KayC You made me smile in your acknowlegement that you want but don't want friends. When Paul died I had 30 messages piled up in my voicemail that I would listen to over and over while not returning a single one. When the phone stopped and I had no new messages, I thought "No, I've been abandoned!" - and I cried and cried. It still baffles my mind as I try and determine "Did they drop me or did I drop them? Or did these once-close bonds just break down on their own?" I think now that my life revolved so much around Paul that I have nothing to talk about - and that I won't until someone new. Friends will come back after this. And if they don't ... ? They're not who I'm really missing, are they? I remember dealing with systems and bureaucracies too. Paul and I had a video account that we shared which had some minor unpaid fines. When they asked, as they did, if I was Paul or Roy, I was touched by the memory and I sentimentally explained that, no, Paul was gone. "Oh, in that case, we'll forgive the fines. Let me just erase him from the computer" they said, and on the click of a mouse it was over! I was so upset I walked out into traffic coming home - confused and disoriented over the question of how "My Pookums" could not be here, any record of his existence / our association obliterated. I tossed and I turned though that whole night trying to devise some kind of subversive plan that would have him reinstated. In time, I accepted this additional loss and I just stopped doing business with them. It seems to be one thing after another of letting go of the life we shared and praying for something ... someone, somewhere ... to rebuild a life around. They say nothing is ever lost - that it's only displaced - and I hope they're right! In the meantime, perhaps, we can cry together for the friends we don't want who aren't there for us. It's confusing and upsetting. Roy