Working

I'm a freelance trainer, which means I run those courses that are so beloved of most employees. No, wait - let me start again. I'm a freelance trainer, which means I help you with your business or personal development. No, that's not quite it, either. I'm a freelance trainer which means I am, to all intents and purposes, effectively unemployed. Yes, that's the one. Nailed it.

I jest, of course, but only just. Think of me like a tiny hotel, with one room to sell. Factoring out weekends, my room is available for about 250 nights of the year. Take out six weeks for high days and holidays and you're down to around 220. Even in a busy year, this little hotel is very unlikely to get anywhere near selling every night. In fact, it's doing very well if it can sell every other night, on average, so you're looking at a maximum of 110 nights, more or less. And that's a busy year. The last couple of years have been far from busy. So, for probably three quarters of the year, I don't work - which mostly means staying at home.

Which sort of sounds like fun until you experience it. As I'm single, and most of my friends live either at the other end of the country or another country entirely, it actually means spending the vast majority of my time alone.

I'm pretty good with my own company but only up to a point. When you realise that you've gone for five days without seeing or speaking to another human being, you begin to get a little stir-crazy. Or, at least, I do.

Which leads to a whole new question - one which I never thought I'd need to ask: as a middle-aged man, how does one go about making new friends and meeting new people?