Dealing with Loneliness
manojsurya.com
manojsurya.com
This is a life-long endeavor which is helped by my natural curiosity. I love going to unfamiliar sections of the library and learning about subjects I didn't already know.
From this can come hobbies like painting, making music, and writing that don't require anyone but yourself to do or enjoy.
Reading itself is a marvelous solitary activity which can let me live entire lives and in different time periods and places from the perspective of different people, and finding writers who are on the same wavelength as me and who "get it" is a real treat. Then I feel I'm really communing with thinkers who've trod the road before and have a lot to teach me, even if we never meet in person.
The toughest situations are on holidays or weekends when I'm walking by restaurants, bars, or houses with private parties full of couples or people who are friends with one another and having a great time. If I'm not focused on listening to a podcast or music or thinking about something else, and if I'm in a sad mood, that can sometimes be hard to take.
Fortunately, such situations are relatively rare, and most of the time I enjoy reading, watching movies, pursuing my hobbies, and learning new things by myself.
But it still leaves me feeling empty and unfulfilled. And I can feel the problem only getting worse gradually. I have started hating the things I used to love, silence makes me anxious hence I need music pretty the whole time I am awake. Reading or learning anything new seems pointless since I don't know what to do with the new found knowledge/skill. The feeling of "no one cares" amplifies when you are alone. The advise of just "go out more" or "connect with new people" is not much helpful when you have terrible social anxiety and never learned to interact with people.
In short, distracting yourself might help in short term, but it is not a sustainable solution.
One thing to keep is the mentality that you don’t “need” friends. If one happens to come up, great. This way you don’t seem super desperate and can be yourself.
I’m sorry you feel this way, no one deserves to live like that. Putting yourself out there more can do wonders. Maybe try volunteering? Even if you don’t meet anyone, at least you helped someone out.
I can relate to what you write, I also used to feel social anxiety and always felt (and still sometimes feel) in the wrong place when going out with more social people.
"Not having learned how to interact with people" is exactly how I often feel, having spent much too much time in front of my computer (teaching myself programming) during my younger years.
But nowadays those deficiencies don't bother me much any more. Seems like I finally accepted who I am, and developed some sense of humor or towards situations where my lack of social skills become apparent. I think you overestimate how much people appreciate the social skills of the "cool guys". Sometimes it's quite ok to be a more introverted person that doesn't need to bother people with small-talk. It becomes easier once you stop trying to be someone you aren't. While it may be more difficult to get to know new people, once people get to know you, I think there is quite some tolerance towards people with less-than-average social skills. It doesn't make you a malicious person.
About "connecting with people": due to family ties I stumbled into various niche hobbies that connect me with similar-minded people. I started playing the game of Go at various local clubs and also sometimes take part in amateur tournaments that give handicap to beginners to give everybody a chance. I also started training in some niche martial arts club after suffering quite some anxiety after a neighbour started showing physical agression towards my family.
My experience with those hobbies where generally very positive. Those niche hobbies have a relatively small social circle, so you often run into people you already know, which is much less stressful to me than constantly having to learn to deal with new people. Also the "niche-ness" of those topics seems to impose a filter on the kind of persons that are drawn to them. I often meet very interesting, open-minded people that way, it's easy to have conversations and there's not much need for bull-shit small-talk :). A common, niche interest, already effortlessly creates some connection.
Thinking back now, I think when I was younger I totally underestimated the availability of open-to-everybody activities that you can join if you want to meet like-minded people (or at least people that don't make you feel uncomfortable). I'd also say that I generally was too pessimistic about the impression I made on others.
Not trying to dismiss anything of what you write, which honestly sounds like a pretty taxing situation to be in. Just trying to give some more data points for a bigger (and maybe or maybe not) more realistic picture.
Maybe I should also mention that I suffered panic attacks and related general anxiety problems since my youth but did nothing about that until starting psychotherapy sessions a few years ago. In the beginning, this was a very difficult step to take, but looking back, I think nothing else would have helped in the long run. If you suffer from "terrible" social anxiety, then maybe this is also an angle to consider.
I think it is important not to conflate social people with extroverted people. Being somewhat introvert I tend to get exhausted around very extrovert people who suffer from verbal diarrhea. To my mind, a social person is someone who can tune in to other people and make them feel comfortable.
It can be hard to get over the anxiety to actually go out and participate in a club/sport. This feeling is pretty common for even people with good social lives. A trick I've found is just to evaluate your excuses. Usually you'll find that the reasons to skip going out are pretty weak and the potential upside to going is huge. Another one is to think about minimizing regrets. There's a comparatively low chance to regret going out over doing a solo activity.
Reading and writing both are very important to me, as I feel like I'm able to convey my thoughts somewhere and also stay in touch with the world.
But the best thing so far has been podcasts. I suspect its because these are real conversations between humans, rather than the scripted conversations of books, movies etc.
I suspect that if I was not fortunate to work in a high income job, I would be forced to be more social (get a roommate, look for satisfaction in companionship etc.). But I actually prefer the solitude to the many issues and drama that comes with relationships and friendships. That can be an all-consuming world, and I've lost my sense of self by being too involved before.
> The toughest situations are on holidays or weekends when I'm walking by restaurants, bars, or houses with private parties full of couples or people who are friends with one another and having a great time.
What helps me with this is to remember that no relationships are as good as they seem from the outside. Perhaps a terrible way to think about these things.
All human societies incentivize partnerships and nudge lonely humans to pair up. I have to wonder how much of this is derived from our recent past. I'm hoping that as the nature of our society evolves, we will be better able to account for everyone's preferences on how to live their life.
I think the opposite is true. For economic growth, maximum workforce mobility is preferable. Relationships reduce mobility, since they tie workers to specific locations. Our society has, for hundreds of years, increased the mobility of its workforce both intentionally and unintentionally, and so the average size of social grouping has declined, from the medieval village, to the victorian extended family, to the 20th century nuclear family, to us - atomized individuals.
Ultimately, if earning power is the sole source of human value, then any tradition that either takes a worker away from their job or doesn't allow them to find their maximum productivity role will progressively wither, since the followers of such traditions will be competing for resources against higher-income individuals, who can consequently outbid them.
So this sets up a sliding scale of incentives, that goes all the way down to forcible eviction (if you're choosing social ties over productivity, are you always going to pay rent) or starvation (like generations of farmers, 'starved out' of their land).
It's the same with money or romantic love or fame or physical beauty or success or sex or just about anything else. People who have as much as they could ever want of all those things routinely kill themselves. The only thing that seems to work consistently is learning to challenge that inner voice that tells you aren't enough, don't have enough, etc. etc. and make the most of whatever you do have.
This is something I’ve been coming to terms with a lot lately. I grew up in an abusive family with drug addict parents where neglect was a common thing so I strongly crave attachment. But just because you are physically with other people doesn’t mean that attachment and connections will be formed. In fact, I’ve found in most situations the opposite is true: lackluster interactions that leave me feeling even more disconnected and detached because they feel so vapid, meaningless, and shallow.
I’ve endured quite a lot of pain and found that nothing is quite as painful as feeling completely alone in a room full of friends, family, and/or coworkers.
For most adults it’s not always so much meeting a bunch of random people so much as nurturing the relationships you already have.
As for romantic ones, most people these days do find their partners on dating apps, so “blindly” meeting dates that can turn into your most initiate relationship is not only accepted but is the norm.
If we does, then it treats us in various ways. And we find that tranquility in ourselves.
Your comment is very relevant to me especially regarding socializing. That too can be practiced :)
I'm skeptical. Not that it can be developed, but that everyone can develop it to the point of being able to adequately cope with loneliness. From male prisoners today to pioneer wives of the 19th century, it seems pretty clear to me that some kinds of loneliness can be absolutely devastating for a subset of the population, which in turn suggests susceptibility and responses to loneliness behave like many other aspects of the human condition.
I say this as someone who could likely be teleported to another planet for weeks if not years and be okay--other than perhaps losing the ability to speak[1] and maybe being more susceptible to mild depression or illness--so long as I had stuff to do. I'm not anti-social, but I am an introvert, and socializing takes energy and effort; just physically being in the presence of others can be draining. Conversely, I have several friends and family who derive energy from socializing. I don't think I'd ever have the energy to socialize as often and freely. They almost seem to crave it like they crave air or food. This makes me think that there are those on the opposite end of the spectrum for whom the effort required to stay psychologically healthy in the face of loneliness is more than they could ever muster.
Our brains are like our bodies--while they function similarly, capacities can differ, and differ to the point where not all people can be expected to be able to sustain the same loads, even with all the exercise and preparation in the world. To suggest otherwise risks making other people feel inadequate or failures, especially those who need and seek external validation (again, for the most part not me, even though it still feels nice ;)
The suggestions in the article basically amount to Socrates' instruction to "know thyself". Everybody would benefit from that, though it comes easier for some than others.[2] But that's merely a necessary condition (especially for depression), hardly a sufficient one.
[1] After just 2 or 3 days of no talking I often stumble on the first few words out of my mouth. Likewise for listening to people, though that aspect is difficult to put into words.
[1] Sometime you need input, directly or indirectly, from others to better understand yourself. I definitely don't think I'd thrive were I completely alone.
I've learned so much living a solitary life that I probably would never have learned if I'd spent all that time socializing.
That's not to say there aren't benefits to socializing more, but I don't think it's so obvious which is better. Each has their advantages and disadvantages.
I may even claim that the inability to be alone and in silence may be the symptom of the deeper problem. What do you want to drown in the stream of constant interactions and music? Maybe that inner voice wants to say something very important?
It may seem hopeless, but it's certainly possible to change your circumstance if you're willing to put in a persistent effort. At the risk of cliche, if I was to give my younger self a few self help pointers, a short list would be: - Turn to Christ in prayer. - Quit porn. - Be healthy. - Go on 1000 awkward dates until your anxiety is beat into the mud, and your social skills have leveled up a few times. You will find love on date 1001.
Score dates on online dating sites. Look for sites that aren't just for adolescents looking for flings. If you're struggling to even get dates, buy a nice shirt, get a haircut and take some headshots with a professional photographer.
If you're willing to grind it out using these principles, your odds should be pretty good for turning your life around. I say this as a married father of three who hardly has a minute to himself anymore, who was a hopeless 'forever alone' case only a decade ago.
I thought this was going to be a joke at first. Just remove that part and swap it with "meditation" because that's all it is.
Meditating (prayer to jesus) is completely worthless, spoken from someone who did it for 10 years straight daily. It doesn't change anything, and makes you CONSTANTLY second guess your decisions as though a higher power didn't intend for something you wanted to go your way.
A church can also be a great place to meet easy-going people looking to make friends, if you can leave your intellectual ego at the door. Not to mention meet potential dates who aren't deeply into modern hookup culture.
Next time, if you replace that sentence with “I concentrated on my faith rituals”, you will likely not get any bad reaction.
Why should he have to deny or mask his own faith when speaking with himself?
After all it is a list he created to give to his younger self....Could you just imagine yourself going back in time and masking your own faith to your younger self, on account suggesting to yourself what faith to practice may result in a bad reaction..from yourself.
He is not - he is speaking to the HN crowd about what he'd say to himself. Big difference.
It's like sitting in a pub telling the crowd about having wet dreams - you're not going to be literal.
Clearly there was nothing in his comment pushing his religion on others or telling people what religion they should practice.
At the end of the day you are suggesting someone mask and deny their own faith.
Yeah, the Christian faith as it is popularly practiced, has a bad reputation for being pushy about their creed ... but I don't think this guy is doing that.
I'll flip it the other way. People in the West don't feel as defensive about Buddhism, or even mindfulness meditation. Almost everyone who has some initial success with mindfulness meditation methods (like vipassana) will go around trying to tell everyone how awesome life-changing it is. I went through such a period as well, wrote a bunch about it on Quora, before settling down.
Thank you for honestly sharing your experiences.
That said, I also believe that it wouldn't have been possible without me taking a lot of actions and working to better my situation. In my mind, it's like God held the door open, but I had to push myself to actually step through it.
So to answer your question directly, I don't believe it would've been possible without some form of divine assistance, like if I was just talking to myself (as in meditation).
I don't think Christian belief is meant to be contingent on perceived debt over wordly affairs. That said, the relationship of faith, worship and salvation arguably has debt woven into it, unless you're a Calvinist or the like, in which case, nothing you do can guarantee salvation. It seems afterlife is a pretty popular motivation to believe, but then some religions have no afterlife yet still have followers.
> I don't believe it would've been possible without some form of divine assistance
Then effectively you have a faith that it would have been impossible to pull through without divine intervention? Since you couldn't really know. Some can claim to have pulled through breakdowns without.
I feel there's a kind of vanity in the God-found-my-car-keys convictions of miraculous intervention while people, including children, can suffer in excess until their demise, prayer notwithstanding. It says: God's plan is for others to suffer, and for me to get special treatment, because I'm a meaningful cog in his plan which cannot be comprehended. That's how he prioritizes. Or alternatively: I believe those people don't suffer as much as is perceived, if they have faith (that's a popular one). Or another alternative: their mortal suffering doesn't matter, salvation is the only thing that does (which would undermine the rationale in praying for mortal relief)
For your first paragraph, you're attributing something you can't explain to another thing you can't explain. The events that occur in your life are through sheer coincidence, not by divine providence. I know this is a pointless argument because you'll never agree, but you should come to terms with the fact that at best, god is a deist god. He doesn't influence the outcome of anything. It is you who does everything.
Prayer can work, if it is done like Bhakti yoga. You cannot just use your intellectual mind to speak to the face of the Beloved. Your heart must move, and it will spontaneously move on its own, and not because social expectations requires it. It comes from the an understanding that the divine and the ordinary are not so fundamentally separated [1]. That the Beloved whom one is beseeching without, also dwells within as well.
Ironically, yeah, it is best paired with mindfulness meditation. The Buddhist equivalent to bhakti is are the metta practices -- adopting the attitude of loving-kindness in thoughts, words, and deeds. Not so much different from the teaching of the Christ.
Prayer can work -- but there are many methods, and many different kinds of people.
Footnotes:
[1] Orthodox religions, including orthodox dualist Shaiva Tantra from which all the modern yogas descend from, all have this fundamental separation of the divine and the oridinary. Christianity, as popularly taught, has this view.
Remember that both prayer and meditation mean very different things to different people. I used to be quick to dismiss prayer until I talked to more people about it and found that what they were doing was quite similar to my meditation habits.
The reason I dislike christian prayer tied with self reflection is you gauge your behavior to such an outdated code of morals with contemporary values. Ultimately it causes you to criticize yourself in unhealthy ways. Especially when it leads down the rabbit hole of ultra-conservativism where you think since you aren't practicing it perfectly, you need to double down and do it more and more according to scripture. This is why radicalism occurs and causes nut jobs to shoot an abortion clinic or blow themselves up.
I've been watching a foreign documentary about isolated people, people who live in abandoned villages and have few or no neighbors or people who live in very inaccessible places and every single one of them were talking about god and praying and their painful loneliness.
For myself though, that is honestly the sole reason I'd want a kid. Financially I'm not in a place where I could honestly bring a kid into this world better off than myself. I like pets, but they take up a large portion of my day. I can't imagine what a kid does.
What was your approach for becoming more social?
You will get stuck.
You can easily find social interactions without blocking your thinking like that.
Also 'Quit porn'? How much porn did you consume on a daily basis that you really think this is in any way relevant?
My short list would be more like: work on yourself; put yourself out there -> rinse and repeat.
Terry Crews has spoken about his trouble with it at length, and posted videos about it. Though I'm not sure to what extent his issue could be attributed to his wife having zero tolerance for his consumption.
I don't know that talking to someone who doesn't answer back is a very good help for loneliness.
How long have you been married?
Loneliness is an involuntary reaction that arises from a lack of meaningful social connections. Here a meaningful connection is defined as one where there is a mutual sense that you can confide in each other, you understand each other, and you would be there to support each other through difficult situations large and small.
You can have hundreds of social connections but if they don't have these properties, they're of limited utility in combating loneliness. This is why even in a city where it's easy to meet people, loneliness is still a common ailment. This is why celebrities adored by millions can still be so lonely that they end their lives.
It's difficult though not impossible to develop meaningful connections during adulthood. It takes years of contact and requires social or environmental conditions that may not be easy to find. So historically, the #1 source of them has been family (though not everyone is born into a family which supports and encourages them, and the prevalence of such healthy families is decreasing).
The loneliness epidemic in modern times is thus attributable in great part to the erosion of family units and other early age relationships. What makes it difficult to solve is that there were a number of grievances with that model which the liberal, individualist project intended to address, such as the oppression of women who were economically dependent on their husbands, and the way in which tightly knit families often stifled self-expression. The modern system in which all adults are workers and consumers also supports the interests of capital (more workers equals cheaper labor, more consumers means bigger markets, together you get record growth). No one really wants to roll back the progress that the liberal project achieved, but the side effects are ravaging society.
The colloquial solution is Friendsgiving dinner--let's still do all the things people used to do with their families, but do it with our friends. However it misses the point that meaningful relationships must be developed over years of regular contact, mutual trust, and even sacrifice--not impossible, certainly worth attempting, but hard to do reliably in adulthood with people who may develop divergent interests over time (for example, starting their own families). Therefore it is unlikely to be a systemic solution. I have no systemic solution to propose.
The benefit of family over friends is that you start with a high degree of trust which can only ever be lost; whereas with friends trust either takes time, effort, or is accidental (in which case, unless you're lucky, you need to expend effort to find). Friendship bonds that started from a young age are more like family in that regard.
I always thought that the emphasis on "trust" was a pop psychology cliche and not very constructive, but only recently have I learned to appreciate that trust doesn't come easy for many people, and that I may be an outlier in being able to more readily trust others on the one hand, and requiring less trust as a precondition to being open, even after they've hurt me. (I suppose a similar dimension is your predisposition to feeling vulnerable. I experience embarrassment and shame all the time, but I don't think those feelings make me feel as vulnerable and hurt as they do for many others, even in the context of my closest friends and family. If you feel more vulnerable to actual or perceived judgments, then it stands to reason you might be less willing to trust others enough to be open and honest--to experience a relationship from which you can derive strength, which may not require sharing secrets but definitely requires being receptive to feelings of affirmation.)
And to the extent one needs external validation, actual or at the ready, active or passive (e.g. a good listener), to maintain a positive, healthy mind, then I could see how loneliness could be especially devastating for some people. The very thing you would need to cope with loneliness is the one thing you lack; digging yourself out of that hole could be difficult, indeed, because not only does the simple act of meeting people and beginning relationships require effort in the face of diminishing psychological strength, developing the type of relationship needed to stop your descent requires even more effort and time.
Maybe one individual solution is to take risks together with other people: startups, joint creative projects, and so on.
Theres not a very strong startup culture outside a select few places no?
It might be a cause for most people but not everything. For example, when I feel lonely it's not because of "meaningful social connections" just that I have nothing worth doing.
> erosion of family units
They're smaller now, but can we really say they've gone? Besides the scattering which is not really new, we choose our level of involvement with family.
If you have these meaningful social connections and you can talk with them about stuff that really matters to you, that's great. However if you cannot do any fun activities together, that can also provoke a sense of loneliness. Ideally the full package is available, including a satisfying job and all that but maybe that's just unrealistic ;)
Don't forget the increasingly intensifying idea that children are basically small adults that are capable of making their own decisions and that major interventions into their lives are coercion. I understand the idea of preventing repression of another human's self, but there's a massive field of conflicts and situations no child is prepared to respond to; just like actual people, they just look around their peers and other signaling for answers. That's not good.
In the case of young men, it's no wonder so many are flocking to people like Jordan Peterson for guidance later in life. People who grew up in the 90s were the first wave and now they are having children.
Effectively, it is almost impossible to pass down learned wisdom and effective judgement in a society that, from all asides, for every vector, promotes a pigeonholed rationalism that in practice turns into a kind of narccissism.
This is what triggers me A LOT. When I open my contacts, there are literally only four. One of them is my mother and the other three are therapists. I don't know how to deal with that. Even if I want to I am not really able to find people to do something with like going out to a bar or whatever. I just don't have anybody to talk to.
Also, since I don't have a Smartphone, nor Facebook, Google or whatever account, it is even harder to get into contact with people. No, i won't make a google or facebook account.
How did you come to this conclusion?
It seems like part of the problem is you're just jumping straight to "going to hang out at a bar" when that's generally something people do when they're already friends. That happens when you already know each other, have shared interests, etc. Sure, there are people who go to bars and meet people, but when that works, it just means your shared interest is drinking... which can be okay, but isn't the right fit for a lot of people.
Is there something you're interested in? Go take a class in that. Not interested anything? Try martial arts, dance, something that gets you moving and interacting with people. Literally people are literally paying to come hang out with you at those places.
You're not the only lonely one out there. Find the others!
The hard part is getting the first 1-3 friends to bootstrap your social network. Once you're at that point your friends will introduce you to others, and your network will blossom organically.
I don't drink--haven't been to a bar in literally years.
Getting past "Hi, how are you?" can be tough. It requires some vulnerability, which is scary. But which are you more scared of, telling someone about what's really going on with you, or continuing to live an isolated life?
I'm saying all this because I've been where you're at. It sucks and I wouldn't want anyone to have to live like that.
Right now it is just a personal journalling app, but I want to make the entries shareable and build a "quiet social network".
You can read what I mean by it in the "LEARN MORE" section
You really should ask yourself why other people should go out of their regular way of communicating/organizing just to include you into their activities.
1. Meetups geared towards a demographic I'm not part of (the biggest occurrence is 50+ meetups)
2. Meetups that are a shill for some MLM, other scheming
3. Tech meetups on subjects that dont particularly interest me
4. Bar / bar hopping meetups, but everyone is decades older than me
I do agree about the general uselessness of Meetup.com though.
I do ask questions and discuss with people, but I don't get any closer then this, which results in an even worse feel of loneliness in the end.
Assuming you like the activity (please allow yourself at least three months of constant practice before drawing conclusions) you will almost automatically pick up social contacts through that.
Just join any Sportverein! If you don't like exercise, then Chess or something. There are thousands of Sportvereine (and other types of Vereine) in each city, pick one (or three), go regularly.
And there is literally nothing else around you? No sports club? No other clubs?
If you set your bar too high and critisize everything (like dismissing creating a facebook account or google account) you might live after standards you set, but forever alone. Sometimes it is worth it to rethink them.
do not reply, no one will read it. and even if they did, it wouldn't matter. you just run.
The point where you get tired of being lonely is the point where you actually try to fix it. That can mean working to improve yourself and your social skills. It can mean joining local groups to meet people, make friends and do good work.
I watch people who are older than me and I see so many more habits that lead to consistently strong social lives.
Golf is huge. Guys who join a club and go play once or twice a week, then hang out together afterwards. I don’t play but the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve respected the benefits.
Church is another. Easy to get involved, totally free.
Family is another and one that I think causes the biggest loneliness issue because so many people move away for work these days. So many people I know who are older have most of their family in one city and get together constantly.
I’m sure there’s more, but the short of it is: use loneliness as a motivator to decide you aren’t going to be lonely anymore and find ways to fix the problem. It might been a combination of self improvement, forced courage or effort but you can do it.
I'm sure it wasn't intended, but your post comes across as incredibly dismissive. Oh, you are lonely? You just need motivation. Oh, your family is a toxic dumpster fire that taught you all the wrong social skills? Dont move away from that. Oh, you are lonely? Try golf and church.
Your basic point that loneliness wont magically fix itself is true, but your words instead magically wave away every complication.
People can be introverts that nonetheless want social contact. By the end of a workday I'm exhausted. My peers all have young children, making schedules harder to coordinate and many of the activities I enjoy are off the table if one cant string 3 sentences together without interruption.
Which isnt to say that I cant work on improving things, but posts like yours are incredibly discouraging. It just says that my problems are my fault for bring me. Instead of saying I should find options that work for me it just says to learn to enjoy what I hate. It says just get motivated.
That's the kind of thing that makes people MORE alienated and lonely, and LESS motivated to think there is hope.
Get motivated...to not be lonely so you get determined to find ways to fix it.
The longer you’re lonely the more you get sick of it until it motivates you to find a way. That’s what I meant. It’s pain and eventually you will seek pain relief.
In all cases we need to take actions ourselves, because nothing will change otherwise, but the actions we need to take will differ, and all of us appreciate compassion and understanding of our different circumstances.
Loneliness isn't fixed easily and it requires a lot of effort on your part to fix it. Until you hit the point that you're determined to fix it, it won't get fixed.
It's not a virus that just has to run its course. You have to purposefully have the resolve to change it and over time, being lonely for long enough will make you hit a point where you say "Enough is enough. I'm not going to spend my life lonely."
Step 1 might be hitting the gym or joining a workout group like F3 or cross fit. Looking for a club like Toastmasters to help make you more comfortable stepping out of your shell. Invite people to lunch.
Start following a sports team and find other people who do too to talk about it with and get together with to watch / attend the games. Hockey games are a blast in person once you figure out what's going on.
None of it is going to make a difference unless you, personally, are determined to fix it.
Nobody has the power to fix your loneliness except for you. You just have to hit a point where you are so tired of being lonely that you decide for yourself that you are going to find a way to not be lonely anymore. That often means forcing yourself out of your comfort zone.
That being said, we live in a relatively rural place and I see a lot of people struggle with loneliness. It's not as simple as "joining a group" when there aren't any around. Maybe you could go to a bar, but the people at the bar are mostly older townies (we're mid-20s to early-30s). Plus, going to bars is less fun when you have to think about driving home. They could go to church, but most people around my age aren't religious, and the few people who do go to Church around here tend to live very faith-focused lives.
I guess the ultimate solution is to leave their hometowns. I've pushed several of them to go back to school as a method of getting out of their situations and meeting people, and it's honestly been kind of successful. We live in NY, so school is free if you meet certain economic requirements. It's been great to see them flourish.
* Consistent presence (a weekly hacknight? Go every week! Go every week for months! and each and every time talk to people.)
* Openness and willingness to address difficult situations (if someone is having trouble with something, simply saying "oh, yeah I spent like days on this when I tried it, even though I have years of experience in this field! Here's what worked for me...", being willing to ask for help, being willing to be open and genuinely curious about other people's lives)
* The willingness to initiate contact with curiosity, praise, and genuine enjoyment of the moment of interaction. Desperation and early escalation are red flags to people (vulnerable demographics like women especially), so consistently interacting in a friendly and open manner, then suggesting casual interactions like drinks with people or offering your number to discuss activity-related situations ("I gotta go now, but if you have any other questions about $<technology> hit me up! I love this stuff!" does a lot) will slowly grow one's social network and eventually resolve a lack of friends.
But it takes time. A lot of time. Months and months of time and consistently being there and being open and friendly.
It's one of those things that you can stumble on by accident or try, try, try for years to either succeed or fail with no rhyme or reason. Some people have luck with apps, some people don't. Some people make a passel in grade school or college that carry them through life, some people don't.
I can't tell you how to find those deep, life-long "best" friends; I don't think anyone, anywhere can.
All we can do is offer some advice on how to make the easier, more common, less complicated simple social connections, work-acquaintances, school-acquaintances, church-acquaintances, softball-acquaintances, library-acquaintances, meetup-acquaintances, with the vague promises that something more meaningful might develop from that.
(Also, to try to convince you that the "lesser" social connections you make with people who are happy to talk to you about a common interest or the weather or life in general or how much you hate your job for 15 or 30 minutes at a time every few weeks as part of a large group are actually quite meaningful and important.)
The driver of solving the problem of loneliness is getting sick of being lonely enough that you become determined to fix it. What that may look like for everyone is different, I just posted some examples.
One thing that is odd though is that one day I can feel utterly lonely. While the next day I wouldn't be happier being completely alone.
Start every gym session by running. If you cant run, jog. If you cant jog, walk. Exercize is _by far_ the most useful thing you can do for yourself. Other problems (like being lonely) become easier to fix or just fix themselves.
If you prefer to stretch then do that instead :)
Trading 10 minutes per session for a greatly increased chance of sticking with it indefinitely is the choice I make.
If you're lucky enough to not need stretching, or you do something like yoga so as to be pretty limber all the time, more power to you!
I lift weights with zero stretching. And the vast majority of people who've attended the gyms that I've gone to don't stretch. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/34/5/324
Form is definitely part of it, but I went through a few cycles of "start going to the gym, do sessions without stretching, get injured, take time off".
Stretching has increased the time between injuries. And moreover, when injuries have occurred after stretching it has been very obvious why the injury occurred (bad form or too-high weights) whereas before it felt like form was fine, weight was fine, but injury occurred anyway.
I think that if I succumbed to my first instinct and simply filled this response with the text equivalent of hysterical laughter I'd get another warning from dang to add to my collection. Instead I'll just say that personal experience disagrees with this statement emphatically.
I don't think this is a panacea (can there be one for solving loneliness?) but some might find it a good idea so I wanted to share.
No, it's much worse, it's telling you to just hang out more with all of those friends you already have.
many lonely people reading this wont know because they dont have a best friend.
“ Proximity, unplanned encounters and the privacy to confide with someone have been identified as key factors in making friends as an adult.[cite]”
Factors that make it difficult for Americans to make friends as they age:
1. Isolation driven by car culture.
2. Un-walkable communities outside cities.
3. Media driven self absorption vitiating real world interaction.
4. Political and social siloing as a result of #3.
“Bowling Alone” by Putnam was prescient by did not offer any realistic solutions.
Factor three is probably a major one in all countries where people are spending time staring at screens instead of interacting with each other.
Factor #4 doesn't really show up much in my corner of Europe.
I think the "social connection" is just the superficial aspect of loneliness. I think more fundamentally, this is about alienation, of which loneliness is one of ways it comes out.
I have met people who created the appearance of social connections -- idealized lives on Facebook, instagram, etc. and they feel very much isolated and alone. They feel that way because they still feel alienated, that they cannot be who they truly feel.
But you see, it is easy to completely lose ones own identity if one values themselves from the mirror of the expectations of others, or, even worse, their expectations regarding others' expectations of themselves. At some especially dark night of my soul I was forced to admit that I had no idea who _I_ was. Everything I did was, essentially, facade building, and behind that facade there was emptiness, and a fair bit of chaos as well.
So sometime around 35 I gave up. I cut out my toxic parents from my life, stopped pursuing romantic relationships ot of fear of being alone, stopped collecting 'cool' acquaintances in real life and on Facebook and focused instead on two things: - building quality relationships with those few humans whom I loved, respected and who truly reciprocated in kind, - discovering myself and building a stable foundation to become fully me.
I also got a dog, not because I am a dog person, but because I figured out that I have been looking for unconditional approval no human can actually give, but dogs, from what I read, can, and do all the time. This proved to be the right decision and has helped me a lot to become my own person.
It was, and still is, an adventure. I have discovered many new things I enjoy and discarded equally many I only partook because it was a way to please, finally stabilised my finances and career, acquired tons of knowledge, read hundreds of sci-fi and fantasy books, developed my own style, decorated my home entirely to my taste and, perhaps most surprisingly for anyone who knows me, taken up triathlon which I enjoy so much. It is both expensive and time-consuming, but, at last, all that time, money and energy goes to myself, forming a positive feedback loop.
My social interactions are a lot fewer and my circle of acquaintances a lot smaller these days, but each and every one of them is cherished. My life is busy enough now that both additional social interactions and romantic pursuits perforce are subjected to a sort of cost-benefit analysis - will this activity help me grow as a person more than the one I will be skipping out on instead?
My main insight from this process is that it seems that we in general expect someone else to provide for us the feeling of safety, companionship and happiness that we are fully capable of giving to ourselves. It is so much easier to blame others for our own misery - it requires no effort and gives a temporary relief from pain, transforming it into anger. Empowerment starts when, instead of hoisting it off to others we can not control, but can endlessly blame, we fully take responsibility for making ourselves happy, content and safe. The 'unconditional positive regard' [1] is something we can give ourselves if only we allow ourselves to do so, and in so doing, heal and become whole in a way that nobody else can do for us.
Similarly to @pmoriarty, holidays which are traditional to be spent with ones family can still be tough for me sometimes. But just this last Christmas (which I spent entirely by myself) I came to conclusion that my main source of sadness is not the fact that I am alone. I do not like large gatherings of people, I do not enjoy most of the traditions around the holiday and I am bored by inane conversations which are part and parcel of gatherings of people who have not seen each other for a while and do not even know each other all that well anymore.
No, the sadness is due to the feeling that I am missing out on something that everyone else has, which society has conditioned me to believe is the only way to be happy at this particular date and time, with the associated feelings of unfairness, jealousy and self-pity. Once I got past that, I realised that I have the freedom to choose what _I_ want to do with the evening that will make _me_ happy, most likely a lot happier than any alternatives any other humans could provide. So I took home delicious food and spent the night being cosy and reflecting on the past year and making plans for the next one.
So to conclude, “there are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives” [2]. It takes courage and a fair bit of work to find yours, but it is worth it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_positive_regard [2] https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/11/01/figuring/
This happens at least once a month.