81–90 of 124 posts
I would recommend traveling. Maybe in South America. Travel aligns your priority’s if you stay in hostels and explore. You’ll learn necessities, privilege, love and hate. It’ll get you out of your box of loneliness.
Consider reading Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents , by Lindsay Gibson. The loneliness you feel may be rooted in your upbringing, and learning more about this can give you a deeper way to understand your feelings. Meanwhile, as others have said, spend time with a competent therapist. You may need to shop around until you find someone that works well for you. They will guide you on how to socialize and fo…
most people in "their deathbed" who mainly feel good about their lives talk about the relationships they have, or how much they found meaning helping, and you can't help people without socializing
It might take a few attempts, but I would try to find a good therapist and work with them to figure out this state-of-being and how you can change or augment it in a way that both meets your desire to spend time alone and to resolve your loneliness. For example, maybe you need to find a specific type of life partner who also needs lots of time alone (e.g. an artist with a studio). Then you could potentially continue…
A piece of advice that I found quite inspiring was: "Even if you don't believe yourself to be in a place where you'd be a good partner or friend, there are others who may think that you're exactly what they need. And they should get the chance to make that decision for themselves!"
From personal experience, it's nonetheless tough to go from this mindset into putting it into practice - so I wholeheartedly recommend making therapy part of the solution! And don't be afraid to shop for therapists - just because you don't click with one, doesn't mean you won't click with the next.
Take a class at a community college or maybe teach a class or become a substitute teacher at a local high school or grade school.
Join a sports club (like others have mentioned here) - Cross-fit, Jiu-jitsu, Krav-Maga, running, cycling.
Go to your library and check out the bulletin board - usually there are club notices or other events posted.
Get a part-time job that involves a lot of interaction - Walmart, McDonald's, chair-lift operator at a ski resort.
Volunteer at a food repository or at a charity like Feed My Starving Children or assist at a retirement community. For volunteering, in Chicago we have https://www.chicagocares.org. There might be something similar in your city.
Reminds me of The Oatmeal's article on being happily unhappy [1]. I think I'm pretty similar. I'm also 30, live alone, long distance from all of my family and most of my friends -- but I'm very close with my friends despite that, and most are the same or similar to me. And while I enjoy being around them, I still crave my freedom and am very proud of my current identity as someone who paves his own path. And I also d…
Although I think there is a certain feeling of community that can only really be achieved by living for a while with other people. For anyone who can take time off I can recommend going sailing on a tall ship for a few weeks. Don't expect yourself to become a social butterfly. Just living the experience of doing something with a flock for a while can be quite meaningful. Workaway.info or wwoof:ing might also be things to look up.
First of all, I am always a little bit lonely. I have trouble letting people getting close, and it takes me longer than other people to show any vulnerability. I am a homebody who would prefer solo projects or video games to going out an talking to people. But I still have friends and a good relationship. So I guess step zero is to accept that things will never be perfect and are always a work in progress. There is no perfection, at least not for me, only improvement.
Advice number 1 is that familiarity breeds friendship. Find something that you don't hate and keep going to it, week after week. Board game meetups, religious/atheist meetups, political groups, volunteering, anything. The important thing is to keep showing up.
Advice 2 is that vulnerability is a big part of what attracts others to you. Don't over share too soon, but share some qualities about yourself. Don't be a faceless needless perfect person. Let your guard down a bit and be willing to stand on your own traits, and be accepted or rejected. It will be difficult and painful, but if people don't accept you for who you really are, then that group wasn't for you anyway. Also, vulnerability is an ongoing process that deepens over the course of a friendship.
I think one primary reason why we feel this loneliness is because we fear the situations where we might need other people, in particular situations where we do not have a computer or we are sick or otherwise unable to live the way we usually do on the computer (speaking for HN crowd specifically) ;P
What i mean by this is for example I can imagine myself getting sick or getting old to the point where I can't do the things I am passionate about, so I end up sitting alone somewhere just staring out the window or something, with no friends or family, and that is a pretty lonely thought.
The problem in the modern world is that we can for the most part actually live alone and do the things that we are interested in, and these situations where we actually need other people in person become an abstract idea rather than a concrete need, but historically and probably evolutionary we did need them. I think in prior decades it was a lot harder to entertain yourself and be alone as much as we are today. We can get a hold of food, social interactions online and accomplish goals in a way that was never possible without in person interaction in the past and this confuses our brain which is not used to this arrangement. Edit: Just to make it clear, I think we oscillate between feeling complete happiness and contentment from the things we do alone and enjoy (like coding/reading/whatever you do), and the feeling of being afraid of the moments we might need people. It is this oscillation pattern that confuses our brain because we don't know if what we have is enough or not. We want to "cover" all possible scenarios we can imagine.
I also want to mention the feeling we've all probably had when we do something on our own that was a challenge and we succeeded - it gives a strong feeling of relief when we actually accomplish this. I think, if we can get that feeling for ALL life situations we would no longer feel loneliness since we would be self sufficient in all situations. But up until we are convinced of this, we will always be afraid of the abstract imaginary situation where we will need other people but will be alone I think.
So i think there are two possible solutions -
1) Either convince yourself through experience or thought that there is no situation you cannot deal with alone and it will be fine
or
2) Do the hard work of making and keeping friends which means sacrificing your own time and thoughts etc to them. This is like studying for a test in a boring subject there is no way around it. Don't get me wrong I don't think other peopel are boring I just mean there is work needed there that usually goes beyond the comfort / convenience level of what you're used to.
Tbh I am far from good at this, I am mostly alone nowadays but I do enjoy talking to some select few people, but I try to keep the fear mentioned above in check and also be content that I can handle the situation I am in and future ones.