A tough time of year for singletons

It’s all going off around my new pad at the moment. There have been two of us, boys living among the clutter for the last few weeks and it feels as if we are all jolly young students again. We shouldn't really be living like this as we are definitely the wrong side of 18. It would be far more normal, according to my mother, to be living alone in a nice little flat back home in Bombay.

Bizarrely enough my roomie – found himself a girlfriend just in time for the festive season. Miraculously he has magicked up a divine female who he is spending New Year snuggling up to - well done mate.

This time of year is particularly trying for singletons, we all know that, and my house is full of hormones and drama. I am single and new in Sin Sydney. So am mooching around the place feeling sorry for myself. I seem to burst into tears a lot of the time for no reason and think that maybe I could be medically termed depressed at the moment. I am thinking of toddling down the road to ask the doctor for some seasonal happy pills.

The fact that all my mates in the new city are already off for “our” Christmas and New Year holiday without me riles too. I was supposed to be on a “cheer up” date the other night, but that ended up in me talking about my ex-girlfriend and she about her past. Great night that was. It was hardly surprising that there was no follow-up call. Then a dear friend who has not had good sex since cows were edible in India rings to tell me he has spent the whole of Sunday in the most rapturous lovemaking and tender embraces with a divine new goddess he picked up on a plane. It’s all getting a bit much, with even my neighbour singing carols on the bloody stairs. Lah did dah.

I’ve always believed — that the single most important thing in life is to find a person with whom you can share your life intimately: your other half, your best friend, your lover, a person to whom you can confide all your secrets, the one you go to first with good news and first with bad. We all look for it, and it’s a rarity, a privilege. If you find it, then I believe you’ve won the greatest prize there is. And if love is the greatest prize, I don’t know what comes second, but whatever it is, it’s so far behind, it’s like a runner being lapped by everyone else on the track.

I suppose I feel Miss West's experience ought to be celebrated. She is an exceptional woman. I knew that, and so does everyone who knows her. She had such dignity and selflessness, such compassion, understanding, patience — so many things. Knowing I was loved by somebody as fine as her gave me a strength, a self-confidence that I don't have without her. She validated me. I still grieve over her loss, her absence. I still think: “Oh, if only she were to walk through the door now...” The pain doesn’t go away. Nothing helps; nothing compensates for her not being here. However good life is now or may become, it will never be as good as life before Miss West. It’s too late. But even now, she’s my constant companion. I think about her every day and I dream about her most nights. When it comes to making decisions, I still think: “What would Miss West say?”

I pay the price of my indiscretions. My immaturity and absolute blindness in not realising what I had, failure to treasure it, nurture it, has led to me loosing the most valuable person to ever walk into my life. Sin of breaking a heart was committed by me - repentance not in sight. I suppose it comes back to that old question: is it better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all? There’s a wonderful film called Shadowlands, which tells the story of C S Lewis and his love for this woman, Joy, who becomes terminally ill. When she’s dying she says to him: “We can’t have the happiness of yesterday without the pain of today — that’s the deal.” And I suppose it’s the same with me.

Its not the fall which kills you, its the landing! I kept falling for four years without once realising. Crash landed last year, and trust me it hurts. Where I go from here is any ones guess.