To think a lot of lonely people have brought it on themselves?

[LovelyYellowLabrador]

Just been watching a channel 4 thing on YouTube about lonely people
Most of them were like-no one calls…. They don’t see anyone all day
They maybe have had a marriage where their partner was the only other person they spent time with so when threat person has passed away they have no one else

Just think people need to think more about what they are doing
They expect their adult children to call them all the time and visit
Yet don’t stop to pause to think have I been a good parent am I draining or overly negative

Or they could think right no one’s called me, who am I going to call
How am I going to make and keep some friends

@ChangingLife

It does feel like we're becoming more like little separate family/couple/individual units as the years go on, and that making friends in the community involves specific efforts like joining clubs.

And that only works if you are fitting the mould. If you don’t fit in, the doors automatically close in front of you. You just have to see all the threads on MN with people wanting to make new friends only to be brushed away. And posters saying ‘it’s normal. They already have their friends so why make an effort for them?’

Yes I agree. Places like clubs can be very clique-y. Despite them saying they "welcome" new faces, the reality can be very different. Plenty aren't actually that welcoming when it comes to it, unless you fit the mould. Introverts in particular aren't going to "make an entrance" and start talking to the first people they see in the room - whereas an extrovert would go in and "make friends" with everyone there within the first session.

Having said that, lots do have a kind of "greeter" who looks out for new faces, goes to talk to them, takes them under their wing, etc.

Trouble is you don't know until you get there. And if your first foray is to an unwelcoming group, it's got the potential to put you off, not just that group/club, but others too!

Virtual friends are not the same than friends in flesh tbh.

Making friends can be very difficult as an adult. When you're at school and university, most people are on the look out for a friendship group. In adulthood at work, a lot of people have friends outside of work and don't seem to want to make new ones or just want to go to work and go home. From experience, a lot of hobby clubs that have been of interest to me have been attended by people who I didn't make friends with as we just didn't click, different ages, different lives, not much in common etc.

I agree with you when you say that we can't expect people to contact us all the time. I make an effort with my friends and family, text and call. But I will say that it's difficult to meet new friends as an adult.

My Grandmother has done this. She has done nothing with her life except have two children, and she was fairly hands off with them. Her husband died 20 years ago and she'd curated her entire world around just existing around him. He was lovely, had hobbies, was great with us grandchildren, was always up for going on some kind of adventure etc. But she was very much only wanting to stay at home.

She has refused to entertain any hobbies, isn't interested in cooking, doesn't go out anywhere despite being perfectly healthy. She has done so little that she's reduced her entire life down to just her in her house. She is an out and out snob and won't socialise with people as she thinks they're all 'common'. She is a real life Hyacinth Bucket, but with less humour and no get up and go.

She has always expected everyone to come to her, even when I had just had a baby and was really struggling with a newborn and two resident step children she still only saw her great granddaughter if I schlepped over there and sat trying to juggle a baby and a 4 year old in her house. And no, she won't sit in the garden either, "it's too sunny".

We are all rapidly losing patience in facilitating her demands and expectations. I'd love to be charitable and say it's down to a mental health issue but over the years it has become startlingly clear that it's just pure selfishness. She genuinely cannot be bothered, but expects us to pick up the slack.

Her situation is 100% of her own making, and if she professes to be lonely, then she only has herself to blame.

I often feel lonely sometimes - I am a widow and struggling with broken bones and poor mobility which prevent me from doing the things that I would like to do to be in company. So ... nothing I have brought on myself.

It is also worth remembering that in our fragmented and insular society there is no easy place for "lone" people. When my OH died, people were lovely and sympathetic, but I still feel an uncoupled outsider in social situations - coupledom is the norm.

@VelvetChairGirl your burglary example makes no sense unless you think police should arrest anyone who stands around on a residential street corner in case they might be burglars

I don't think we're going to get anywhere with this. That's fine, some legislation is tricky to understand. But if you're avoiding meeting more than one friend outside because you're scared about breaking the law - you can relax. Go for a walk and you'll see lots of groups of more than three people going about their business quite happily. It's allowed, I promise.

God what a horrible, blaming post. Maybe try something solution-focussed instead of a strategy for loneliness that requires a time machine.

A lot of people have negative things in their lives that are due to choices they've made/actions they've taken (health conditions/divorce/decisions not to have children) If it's all your "own fault" do they just deserve to be ignored or blamed?!

Its a complex issue. I feel sorry for elderly people who suffer with disabilities and struggle to get out. Some have vile family members also. You can see they are caring individuals and just get taken advantage of. On the other hand, there are cantankerous old folk who I am not surprised in the slightest they are lonely.

When you are younger, especially in the busy family life stage. It is important to make effort. I'm a lone parent and I make so much effort to maintain friendships. We're all busy and effort and understanding should be on both sides. I know people who stop bothering with others over forgetting to reply to a text or cancelling a meet up. I've had friends for 20+ years, sometimes we don't see or speak for long periods of time but I know I can ring them if I need something and they will be there, and I would do the same.

@ChangingLife

Virtual friends are not the same than friends in flesh tbh.

That depends on the person really. I always find it easier to "talk" to people by phone or online etc rather than face to face. I've a lot more "friends" now than I did years ago before technology. I find face to face can be very exhausting, not just at the time, but before and after.

After suffering pretty horrendous bullying for years in my teens due to how I looked, that made me very self conscious and I would just "hide away" so people couldn't actually see me. That's why I found phone and internet to be so much better for personal interactions as I wasn't so obsessed about how I looked and it stopped me from constantly being frightened of negative comments/bullying, even as an adult. That kind of thing stays with you throughout your adult life and shapes your lifetime of how you deal with people.

I set up my online business just over 20 years ago at a time when much fewer people were online, and in fact I was one of only about a dozen similar businesses who did everything online at that time, hence why it grew so quickly. It was only by being online and being able to avoid F2F that I could start the business.

Someone mentioned 'third' places which aren't home and aren't work. The church used to operate like this and still does for some people. I used to go occasionally and it would be the only outing many would have in a week. Other churchgoers would take responsibility for visiting those in hospital or house-bound as well, and enjoy the activity.

People who have the time, energy and religious inclination to reach out continually to others are rare these days.

I don't blame anyone, but the loss of community-based places, not just religious, even youth groups, makes people insular. My 16 and 17 year old would do fantastically in a youth group, away from school, but there are none any more.

Being part of something bigger isn't very fashionable, and there aren't the social structures to support it.

On here, lots of people with nice houses and nice husbands are delighted not to return to the office, and can't see why they should disrupt their WFH to go meet the younger members of staff, or those who would otherwise be isolated, or to brain-storm creatively. I also love WFH but I see the value to my students and to the community I work in of me leaving my house a couple of times a week and interacting with them, even though it would be easier to stay home.

You don't think you will be that widow. I have been, and I was so grateful I had a big group of local friends and colleagues to rally me round me in the early days. Without work friends, built up over the years, and lots and lots of friends (as they can't all drop everything, many are also stressed, busy, traumatized themselves), it would have been a lonely time, but it wasn't.

I think it's a mix of no funding or interest in maintaining third spaces, the tendency towards individualism (which is great if all you need is set up in your home, not great for everyone else) and just the pandemic shutting a lot of things down and them taking ages to restart, it's all creating a perfect storm of loneliness for the coming years.

My mum is 80. Its not easy. Friends are elderly or have other commitments. She set in her ways. Only so much u can do in the week too

Virtual friends are not the same than friends in flesh tbh Why not have both? It's not an either or situation, is it?

Loneliness is a state of mind. I don't think it has anything to do with having a big family or no family, or seeing loads of people or none. You can work in a room of a hundred people and be lonely, even if you know them all.
Lonely people are lonely because they are not happy with themselves.

Last stats I saw said 45% of adults, or 25 million people in England describe themselves as occasionally, sometimes, or often lonely.

Some might be assholes or actively became hermits, I think it's unreasonable to think 'a lot' of those brought it on themselves and really, the whole post ignores how people can be lonely in a crowd. People can make all those calls and think every day about how they're going to make more friends and maintain friendships, try all the groups they can find and still feel lonely. They can try all that and still end up alone for days at a time, longer even. Doing all the right things can help, but it does not mean reciprocation is going to happen.

It's been argued by many how current social structures encourage loneliness. It's hard to fight against a system that can suck up all your time and energy before getting into stats like the above that show how disabled people and other marginalized groups are more likely to feel lonely & the stigma around loneliness - that it's a sign of something wrong with a person for them to fix - doesn't help anything.

Loneliness is an emotion, a sensory signal. It just signals wanting connection, sometimes a specific type of understanding from others. There are things that can be done just like other emotions that make it more or less likely, but we're not always in charge of how we feel and telling people they brought it on themselves? While that may be true of the assholes, but they're not going to listen, and those who already blame themselves or fear being a problem for others aren't going to be helped by it either.

@BiBabbles well said.

Big on the empathy - not (the way you come across)

It’s very complex.

I had a good group of friends but some moved on, we all had children at different times, jobs changed. I’m still good friends with one of them as we have a similar outlook and see each other when we can, no drama or expectation.

I thought children would bring me new friends but lots of the other parents are pricks. I’ve gotten sick of feeling as a convenient free babysitting service for them. One I do see and has never done anything helpful for me, still constantly drops hints about me taking her kids for the weekend because her and her poor husband have no one to take them. Like me!

In fhe last few years I’ve seen an elderly neighbour push away us and her well established group of active female friends. It was some misguided attempt to get her son to let her move near him as now she has no ties here, not happened, never will. Now she hardly goes out.

I'm one who doesn't feel the need for many people in my daily life. A "DH is my best friend" person. If I outlive him, I trust that I will be able to find a friend, if I want more interaction than I get from my family. After all, I won't be the only one who's lost their best friend and doesn't have a large group of close friends to fill in the gap. I can be friendly and sociable, but I don't need a lot of people to feel happy in my day-to-day life, and there's nothing wrong being satisfied with less social interaction.

Yes, sometimes people are lonely because of their actions. People bring all sorts of things on themselves. In my case, I'd rather live my life as I wish. Stressing myself over spending my life maintaining extraneous relationships I don't currently need or desire only because I might outlive my DH and end up feeling lonely... seems rather strange to me!

The most important relationships to nourish are those we have with friends. I'm 64. I've been in several long wonderful relationships and am deeply grieving at the moment. Friends get you through all of what life throws at you. Look after your friends!

It’s a vicious cycle really, often caused by depression and/or anxiety. You get comfortable in the house not seeing people and socialising becomes almost impossible. How do you meet friends as an adult? You have to really put yourself out there and make an effort, that can be all too much for people struggling with their MH.

I tend to agree OP, although in some cases it's unfortunate that people are lonely, it is often overlooked that loneliness is the result of that person's own behaviour and actions. I think often women are tasked with accompanying the elderly and picking up the slack with family relationships and now women just aren't keen on doing that anymore. So you have older people who feel entitled to have company, and suddenly they don't receive it because they really aren't that pleasant to be around.

@OutwiththeOutCrowd

People are often at their least attractive and least able to present themselves as good friendship/companionship material when they need the most compassion and help. I think that should to be factored in.

Agree with this. A lot of the time friends desert you because they’re only interested in the friendship when it’s fun and times are good. And it’s often those who you don’t suspect who disappear as soon as bereavement/ illness/ divorce/ fertility problems etc appear. I think mental health problems are a huge factor too, especially depression, it’s a downwards spiral. For some people a bit of compassion/ help in making friends can make all the difference. Support groups are a really important resource. There are of course others who just aren’t very personable and make little effort but I certainly don’t think that accounts for many. The parent and child relationship is very complex. From the outside it seems like some children are selfish, others have been parented poorly.

@MatildaTheCat

I’m in a very fortunate position in that I do have a lot of friends but I really do work at that. There seems to be a theme here that friendships fade out and are therefore lost but if you were friends and had things in common once then you probably still do.

Last week I met a friend from 25 years ago. We’ve had extremely sporadic meetings in the last 20 odd years and I hadn’t seen her for six years but we had a great catch up and will see each other again in a few months.

It’s whether people are willing to reach out- my own widowed mother is terrible at this, she has an underlying fear of rejection- to reconnect or indeed connect in the first place. It’s certainly much harder for some people.

@EmmaH2022 you say the lockdowns have lost you friends, is it really too late to message those people and say you’ve missed them and would love to catch up?

I agree with you, @MatildaTheCat, you do need to work at friendships and one of the positive things about SM and WhatsApp is that you can easily keep in touch with people from years ago.

I'm on a WhatsApp group with my closest university friends (we're 47 now). We're very scattered geographically, but it's the perfect way to keep up with each other's news. We did occasionally meet up pre-pandemic and we hoping to arrange a group holiday when everything gets back to normal.

I also keep in touch with a group of Mums from my DC's primary school and we meet up every few months. I don't over-think getting in touch, I just suggest a Happy Hour and whoever can make it comes.

I haven't got a huge circle of friends, just a few close ones and some less close who are part of groups. I do try to be nice to people and I don't worry if we don't click - I used to worry more but can't be bothered now!

@Kelly7889

Loneliness is a state of mind. I don't think it has anything to do with having a big family or no family, or seeing loads of people or none. You can work in a room of a hundred people and be lonely, even if you know them all. Lonely people are lonely because they are not happy with themselves.

This is nonsense.

My Dad, unfortunately, is very moody and has lost friends over this. He can be quite nasty at times and for some reason, he's never learnt that this puts people off, both family and friends!