It's the same old shit.

The tree-hugger is having some issues with her housemate. He says he's in love with her. This has been going on for over a year or so. She has told him that she isn't interested, but he persists. He is aggressively rude in putting down the guy she is currently seeing, all the while following her around like a little lost puppy. I tell her that he needs to get over it, let it go, and then I say Says me who hasn't let go of the idea of Fletch for five years and we both laugh. Ah, the tree-hugger says, clutching her wine and cigarette, unrequited love.

I am hesitant to call what I feel for Fletch 'love'. Surely I need to know him better before I can say that's what it is? But perhaps not. Perhaps it is love. Maybe if I did know him, I wouldn't be in love with him.

I found myself at a bar, drunk and with Lara and Fletch, a few weekends ago. We had been to our aunty's birthday, had a few drinks and went out. Just the three of us. She told me she missed me, that she thought she had done something wrong and that was why I didn't talk to her anymore. It would have been the perfect opportunity to say I couldn't be friends with you; I hit on your boyfriend and felt guilty as hell. But I didn't because people don't say that kind of thing.

I'm lonely. I'm not unhappy, just lonely. The kind of lonely that aches. Before anyone says it, internet dating isn't for me. For months, I've weighed up the pros and cons, have listened to my friends talking it up, checked out online profiles (and, admittedly, become mildly fixated with two), but I just can't go any further. I'm okay with that. I'm not ruling it out altogether, but for now, it's off the cards.

So. Loneliness. What a bitch. It's a battle to decide which is worse: loneliness or depression. One can lead to the other, I suppose. It hurts. It makes me feel like I'm missing something, like a part of me is missing. I guess that's what people mean when they refer to "my other half". Not that I think I need someone to make me complete, I'm enough of my own person, but I do have an emptiness and I know what is required.

I'm just waiting. Going about my day-to-day, in the hope someone out of the ordinary will happen. That's how I would like to meet him.

I used to be full of optimism about 'him'. I believed he was out there, also waiting for whatever twist of fate would bring us together. These days, it's getting harder to keep the faith in that belief. And that's understandable, isn't it? It's been so long. So very, very long. And I've waited patiently. If he doesn't come along soon, I fear I will explode or implode or just fade away.