Har-har

It's funny how things can change in a short span of time. Since last writing I split with my partner. Actually I think technically he broke up with me. The reason? Because he wanted to see other people. Seems crazy huh? That you go into a relationship with someone and then along the way decide actually no, I don't like this. I don't really have any ill will about the situation, in fact I pretty much moved on the next day, I moved out all my stuff at his place and started afresh. The problem though is that he keeps contacting me to catch up. We have caught up over a meal a couple of times since and I'm finding myself less tolerant of the things I used to put up with - I suppose because I'm no longer committed to make it work out, all the things I tried to accept and brush aside just get more difficult to take. The most recent occasion, he asked if I was happy and if I missed him, now I didn't want to be rude but on the one hand I felt like saying 'Yes, I'm quite content with my current situation' but on the other hand I wanted to just say 'You don't get the right to ask those sorts of questions i.e. it's none of your fucking business' - instead I just said I had diverted my attention to work and I was doing fine. So I walk away from the relationship having learnt that some things can't be compromised, some times your gut feeling should guide you, and relationships don't work unless both parties are committed to making it work. There were so many things wrong when I started the relationship - the fact that I engaged it because someone was keen on me, even if I wasn't all that keen on them, I tried to see the positive side of their personality and I tried to change things about him. Some of it worked because he wanted to change, the rest is still unchanged. I think that all along he felt like he wasn't good enough and every step of the way would find something negative to comment on in relation to my life - like my friends being mostly from my profession, or that I worked a lot and wasn't very adventurous or that I was a terrible driver (or just wasn't as good as him). I don't think he understood what it's like to do the work I do, I could rarely sleep in because he couldn't sleep in - you have no idea how tiring it is to be on-call and have to be have your brain 'on' at all times. And that often work doesn't get left at work, we're almost of different breed of person. We had almost broken up twice along the way, perhaps more, in fact it was those times that we actually had the most meaningful conversations. I only really realised after the relationship that we didn't communicate a lot, in the way I did with my friends, my previous ex and my work colleagues. I was out and about and meeting new people and thinking it's nice to actually have a conversation with someone who will engage and respond appropriately. None of the grunts and throw away lines that offered nothing. Moving forward, it's been a few weeks now, I've been hitting the town again with my mates (who I had put on the back-burner) and doing the social coffee catch ups. I think I'm less apprehensive about myself and meeting new people - I certainly feel more confident about getting what I want and pursuing it my interests. The question though, is, what has changed since the last time I was single? Probably nothing, I'm still trying to avoid the online world and trying to stay networked. Things are still tough as far as finding mr right. but I guess they always were...