order to start over in a place that was completely foreign to me.
Decisions like that carry a weight of their own. To bear that weight, people occasionally need something—or someone—to hold onto. When I took that leap, I hoped to find not only physical security but emotional safety as well. Instead, I gradually realized that the people I relied on had their own priorities, struggles, and lives to build. At the time when I needed support the most, I often felt invisible, alone, and pushed into the background.
At the same time, I was watching my relationship slowly drift away from the partnership I thought we were building. Important decisions increasingly felt like individual choices rather than shared ones. The sense of “us” was gradually replaced by “me.” Plans that directly affected our future were sometimes made without meaningful discussion, and the feeling of being a true partner began to fade. What made it even harder was the sense that my efforts and support often went unnoticed. Trying my best to help while being told I hadn’t done enough left me carrying a burden that already felt too heavy.
Fighting to stay afloat while simultaneously feeling unseen, misunderstood, and emotionally unsupported made an already difficult journey even harder. At one of the most critical moments of my life, I found myself adapting not only to a new country and a new future, but also to loneliness.
Twenty years after leaving school, I tried to become a student again.
I took on a challenge most people had completed long ago, carrying the weight of two decades on my shoulders. Returning to studying and attempting to redirect my life was more than an educational goal. It was an effort to reclaim lost time and reopen doors that life had already closed.
But motivation faded. Concentration became difficult. Loneliness crept into everything. One setback followed another, and eventually I failed to finish what I had started.
That wasn’t simply the loss of an academic or career goal. It felt like the collapse of a future I had begun to believe in.
Trying to move forward while wrestling with old habits, adult responsibilities, and anxiety about the future left me with a profound sense of defeat. That unfinished chapter remains an open wound to this day.
Eventually, I found myself returning to the very place I had spent years trying to escape. The same toxic environment. The same suffocating atmosphere. The same exhaustion.
It wasn’t a return home.
It felt like being reminded, every single day, that a long and difficult attempt to change my life had ultimately failed.
Then came the pandemic.
While the world shut down, my life seemed to shrink even further. The few fragile connections I still had slowly disappeared. Days became weeks, weeks became years.
Six years passed without close friends, without a partner, without anyone who was truly there.
People often say that human beings are social creatures. I learned how true that is by experiencing the slow erosion that comes from prolonged isolation.
What made matters worse was the absence of any real outlet. No way to release the frustration, disappointment, anger, or exhaustion that had accumulated over the years. Work-related stress kept building, and eventually my body began paying the price.
I lost my health.
People can lose money, opportunities, and time.
But when health begins to disappear, everything else starts losing value along with it.
What I have lived through is not a story about a single failure.
It is the accumulation of abandoned expectations, unfinished dreams, loneliness, social isolation, professional pressure, repeated financial losses, and declining health—all stacked on top of one another over many years.
People see the outcomes.
They rarely see the weight that produced them.
Perhaps that is also why I no longer approach people with the same enthusiasm I once had.
I’ve never been particularly good at treating women as goals to pursue, trophies to collect, or achievements to unlock. The performative nature of modern dating—the games, the scripts, the carefully rehearsed rituals of attraction—has always felt artificial and exhausting to me.
Maybe that’s why I’ve spent the last several years retreating into my own shell, becoming increasingly selective about who I allow into my life.
Friends sometimes ask me:
“Why are you still single?”
I usually answer with a simple list.
She shouldn’t smoke.
She should be able to read something in its original language rather than relying entirely on translations.
She should take care of herself.
She should be kind.
She should be empathetic.
She should care about animals and nature.
She should have self-respect.
And almost inevitably, someone responds:
“Don’t you think your standards are a little high?”
The funny thing is, those are merely the basics.
We haven’t even reached intelligence, intellectual curiosity, technical or academic competence—or my admittedly well-known weakness for redheads.
Occasionally, someone will accuse me of being arrogant.
The truth is that this was never about believing I’m better than anyone else.
Life simply taught me, often the hard way, the difference between people who genuinely see you and people who merely look at you.
So yes, I am drawn to people who can truly see, hear, understand, and ultimately respect me.
That doesn’t strike me as arrogance.
It strikes me as self-respect.
And perhaps the most painful part of all this is that after everything that has happened, the fact that I still get up every morning and keep going doesn’t look heroic to anyone.
Yet sometimes the greatest struggle isn’t achieving extraordinary things.
Sometimes it’s simply finding the strength to continue for one more day.
Maybe I’ve become hopelessly old-fashioned.
Who knows.
At this rate, I wouldn’t even be surprised if I started receiving messages from Dodleston. 🙃🍻
