That's right, boys. I got dumped with the good old "I think we make better friends" line after a year, a puppy, and plans to move in together. Bastard.

So, if I unleash my man-hateness on you all, I hope you understand it's just because I won't have been laid for a while and it's nothing personal. :P

Sorry to hear about your breakup, Jillie. I won't take any hate sent my way too personally.

Now you should do what I did after my last break-up: use wrestling as a tool to avoid facing the cold, hard reality of my situation :)

Hey, if your standards are on the low side, I have a single friend :P

I plan to go out and get really really drunk on Friday so I can accompany my co-DJ on a two-hour ride and work an 8 hour wedding really hung over on Saturday.

After that my coping mechanism will be the good old world of efedding! Woo!

Yikes, I doubt you'll be in any mood to spend your day at a wedding. You may want to consider saving the getting really drunk part for the wedding, just make it seem like a part of your act or something.

I kid, I kid. Sort of.

I really need someone to tell me what the Hell to do right now and I don't really know who else to ask so I'm going to rant here. I need an "outside" opinion.

So I got dumped. Which is fine (well, it's not, really, but it is what it is). My problem is not so much with being single as it is with being lonely. All my friends (and I'm not even exaggerating) are in a relationship, engaged, or getting married next month. Some of my friends are getting married to each other and some are getting married to people outside our group of friends. Regardless, if I hang out with them I'm always the 3rd, 5th, 7th or 9th wheel.

The obvious solution would be to go out and meet people. This is difficult for me. I don't really go out and make friends. I'm not friends (nor do I want to be) with the people at work. I'm not in school or anything. All my major interests either involve online people or would be silly to attend by myself. Of course, when I ask my friends what I should do to get out and meet people they always say "why do you need to meet people? You've got us!" Greaaaaaat.

I have also tried the online dating thing, which hasn't been a huge disaster, but it's certainly not something I want to try on my third day of single-dom. When I'm ready to start dating again I'll try it out again.

In the meantime...where do you go to meet new people that doesn't make you look like you're an idiot for showing up alone?

Or am I doomed to be miserable and alone until I'm ready to start dating again?

Night classes are always an option. Find something interesting as far as a hobby and hope for the best. Or you could try online for friends. You could post ads for friends and activity buddies. I would suggest figuring out places to go where you'll meet people that share your interests.

Being friends with people from work is a terrible idea though. Never get socially involved at all with co-workers. It never ends well.

Huh?

Maybe I'm the exception, but a few of my co-workers I'd consider pretty good friends.

Other than that, I'd say about 60% of my friends are people I've known since grade school.

In my DJ job I mostly work with guys who are fun to work with but are generally not people I would usually hang out with. In my office job I am the youngest person in my office by at least 10 years. Not really an option for friends there.

My gosh I sound pathetic. Haha

Nah. It's pretty common. I'm the same way with work. I work in a warehouse and the guys are fun but I wouldn't be caught dead around any of them outside of work. Just not my style of people.

This sounds increidbly nerdy, but during my single stints, I'd go to a bar that had live trivia. That way you were provided with a discussion topic that everybody around you was aware of. As a bonus, if you're right, someone might be amazed and buy you a drink.

I've been biking a LOT around town for over 10 years now. People always say "why can't you meet someone while you're biking"? That seems incredibly tacky. You're out sweating and usually the only time you get to talk to a new person is if they have a flat or an accident. You're supposed to meet and ask someone for a phone number in the limited time you have? Never got that.

Although, since you're a girl, you could play dumb when you see some good looking guy sitting on a bench by himself. Go up and ask him for directions. Guys love that shit.

You also have a puppy... I used to hit on women all the time at the dog park.

The ol' open-ended party is great. Someone you kinda' vaguely know has a party and you're invited. Chances are you can meet someone there. Yes, even "old people" have parties where you can meet someone. You'll probably have to attend 4 or 5 lame-o parties before you hit one with some available dudes.

That's true about the party thing. I do try to make it to all the work events we have and all the parties I'm invited to. The problem is that I DJ on the weekends and no one has parties on Thursdays. Haha. I always inform the people I'm DJing with if someone is interested in the cute DJ behind the booth (because I'm not a host yet and I don't get out and actually talk to people - although that might be the next career direction I take to help me meet people, too) to let the interested parties know I'm single. My hosts are very abliging. Haha.

Oh yeah, and my now ex boyfriend got custody of the dog because 1) it was a free puppy and neither of us really paid anything for her and 2) I can't have dogs at my apartment. So the puppy idea is out. :(

Jillie, personally I don't think you should worry about meeting new people right now. I've had this conversation with people 100 times over and I'll say it again. Everyone when in a relationship thinks to themselves at some point "damn, if I wasn't going out with him/her tonight I could be....."

This is time for you. Just go do stuff that you like that maybe you couldn't devote the time to when you were with your boyfriend. Make sense?

I'm not as much worried about meeting people to date as I am just friends to hang out with. As I mentioned, all the friends that I have are with other people and I don't have any single friends. Being the 3rd, 5th, 7th, or 9th wheel all the time really really sucks.