Ask HN: Loneliness at 19, how to cope?

If I may be so bold, the fallacy here is of time. Dare I say, you are already surrounded by friends, and not noticing it.

It seems like you measure "friendship" not by the time spent with them when you go to events or in school, but what happens afterwards. In other words, you are discounting to zero the moments that are actually happening in your life, for an imagined future of what a friendship might turn out to be. But life only ever happens moment to moment. That time that you spend with people at an event, that IS the thing.

There is no "friendship certificate": some people, you'll only spend ten minutes with; some, you might spend an afternoon with; others you might end up seeing once a week for a term. You might date a girl for a fortnight, or a couple of months, and then break up and never see each other again. It's ALL GOOD.

If I understand correctly, none of the above would qualify in your eyes as "real friendship", only the deep, deep kind. You might find it helpful to learn about Dunbar's number, and the size of the model's concentric social circles. Most people end up with 1-2 very close friends (possibly including their spouse). That is the outcome over a lifetime of making connections. Popular culture markets this idea that we should all be carousing with a tightly knit group of friends - no statistical social evidence bears this out.

When sinking into deep analysis about all your self-perceived inadequacies, your attention beam is directed inwards. That's unhealthy. When it's directed OUT, into the world, it takes you out of your head, and lets you see that everyone, every single one (person or otherwise), is struggling in their own way. Everyone's got a thing. Looking out builds empathy and kindness and affection towards things that make you happy, and gazing inwards makes you miserable.

You are surrounded by people in school, and are at a stage in life where you get to be interested in whatever. Any experience you have, even if it doesn't lead to lifelong friendships, is worthy in the space of time it occupies.

Throughout my undergrad I had friends come and go. I'm not in touch with anyone I met at Uni during those years. It doesn't make the actual time spent with these people any less special.

I am going to disagree with almost all of the advice about studying abroad or joining a club. Those are well-intended, but they are addressing the symptoms, not the cause. Judging from these descriptions:

> I’m socially anxious and keep to myself

> small talk tends to bore me

> it’s exhausting always having to text them to hang out, if I don’t then we never talk again

It's highly possible that you have undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder. I say this because I am reading a book right now about ASD[0] and a lot of this is ringing true, especially the part about being confused why friends are dropping you. Speak to a psychologist and see what they think (or read the book first, and then speak to them). I am 30 now and am just cluing in that I might be on the spectrum, and oh boy do I wish I had caught it when I was younger. (It's also possible that you don't have ASD but some other condition like avoidant personality disorder, but whatever it is, it is so much easier to solve it once you've figured it out.)

[0]: https://www.isthisautism.com/

Get used to it. Culture your independence. Learn how to sit alone in a room by yourself and enjoy your thoughts. Get off the doom scrolling life path and love yourself.

Hobbies. Social hobbies. It kind of doesn't matter which, just pick one. Show up religiously. Try your best to talk to people. Having a shared hobby/interest makes for easy conversation and ice breakers. Don't expect to make friends immediately but if you stick with it, show some vulnerability, avoid ego, etc it will happen. Good people are attracted to good people.

I'm personally into rock climbing and the social scene at a good climbing gym is really fantastic. Climbers need climber friends (if only for the selfish need of a belayer). Its great to share notes on a climb, or chat about gear, or dream/plan good outdoors trips.

Not suggesting you take up climbing. I'm using it as an example. But you want some hobby you're gonna take seriously that has a social component.

And, stop being so hard on yourself. Making friends is hard actually (especially making really good ones). Give yourself some grace.

I recently read that on average, people are happy about 42% of the time, maybe up to 50%. And this applies whether you are single, married, with kids, no kids, etc. So the first thing I'd do is realize that half of the time, you're not going to be "happy"; but what you can worked toward is being content, realizing that the times you aren't particularly happy are normal, and everyone has them.

If you feel very unhappy or unhappy, ie, not content, more than 30-60% of the time, you'd probably benefit from talking to a therapist and learning about how you can like yourself more. You will always have yourself throughout your life, whereas people will come and go. Learn to be your own best friend first.