I have called an emergency meeting with my Inner Therapist.

She sits primly on a straight-backed chair that looks like it came from St Vinnie's, with every good intention of re-upholstery, and was quickly demoted to the spare room. I sprawl on the carpet.

"Don't I get a couch?" I ask.

"You don't pay me," she answers, without looking up, "and I don't buy couches. Now. Why are we here?"

"It was the text message."

"Ah yes. The one where you got invited to coffee on Sunday with those friends you've barely seen all year. You know - your best ones. People go to therapy a lot because of that sort of thing."

"It's not just the coffee."

"The cake, too, huh?"

I leave a dignified silence where, otherwise, an undignified reply would be.

"It's your pregnant friend, isn't it? When you started trying, she hadn't even conceived her first. Now she's six months pregnant with her second." Inner Therapist is getting a bored, kind of glazed expression and I can see her mentally reshuffling her "dealing with other people's pregnancies" tape into the machine.

"I don't think it's that."

"You don't? Are you sure? I've got a really good broken record about it?"

"I know. Look... there's a different pattern here. Last night: Mr Bea's friend comes to town. Skipped it. No children involved. Well, I'm using a rather strict definition there based solely around physical age..."

"But you digress."

"Yes, um. Tonight: housewarming. Not going. Next weekend: work colleague's birthday. Declined. Cake in the tearoom last Thursday evening at work - couldn't make it. Too busy staring at the wall in front of me."

"So you're worried you're becoming antisocial."

"No!"

"Sounds like you're becoming pretty antisocial to me."

"Well yes, I am. But it doesn't worry me."

"I'm lost."

"You're my therapist! I'm lost! You help me find my way!"

"Bea, I've had a hard week. If you don't like it, you can make your own narky comments."

"Look, sorry. Ok, here's the thing. I'm feeling fine again now. I'm not depressed - I'm totally handling it. I'm just exhausted. I just want to be left alone."

"Just want to be with yourself?"

"Yes."

There is a long silence whilst we look at each other. I nod. I shrug and nod. I waggle my head and eyebrows slightly to indicate how completely it's all been summed up. I break eye contact. I look at my hands. I pick at my fingernails.

"Ok... no."

"I didn't think so."

"How do you do that?"

"It's my job. It's what you don't pay me for."

Inner Therapist sighs in a way which indicates truce and plops herself onto the carpet in front of me. "There are people you don't mind hanging out with, aren't there? Even look forward to socialising with?"

"Yes."

"And they are?"

"J, and S. Mr Bea. My sister. The people in blogland and on the internet."

"I'm sensing a common theme here."

"They know."

"Could it be you're just tired of lying? Of shrugging and telling people there's nothing going on? No plans for the future?"

"Yeah, probably. But the thought of explaining myself to all those people makes me more weary than ever. J, S, Mr Bea and the internet folk know and understand."

Inner Therapist nods, and stares into the middle distance.

"You're not replying."

She sighs. "I'm tired too, Bea. I don't have the answers tonight. Give me a raincheck?"

"Sure. Raincheck. Maybe the answer will just materialise..."