Ask HN: How to be alone?

It sounds you likely want a new partner, so .. at some point go out and find one. Not a replacement, your old partner seems gone, you want a different person you want to start a new life with.

And if you don't want a different person .. then you should first get over the divorce with your last partner. Otherwise it likely won't work.

(And aside "I would blame depression, but I have a great psychiatrist who has me on antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and mood stabilizer" those things can have side effects, meaning you are stable to do your work, but are otherwise stuck emotionally. Therapy is a bit more, then taking meds)

I think I have a relatively good life, but I still have hard times. I had circa 6 months long depression streak after my child was born (I'm male).

For me the best mood fixer is a walk still. Super small commitment, great with a dog too. For a weekend the best is a longer hike. I practice yoga and train my body - great mood boosters. I've trained my body to be able to sit comfortably on the ground so I can work from anywhere - sunshine in park hellooo.

Hope you find your rhythm soon!

Looking back on the last two years and auditing what worked, I would say routine and lingering were the most important thing.

Trying new things is mentally draining and labor intensive, this is a fact of life for many. What worked for me was finding something I enjoyed (exercise classes) and doing it consistently multiple times a week at the same place for months. With repetition, it's very easy to make new friends. Complaining about one exercise one week turns into making comments about the music the next, and all of a sudden you're getting coffee with friends.

At the start it was very difficult, and I was very bad, but now I'm part of a community and have many close friends. Its a hour per day most days of the week. It's also a jumping off point for everything else social. It provides purpose and self-confidence. Which are prerequisites for everything else meaningful in life.

Here are some coping strategies you can apply right away:

→ Listen to podcasts, especially podcasts in a chatty & informal style. It really helps to just hear people talking. If you're looking for recommendations, I'm very fond of If Books Could Kill.

→ A lot of podcasts have Discord servers associated with them, where fans of the show congregate & talk. Sometimes you have to pay a couple bucks on Patreon to get access. These can be good places to go for a very easy, low-effort social space. You can keep it open on another monitor & let it serve as background chatter that you can dip into at any time.

→ Do stuff. Go to museums, go to movies, go to dinner. Some people have hangups about (e.g.) eating at restaurants alone, but you must overcome this psychological hurdle immediately. You will feel much more alive if you go outside.

→ Read a book. If it doesn't grab you, then set it down and start another. Beauty is good for the soul, and the wonderful thing about a paperback novel is that, unlike TV and movies, you cannot pull out your phone and multitask. With practice, you can stay immersed in a text for longer & longer periods of time. Eventually, a good novel will be able to eat up your whole weekend and leave you feeling great afterwards.

→ Start a journal. Without an intimate partner to talk to, it can feel like your head is heavy with half-formed thoughts that you just can't get rid of. Getting them down on paper is almost as good as voicing them to another person. The podcasts are nice, but spending all your time listening to podcasts can gradually teach you to be uncomfortable when left with your own thoughts. Keeping a journal helps you stay on good terms with yourself. I can't recommend it enough.

Now I'll get into some longer-term lifestyle changes. These can take a while to come to fruition and may require leaving your comfort zone, but they're worthwhile.

→ For me, there is nothing better for my mental health than a 90-minute park run on a breezy day in late spring. Even a 30-minute stint on a treadmill in the dead of winter will clear my mind. I don't know what your relationship to exercise is, so I can't really call this a quick fix, but think about ways to incorporate exercise into your routine in ways that you'll enjoy. Personally, I suggest running.

→ There's a broad stratum of fun social events designed for meeting people and developing shared hobbies. Pottery classes, choir programs, ultimate frisbee. You pay a couple hundred bucks to sign up, then you go to the event on Thursday nights and maybe get drinks with some of the other members afterwards. You won't be best friends right away, and you'll probably never get that close with most of them, but having a loose community like this is nice, and if you stay in contact with people after the course ends, you may take away some lasting friendships.

→ Undertake a creative project. I wrote a novel during the pandemic. It sucked, but I put a lot of time and love into it and I really felt like I did something. (The trouble with writing a novel, of course, is that nobody will want to read it. If you're smarter than me, you'll pick up something like painting, which produces stuff you can hang up, show off, and give away. Pottery and music I mentioned earlier, but I'll mention them here again.) Creativity is extremely fulfilling. It takes time to feel like you're producing anything valuable, but when you do, it'll mean a lot.