To think many people don't understand true loneliness?

[CobaltQueen]

I see some posters on here who are married with big families saying how hard it can be when their partners are away or such like. Yet they couldn't possibly understand what it's like being long term single and having nobody close in their lives. No friends. No close family member. Nobody.
Having to spend all free time alone. Trying to make the best of it by going out shopping or to the cinema but ending up feeling worse. Being worried about something but nobody to confide in. Feeling embarrassed at lack of weekend plans and it physically hurting when you see photos of colleagues holidays and days out with their families.
Having nobody to go for a coffee with and beating yourself up over it. When you reach out online people are well meaning but they suggest things they most likely could never do themselves.Go travelling alone. Join a club. Volunteer. All well meaning but it doesn't solve the immediate issue and doesn't always work out. Not only that but when you have been so isolated and down for so long over being alone in life, it's also incredibly hard to put yourself out there. Then you also start to feel resentful that you have to make so much effort when others around you just have people around them, surrounded by love and support without having to go through the same hoops. You find yourself slowly disintegrating and feeling like you don't matter. And the need for physical contact is so strong that even when an acquaintance just touches you on the arm, it makes you want to cry as it's been so long that someone has touched you in a caring way.
This is true loneliness.

Something else to bear in mind is the economic situation an isolated person might be in. I'm bones of my arse poor now. I have to carefully calculate if I can afford the 2.00 bus fare to go out for any reason, so I tend to only do things I have to. I can't go for meals or to events. I can't just "go and get a job" and even if I did, my earning potential is limited. Circumstances have screwed me over in every direction and no amount if "faking it" or "can do" attitude has worked so far.

Practicalities and emotional issues can create a perfect storm. Even exploring possibilities usually costs money, and keeing a roof over my head outweighs the "nice to have things".

I have plenty if grit and determination but when every door you knock on gets politely shut in your face after a while you can't help but think "What is the point".

@WalkingonWheels There are actually services for this in some areas, for people of any age... try googling befriending service and see what comes up. The one in my area says they take some details and match you up to a volunteer who is often someone lonely themselves.

It’s illuminating to me what some people here have said about having realistic expectations. I went on a ‘friend date’ last year with someone from the university I was at who I used to frequently see at the uni library and who I got talking to one day and this continued on a few occasions. Eventually I asked her if she wanted to meet up for a drink. The ‘date’ was a bit awkward but generally flowed well. I emailed her the following day talking about the PhD I was planning on doing, that I enjoyed the time together and that we should meet up for coffee soon. She replied and was helpful about the PhD but didn’t mention anything about how she felt about meeting up. Since then and four or five times on campus, she’s seen me coming, pretended she hasn’t seen me and looked away. This isn’t a guess - I’ve had CBT so I’m familiar with cognitive distortions. It hurt and it still does. Who knows why it didn’t work out, but as I said last night, I do think some people can sense loneliness and desperation and run for the hills. And in all honesty, I was desperate and fully expecting to be her friend.

I can relate to this. I'm living abroad and have joined various (free) clubs in order to meet people. All these activities have had to be abandoned because I'm temping in jobs which have very variable hours and/or which require me to commute weekly, making it impossible to keep to any kind of schedule of regular meetups. Most people I know IRL can't relate to this because they have cushy permanent jobs with weekends off and aren't having to constantly chop and change their hours at the whims of an employer, so from the outside I look like a flake or just somebody who isn't interested in letting a budding friendship develop. It doesn't really bother me at the moment because I'm too busy just trying to survive, but material circumstances are an obstacle to making friends for sure.

@paranoidnamechanger I've been in this situation when starting a new job in a small town where everybody knows everybody, and the few newcomers tend to pair off quickly and not want to be friendly with subsequent arrivals. Mortifying, isn't it? I think part of a popular person's 'secret sauce" is that they cast their net widely and don't take rejections personally. Easier said than done, of course!

But then you understand why it didn’t work out — because you were ‘desperate’ and ‘fully expecting to be her friend”, on the basis of a few casual library conversations. You were probably a bit full-on, and compounded it with the immediate follow-up email suggesting another meeting.

I wouldn’t take it personally. It happens, that someone you think you’ll like from the odd passing contact you just don’t particularly gel with when you see them for longer. I had a great conversation last year on the street outside a film festival screening, and we exchanged phone numbers, but when we actually met for coffee, much later, I found her quite socially odd — she seemed very irritated by the ordinary behaviour of other people in the café, and a lot of her conversation was about her fallings out with other people. She’s suggested meeting again, but I’ve not been enthusiastic.

Feeling lonely is often situational. I've never felt as lonely in my life as when I lived with my abusive ex husband. To the outside world life was good - two kids and a husband - but I felt absolutely isolated.

If you don't get on with your step dad is it possible this is making you feel worse if all your interactions arent good? Living on your own might actually help.

I have had similar issues with friendships. I find it easy to make acquaintances then it just fizzles out. I don't know why. But since my son was diagnosed autistic, and I have learned more about how autism presents in women, there's been a light bulb moment. I have found good friends through autism support groups for our kids.

Putting effort in doesn't work unless you find the right sorts of people. So just joining random groups is no good. You need to try and work out how to create a bond through having mutual interests or experiences. What are your hobbies? What topics are you passionate about? Maybe someone could suggest some ideas?

I had to leave my home quickly and unexpectedly and move to a new town where I knew no one. The best thing I did was join a church. I am not massively religious but it had free groups and chats and walks and so on. I volunteered there and do the youth club once a week. It has helped me no end and met lots of people just like me. Xx

It is really heart-wrenching. I had one Christmas when I was already at a low point - single for years, career not going great. I went to my parents and in the evening I asked my mum where I was sleeping - was it on the sofa in the front room? No the kids were in there. B and wife in one spare room, S and husband in the other.. She gave me this strange little smile and said she assumed I would be going back to my own flat. It was two hours walk away on a freezing Christmas night. My B and S's families both had cars and lived nearer.

I said I didn't feel safe walking home late at night on my own. She literally pointed to under the dining room table which was covered in crumbs and nutshells from kids' snacking that hadn't been cleared up. 'You can sleep there I suppose,' she said. My mum is known to the world as the sweetest, loveliest woman but in that moment I realised she didn't like me much and never really had. It was the little smile that killed me. She took pleasure in putting me right in my place. On the floor with the crumbs where she thought I belonged. And I had no one in the world to turn to right then. All I had was family and that is what they thought of me.

When I met DH I sort of grafted onto his family instead. They are kinder and they treat me as if I matter. But those years before I met him were such a storm of feeling utterly unwanted by the world. It really shatters your sense of self and it took me decades to learn how to navigate it. How to not be a people pleaser, how to not crave new friends with a neediness that sent people running. All that stuff.

No friends or family here. I do have 3 young children and a husband so I'm not saying I'm completely in the same boat. But before them it was no one. I remember once going to hospital and getting choked up that someone wanted to care for me.

My husband has no friends either. We both know if our marriage doesn't work we won't have anyone.

I've done all the groups hobbies therapy ect. I think what people don't always understand is at least for me. I'm not looking for just anyone to talk to. I'm looking for deeper meaningful connection. For someone who sees the world similarly to me. Those people exist but they might not be in my vicinity. They might also be very busy, already have family or friends or struggling to strike conversation. Have no energy that day.

It's such a small pool and even then the timing can just be off. I could spend all my time looking and engaging and literally miss out on living my life. Not to mention its exhausting.

I've found the healthier I am the more I have good personal boundaries the smaller the potential pool of friendship is. Add in I don't drink or drive, not much money it just gets smaller and smaller. I'm not growing up with people who are establishing themselves or we have a shared history to bind us. I'm trying to shoehorn myself to fit and vice versa for it to work it needs to be right. I've got no interest in superficial friendships.

I don't have anyone in my life , apart from the family in my household.

So , lockdown didn't impact me ,in terms of seeeing other people.

( I know some people have even fewer people) . Even now , there are times I go a while without speaking to people outside of my household.

I find acquaintances don't seem to bother with me , and I wonder if they think I do my socialising with someone else. That might be the case for a lot of people.

I feel a bit disappointed by it . Although, I feel more lonely around other people than I do alone.

People sympathise with little old widowed people, and almost pity them because they must be lonely , but there is pretty much an epidemic of lonely working age adults.

Getting a dog is a good suggestion, if applicable to you. People talk to you with a dog. They are incredibly good company, too, better than humans.

I don't have any advice OP, but I just want to say your post has made me feel so seen and understood, as well as the other responses.

@CobaltQueen

you’ve clearly articulated how loneliness impacts you. I too am lonely but mine is due to autism. I was diagnosed a few weeks ago and I’m using my post diagnostic therapy to get me to a future state where I can have a small group of people to do things with.

during months of wondering what was wrong with me, I googled things quite a lot, sharing them here if you haven’t already seen them or if someone on the thread hasn’t already shared.

the campaign to end loneliness says that 3.83 million people in the UK experience chronic loneliness, meaning they feel lonely ‘often or always’.

https://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org/facts-and-statistics/

https://www.thecalmzone.net/category/feeling-lonely

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000mj9

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f6sr

https://www.befriending.co.uk/about/find-a-befriender/

Sending a virtual hug. I've been somewhere similar. Things can get better. I really hope you keep your spirits up and you find connections.

Agree, @ForGreyKoala

I get my white lies ready in advance of the "pity invitations."

But virtually all friendships will begin ‘superficially’. You won’t be discussing the meaning of life with someone you just met at the bus stop or doing a beach litterpick (though with the latter it’s likely you have a shared environmental consciousness, which isn’t a bad start, I suppose?), and you won’t know immediately whether someone sees the world similarly to you.

Though, again, choosing activities where you might meet likeminded people probably raises the chances. I started talking to someone in an art gallery not long after I moved countries, and she turned out to be an art lover who’d also made the same move a few years earlier, and she invited me and DH to dinner. We became good friends. I met another friend as we both sheltered under a tree during a sudden cloudburst at an outdoor gig in the park. We both liked the band, but when we met for a coffee, we turned out to have a lot in common.

Plus I think that the ‘pool’ of potential friends is small for everyone. I think that what a lot of people get wrong on here is ‘But I’m nice and polite — why doesn’t anyone like me?’ For me, nice and polite isn’t what I’m looking for in a friend.

I started talking to someone in an art gallery not long after I moved countries, and she turned out to be an art lover who’d also made the same move a few years earlier, and she invited me and DH to dinner. We became good friends. I met another friend as we both sheltered under a tree during a sudden cloudburst at an outdoor gig in the park. We both liked the band, but when we met for a coffee, we turned out to have a lot in common.

How did you go from chatting in an art gallery to being invited to dinner? And from sheltering under a tree to meeting for coffee? What was the process?

When I chat to strangers in situations like that I assume they're just being polite and want the conversation to end, it doesn't occur to me that they would actually enjoy chatting to me or that they would want to see me again.

I feel very conflicted when it comes to making friends. On the one hand I would like to make a friend, but on the other I fear someone becoming clingy and having expectations of me.

On top of that, experience has taught me that people aren't safe. I was so damaged by my parents, damaged by extended family who had nothing to do with me my entire life until my dad died at which point they popped up to stick the boot in tell me what a terrible daughter I'd been to him, and damaged by abusive relationships. I guess for the most part I've learnt that other people don't bring anything much to my life other than pain so I very much keep people at arm's length.

I don't think I feel loneliness in the same way OP feels it because I don't crave other people as such, it's more the opposite - I avoid them in order to feel safe. But it doesn't mean I don't feel bad about it. I feel unlikeable and unloveable and very sad that my life turned out this way.

@Meadowwild

I really felt for you in that story. Not nearly as bad but a couple of years go I asked where I would be sleeping at my parents for Xmas, expecting my pre-teen nieces to budge up in one room. No - everyone was to have their own room, kids, DB, even DB's ex. I was to have the sofa. It was just the inevitability of it, that I didn't really matter that much, that a single woman in her 50s gets the couch. I refused to go if that were to happen, kids did budge up etc but besides the point.

It's hard to feel invisible, that your feelings and opinions don't matter. It's always a struggle when that is how you grew up, and if it continued into your adult life (which it has to me to some extent but I fight against it where I see it happening).

I 100% agree and sympathise.

I think being on your own is fine if you are A) a natural extrovert who could go to a salsa class or activity holiday by yourself or B) a natural introvert who loves time alone. But lots of people who find themselves in your situation are neither.

I’ll admit that I am B so I do find it easier. I’m also lucky to have a supportive family (albeit not close by) and long-term friends (again albeit not close by). Even then, I do sometimes experience aspects of what you describe especially as I wfh in an isolated role.

If I didn’t (largely) enjoy solitude, I’d probably get a pet because I love animals. This may or may not be relevant to you.

With hobbies, I’d focus on things you actually like/want to do rather than the stereotypical activities to meet people. That way it’s easier to create a bond with people over a shared passion and doing something you love is great for mental health.

So, not much advice, OP - just to say it’s not your fault and anyone could find themselves in this position. Also, nothing stays the same for ever - so this lonely phase of your life is not necessarily permanent

Maybe we should be friends then as nice and polite isn't what I'm looking for either 😂 I gravitate to the more quirky and unusual.

I do agree at the start it will be superficial in terms of you are just getting to know one another but if that other person isn't interested in making friends then there's not a lot you can do.

I find people are so busy they don't want/cant do the heavy lifting of a budding relationship. I am also busy I have small children I have limited energy and capacity right now so both is OK. I know its not impossible but for lots of us it's really not easy especially when other elements of you life can be so hard going. That's what can be exhausting.

The friendship I need right now isn't one I'm entitled to right now. I'm only going to get entry level superficial and if I don't find the right person and put the right amount of energy its not going to grow into that. Part of that's on me. Part of that is also like aligning the stars. It's easy to see (for me) how people are lonely and don't have the energy or luck/life circumstances to change it.

Lots of us here are just saying right now that's how it is and it's rubbish.

Wow. Wasn't expecting this thread to become so popular.
I feel heard and that brings a lot of comfort. Thanks to all those that have answered with compassion and understanding.

@MistressoftheDarkSide and hoping things improve for you soon.

for you too @CobaltQueen . As many of the responses on here show, you're not alone in this situation. I think modern life, while making us much more connected technologically, really has witnessed the breakdown of traditional communities and networks where everyone had a place, should they want it.

I'm not going to make any suggestions but please hold on to the the knowledge that you are worthy and things can get better.

@GreenPoppy oh gosh, I'm sorry and I know the feeling too. I never felt like a full family member. It went as far as aunts and cousins only sending invites for big birthdays or so to whoever was a couple and I got informed via my parents. Back when postcards from holiday were still a thing I was frequently forgotten about too. It just hurts but I now understand that it was always part of something bigger. I was the family scapegoat and everyone participated.

I can't say it no longer hurts but I'm glad I no longer have any of them in my life.

@Pixiedust49 - how did things improve for you? It might be helpful for the Op to know if you feel able to share

I have been treated similar by family. Had to watch siblings get extra presents at Christmas, individual ones and then joint ones. I was expected not to notice or care. I cried alone on Christmas night because of that. It wasn't just that one incident however, it was a build up of how I get treated. As the one who isn't as successful, worthy or important as them.

I can also relate to the person who said they would probably be found dead years later without neighbours realising I hadn't been seen in a while.

I could say more but don't feel comfortable at present.