Truth be told, I am all alone

I recently had an appointment to get my haircut, and truth be told I was very much looking forward to it.  Roe (a 51 year old Italian woman who’s been cutting my hair for 20 years) is funny & easy to talk to, and loves to chat.  She must have 1-200 regular customers and talks nonstop with each & every one of them.

So after I got to the shop, waited patiently for my turn then climbed into the barber chair, Roe says “Dougie Fresh!  Are we doing our usual?”  I say yes please, and she asks what’s going on.  Right then, Roe’s doctor friend Lisa walks into the shop, her 2 giant dogs in tow.  She sits down on the bench directly across from my chair and says to Roe it’s her day off, asks what’s going on.  She and Roe start talking and talking… it never stops.

After 1/2 hour, Roe says “Hold on Lisa—Dougie Fresh how’s it look?”  I say my one word that day.  “Fine.”  She says “You’re good to go!”  I hand her $25.00, pick up my glasses and leave the shop.   

To be honest, I was hurt and pissed off.  First of all, I think that’s a lot of money for a man’s haircut but that’s another story.  (Before the pandemic, a cut & tip was $16.00.)  My gripe is, I don’t have anyone to talk to and was looking forward to just sitting and talking with someone I know & like for 1/2 hour, and this other person took MY chat-time on MY dime.  Am I sounding really wacko here?

Here’s the truth.  I don’t have any friends.  I don’t have anyone.  It’s pretty much why I blog.  There’s a couple of people I talk to online on occasion, and several who always leave comments on my posts that I genuinely like hearing from, but it’s not the same.

I have 2 former work-friends I stay in contact with, Danielle & Erin, but they’re pretty sparse relationships.  I’ve seen Danielle 2 times in 3 years—she doesn’t do phone calls, and her emails are never more than single sentences.  But she has two parents getting on in years, two dogs, a husband and a full-time job so what do I expect.  

As for my friend Erin, we have some pretty lengthy chats over the phone.  About one every 3 months.  But she moved out of the city 8 years ago, and I haven’t seen her once since then.

I’m not sharing this looking for sympathy or advice.  I’m just telling it like it is.  Most days it’s not a problem, then there’s a week spent alone recovering from covid with no one to really talk to during or after.  

I wish I could have one close friend.  Someone from my generation to really talk to, spend time with.  I’ve always wanted to visit Gettysburg.  I’ve daydreamed about taking a cross-country trip on Amtrak or Greyhound even; just not alone.  In the mid-1980s, I rode both while visiting Washington DC a number of times.  They took several hours on both and I enjoyed those trips very much.

I am going to share a little secret.  In the summer of 2018, I joined a dating/friendship site called ‘Stitch’, for people over 50.  I didn’t want to jinx things so I didn’t blog about it or tell anyone.  I said I was interested in meeting a woman, for friendship. 

(I’m not against romance but I wasn’t looking for that right off the bat.  I just wanted a friendship first more than anything.)

Right away I got several messages from other men also looking for friendship.  Well, I did specify I was looking for something platonic so I responded to a couple of them that lived in Pennsylvania.  The first suggested we meet for lunch then asked for a full-body photo, before we went any further.  The second fellow didn't waste any time and sent me a picture of himself. 

He was in his mid-late sixties, and naked as a jaybird.  (If that had been me, I would’ve put on a Lone Ranger’s mask at least.)  But I wasn’t looking for  homoerotic pen-pals, and dropped out of Stitch.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now.  I’m sorry if I got too honest or shared too much here.  The funny thing is, the more I wrote this out, the better i began to feel overall.  Thanks for reading.