Gotta get a grip

It's just turned 6 am and I haven't been to bed yet (and won't be able to till tonight). I'm not bragging about this because I just spent a wild night partying with the Beautiful People (I didn't), in fact I'm pretty ashamed of my stupidity. It's just that as soon as night falls (and the Munchkins are in bed - usually hideously late as I suspect they're night owls at heart like I am) I get a second wind. I start surfing, Tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubing (and, more often than not, working) and suddenly I realise dawn is breaking, or the cat's demanding food and yup, another night has passed.

I suspect it has something to do with loneliness. At the risk of boring you "all" to death once again with lyrics by Train (I'm sorry, Pat Monahan just seems to write what I'm feeling...), this captures it perfectly: "The days are better, the nights are still so lonely... sometimes I think I'm the only cab on the road". I miss having a man about the house, I miss being held in someone's arms, I miss being allowed to not be strong and in control all the time, I miss being loved by someone other than my daughters.

Don't get me wrong, the love of my daughters means the world to me, and I love them more than anything. But I'm not talking about that kind of love. I'm talking about the romance kind of love.

St Valentine's Day has been and gone and didn't actually depress me half as much as I thought it would. It was OK, even. I even got a virtual card - from the delightful Avitable who very kindly agreed to be my virtual Valentine. The card was no doubt sent out to hundreds of his fans, but it cheered me up no end and brought a smile to my face. It's not love, but it was love-ly all the same.

But the fact remains, I miss being in a couple. 14 years with one person is a long time by anyone's standards, and finding yourself alone after that is tough. So yeah, I'm not too proud to admit that I'm lonely as hell and would love to have a man in my life again.

The big problem of course is how to accomplish this. I have no social life to speak of (I've been "out" two Saturday nights in a row - once to dinner with parents from school: 3 couples and me; once with my daughters to a pirate-themed restaurant where the waiter flirted with me mildly because I suspect he felt sorry for me, sitting alone while the girls disappeared into the play area), I work from home or in the language department (with mainly female colleagues) of the universities, I rarely leave the house. How am I supposed to meet the man of my dreams like this?

The solution has therefore been to create a full fantasy world in my head. I'm not going to write the details here, they're way to personal and private, but believe me, it's a world where I am loved by a man, and that man doesn't suspect me of heinous crimes, doesn't slap me, doesn't distrust me in everything I do. An ideal world, almost certainly, but the best I can do for now.

I'm getting kind of addicted to FaceBook and Twitter - my access to the "world". On Twitter, I feel like I'm making "friends" with people I don't really know, but with whom I can sense an affinity of sorts. I've caught up with friends from my youth on FB and have re-established contact. It feels good, it makes me feel in touch with a life outside of my own. I've also made contact with musicians I like, bloggers I like, etc. We communicate, a little, not often, just enough.

But the void remains in my life, my "real" life. I'd like to think that one day this virtual man will become real too, but I know I mustn't raise my hopes as the wait is likely to be a long one.

Till then, I'll continue getting by, living in my fantasy world, my Internet world and my lonely real world.