It has been over ten years since my last relationship. The last one ended on a very cold note—almost like a corporate firing. We talked about it over lunch at our favorite bar. I didn’t see it coming. It was on my birthday. What was I supposed to expect? It happened all of a sudden without any clues.

I’ve always been very wary about commitment. If a woman doesn’t call me back in a matter of, let’s say, ten minutes, I start getting really worried. What if she doesn’t like me anymore? Maybe she’s talking to some other man. Maybe I said something she didn’t like. Or maybe I did something she didn’t like. Whichever way, I turn to stone. I don’t call her back. Instead, I wait for her to respond. And she does, usually, when she’s still interested. But it could take several hours. Several crucial hours.

That’s how I am with relationships, not just romantic ones. A friend could turn his shoulder at me for a while, and I’m left wondering whether he has lost interest. There goes another friend. I’ve burned many bridges in my life, most of them unintentionally. But I’ve burned enough to where I can’t get across to the other side.

Maybe other people have done the same thing. There’s no way I can be the only one.

I isolated myself in my thirties with alcohol and marijuana so much that I fell out of touch with a lot of friends. Some of them went on to celebrate their careers and where they belong. And I still feel stuck. I miss those friends. But now that I’m sober, I wouldn’t know what to do with them. It was as if drugs and alcohol were what stitched us together.

And now, for all I know, they’re still drinking, but I don’t know for sure. I haven’t spoken to them in years. The only proof I have that they’re breathing is through social media. I see the pictures they post of themselves enjoying the good life—or what appears to be the good life, a facade. Who knows what inner turmoil they could be facing?

I could always unfriend them and it wouldn’t make a difference. They have my number. They can call me, but they won’t. And I won’t call them because they won’t call me back.

Relationships, as a whole, are healthy. My therapist encourages me to make new friends, but it’s harder at my age. I have to join hiking clubs and that sort of stuff. I can’t just go to a hangout and mingle with the young crowd. There’s something about my age that invites no one. Or maybe it’s just me who doesn’t want anything but solitude, who doesn’t want to burn any bridges. All I know is I don’t want to be dumped at a corporate luncheon ever again.