When You’re In A Strong Relationship, You Can Still Feel Lonely

By

My boyfriend is my best friend. I love spending time with him. I love seeing movies together and getting drunk together and talking about ridiculous hypothetical situations together. I love how open and honest and unabashedly myself I can be around him.

I couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend — but I still miss having friends.

I’ve grown apart from a lot of the people who were close to me when I was younger. I didn’t cut them out of my life as soon as I started dating. I didn’t shun the outside world because I entered a relationship. I started drifting apart from them before I even found a boyfriend. It happened naturally. We grew older. We moved to different towns. We lived different lives. We stopped considering ourselves such close friends.

Now that I’m older and have a harder time meeting people, I wish I had more friends in my life. Friends who would call me up at two in the morning to rant or cry or laugh with me. Friends who would drag me to concerts and music festivals. Friends who would stop over the house without warning, without knocking, who would walk right through the door with a case of wine and ask to order pizza.

I miss having close friends. I miss getting manicures and wandering around the mall and drinking mimosas at brunch. I miss having someone to drag me on road trips, to take me to see romantic comedies, to text me about Queer Eye while we’re both streaming episodes on Netflix.

I miss having someone other than my boyfriend who gets me, who is there for me, who makes me burst out laughing when I’m in the worst mood possible.

The worst part is, I feel like I’m not allowed to complain, like I’m being ungrateful whenever I’m honest about my feelings. Whenever I comment about how I wish I had more friends, people look at me weird. They act like there must be something wrong with my relationship if I’m unhappy in any other aspect of my life. They assume my person should be providing me with everything I need — which is not the case at all. My entire world cannot revolve around my boyfriend. Even the best relationship in the world is not a magical cure to unhappiness, loneliness, insecurity.

Sure, my boyfriend would agree to do any of those things I’ve been wanting a friend to do with me — but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. We shouldn’t be spending every waking moment together. We should have our own lives. We should have our own friends.

People keep telling me it’s impossible to feel lonely when I’m in a relationship — especially since I’m in a healthy, stable relationship with my best friend — but I can still experience loneliness.

I’m allowed to be unhappy even though my relationship is happy.

I’m allowed to feel lonely even though I have a caring, loving boyfriend.

I’m allowed to wish I had more friends to hang out with on weekends.

I’m allowed to feel like something is missing.