Hi -one of the things I have learned over the years is that everyone has a different perspective on life - mix of their personality, their own life events and their personal values. Hence what works for one person will not work at all for another.
However I do think that the key thing is functionality versus dysfunctionalality.
I live alone, and while I miss many aspects of a close relationship, emotionally and practically it suits me. What eventually works for you only you can discover, but a relationship is not a sticking plaster, and to treat it as such is both disrespectful to the other person and likely (imo) to attract another dysfunctional person into our lives. You know this, and I realise I am stating the blindingly obvious!
I think we need to bite on the bullet of loneliness: once we have worked through that we can see whether or not we actually want a relationship or just do not want to be alone.
Having lived in a close and loving relationship almost all my adult life, at first it was like a toothache. Hated it. Now I can see only positives. I see so many people in not very good relationships terrified of being alone. Clearly this is the better option for them, but to me it looks insane!
I also see some very happy and successful new relationships . . . .
What is a useful exercise is to spend some time thinking about how we got to where we are in our lives - whether there is a pattern of making the same type of decisions, and accommodations, and what we might want to do about this.
For me (and this relates very much to who I am and see the world) Trust is the big issue. I have tremendous trouble trusting anyone now.
In terms of getting into a functional relationship at present, the odds are against it, and that some delay might be good - but you may have the resilience to deal with that - some of us do and some do not.
The other thing is that I now have a great network of real friends - there are a lot of wonderful people out there on their own, independent, savvy and full of fun. I hang out with these people when I want company.
Will I meet anyone I want to be with - not likely now, and I am fine with that. Life is good. A plumber with great handyman skills and a large bank balance would be nice, but they would also need to like opera and foreign travel
