Wanted: Roommate, Best Friend, or Girlfriend (Affection pt. 2?)

There’s just something about a good hug that cheers my soul. I think I’ve mentioned this before, if not here then in conversations I’ve had. I like hugs. I don’t think that qualifies me as a weirdo.

The past couple weeks have full of activity: a mix of writing, reading, talking, and finding ways to get out of my apartment. But when I’m alone for longer periods of time, this apartment often feels more like solitary confinement than a home. I really want someone to live with me or regularly visit. It has been bugging the heck out of me as of late. It’s not that I’m codependent. I love having time to myself to read or write. There’s just something about having another human being within earshot that changes the entire atmosphere of a room or a building. I don’t really have words for what it is. The best I can tell it’s something innate, something instinctual: like we’re preprogrammed for social interaction.

Over the past month or so I have jokingly asked some of my friends if they wanted to be my roommate, but the more and more I think about it, the more and more it becomes a real desire. Until I came to Cleveland, I had never really lived alone. Even if I had my own room in the dorms, there were always friends a few doors down. When I lived in 502, there was always Phil, Chris, or Brandon to hang out with, and if not them, then Max and the crew upstairs. Now here in Cleveland, I don’t have an established social network. I have had to build from the ground up. I don’t have friends from high school here. I don’t have friends from college here. I have people I have worked with and people from church and the various activities surrounding it. I have no interest in clubbing or going to bars to meet new people. In addition, many of my friends are spread fairly far apart around the Greater Cleveland area, many have jobs with odd schedules, and some are even married. This leaves hours, sometimes days without any real face time with the people I consider to be my friends.

This is not to say that they are bad friends or that they neglect me. It is to say, rather, that my circumstances do not currently allow for the high availability of social interaction to which I am accustomed. In Gainesville, it was in my apartment, down the hall, or a quick phone call to other people I knew had free time. Here, I have but 1 year’s worth of friends, and one of my very best friends refuses to even talk to me right now. I don’t know what to think of what I feel right now. I know that a roommate or girlfriend would fill those social/emotional needs that I have, but I don’t desire a roommate or girlfriend with my social/emotional needs as the primary motivation. That would be rather shallow and incredibly selfish. I don’t think it’s bad or wrong to want to be able to have someone with whom I can spend a great deal of time or share my home (in the case of a roommate or wife). But I could be wrong. Is it wrong or unhealthy to desire interaction with people? Is it wrong to strongly desire companionship? God help me because I need to make sense of it all.