What happened?

I'm going to be 50 this year and weeks like the past one leave me wondering where the hell it all went wrong. I have no close family, no partner and no friends sufficiently close that I would risk alienating them ringing up at all hours crying like I needed to this week.

I have an interesting job, I adore my boss (and I'm not just writing that because he reads this) and I have some colleagues who are great and some who are utter turds. Just like any job in fact. I don't believe it would be any better anywhere else. It would probably be worse. Or at least a lot duller.

But when I have a blazing row with one of the turds, as I did on Monday, and there is no-one to talk to about it, I can't get over it quickly. I even apologised today (although it wasn't my fault) and he ignored the apology and restarted the argument. But this isn't about the argument. It's about the fact that my life has become so empty and devoid of connection that it's pretty much unbearable. No amount of prescription drugs can cure that.

I can't see it improving as I get older and I don't know how to fix it because fundamentally, most people don't like me. It's hard to make friends and it's hard to keep them. I don't see that changing. I'm not saying I have no friends and I don't want to lose the ones I have but they are all people who want to see me three or four times a year. That would be fine if there was someone close for every day. But there's no-one there for every day. I tried actually expressing this to my self proclaimed best friend and she told me that I was wrong and I didn't need that sort of closeness at all. And then she didn't talk to me for several months.

But I do and for some reason I'm not allowed it. I don't want to get old like this. The thing is that I feel like a freak and I've pretty much had enough.