Alone again, naturally.

I never thought I'd end up alone. As a child, I don't think I ever really thought about it. But as a teenager and a young adult, I think I always pictured myself happily ensconced with my "someone". But now, firmly entrenched in my middle age, closer to fifty than I am to forty, it has really begun to sink in that I truly am alone and likely will remain that way.
It doesn't bother me too much if I keep busy. But certain times, like on a Friday night driving home on a nice evening, I really notice the solitude. I see the couples sitting outdoors having dinner, a date night alone, or with their children. And then I go home to my empty house and write.
What I feel is not the crushing, searing pain that would send you to the emergency room, and it's not even the type of pain that would prompt you to schedule an appointment for a routine check-up. Rather, what I felt was an exquisite pang, a wistful longing for something permanently lost, something perhaps as basic as the need for oxygen. It was a sensation I felt deep in the chest, and which tended to declare itself when I was alone, during moments of relative quiet and introspection.
Everywhere I go people are traveling in pairs, and even those who appear to be alone usually bear the mark of being something more, wearing the universal sign of "two-ness", the wedding ring. And while I don't begrudge them any of their happiness, and know that the marriage behind closed doors is inevitably different than what is presented to the public,I always felt that I would be a member of their particular club. Instead, I have become what I imagine they consider their poor single friend, the one to be issued invitations to otherwise strictly family gatherings, because if not for them, where else would I go?
I was asked out a few weeks ago, by someone who probably is a very nice man (but you can never really be sure, can you?). This man had gone to a lot of trouble to search out my contact information, going through a friend of a friend who knew my friend's brother after we met at a gathering of old MG owners. And while a part of me was flattered that someone would go to so much trouble to ask me out, most of me was petrified. I had a truly visceral reaction to his e-mail. My heart rate quickened and I literally felt my whole being seize up, an almost painful clenching of my gut. And I thought to myself: "I'm not ready to date". And the thing is, I'm not sure I ever will be.