A reply from a brave man!

Martin, who blogs openly and honestly about all kinds of things at martinjflett.blogspot.com, has bravely replied to my last post, 'Dear Single-Man-Who-I-Like'.  Thank you Martin for sharing a single man's perspective on the matter, and I hope you don't mind me turning your 'just a comment' into a whole new post!  I think there's a lot of misunderstanding between single men and women about how we approach friendships and relationships, and I wonder if a bit more open conversation between guys and girls about it would help prevent some broken hearts.  So here's Martin's reply:

Hi!

So, I am single, male, and I wrote something similar to this once. Unfortunately, I can't remember when or where it was. Possibly in a private email, because, believe it or not, we too find it difficult to admit to anyone that we struggle with loneliness. The most recent thing I did put ‘out there’ about this is here: http://martinjflett.blogspot.com/2011/07/staying-single.html

I hear and feel your pain about being happy for friends getting married and settling down – I actually went as far as stopping going to weddings because a) they make me sad and b) if I don’t go to any, rather than just some, no one can feel offended, right?

And I totally relate to the coming home every night to an empty flat...

I don’t have any answers for you, my friend (if I may call you that?!). All I can say is it ain’t a barrel of laughs for us either...many times I’ve been that “single guy who is nice to ‘you’”, and trust me, most of the time I (we?) are wondering the exact same thing of ‘you’: are we just friends? Do you want more than that? Is it worth risking a great friendship for? Because girls who don’t want more than friendship tend to back off too through fear of giving the wrong impression.

Anyway, as this is just a comment, I should probably close. But if you do wanna chat further, you know where to find me...

From
A-man-brave-enough-to-reply-to-this-letter!

 I'd love it if more brave single people wanted to share their thoughts in a wee comment below.  Would be great to hear from some separated/divorced/widowed folks too.  Us singles can spend a lot of time wanting to be married without really understanding how challenging marriage can be.  Can you help us lose the illusion that marriage would fix all our problems and make us blissfully happy forever more?!