Loneliness

You think you are alone, but you are not. Chances are you have a job and commute back and forth to work. You also must go shopping for food and clothes, a few times each week or month. You either live in an apartment or house or with your family. You may drive a car or commute. If any of these things apply, you have an abundant amount of people around you. You just haven't seen them yet.

If you work, there are co-workers, bosses that you must communicate with. telephone calls that you speak with people with, or place orders with. Even if you place a call to customer service to discuss your phone bill, credit card bill, whatever, you are still speaking with and communicating with a human being. have you ever just stopped and asked those people a simple question "How are you today?" You'd be surprised at the spontaneous conversations that would arise. You've connected with someone. If you commute, there are people on the bus or train. Chances are you see one same person almost every day. Stop and just say 'hi'. Talk about the weather or the late train. Something.

If you go food shopping, you can say hello to the check out person. If you shop at the same place, same time, every week, you probably see the same check out people, deli clerks...ask them how their day is going? or discuss the food products-is it fresh? what's good this week? Conversations start up very fast. they will get to know you, recognize you the next time you come in, they will take an interest in you and you will not feel so all alone. Ask a waitress how her day is going? The coffee person, on and on and on. Unless you are living in a glass bubble, you don't realize how many people you come in contact with during the day. The library, the dry cleaners, the car mechanic, the mail person, the delivery person, the bank teller, even an elderly person trying to cross the street-help them. Say hello. They are just as lonely as you. If you live alone I am sure that you have neighbors. Go for a walk and look for other neighbors who are either walking their dogs or bringing in groceries. Say hello, ask if they need help or just nod your head in recognition. it may take a while but people will respond and ask how you are. Bake a cake for someone who is ill, or make some soup......anything, and just give it to someone who may need a hand. Call up your local charity, school or church...ask if they need anything or if there is any function you can attend. Look in your local paper for clubs that get together like, book clubs, garden clubs, scrabble clubs, hiking, knitting, something. Go alone and check it out. Sit in the back if you must, but just go. You think you are alone but you are not. There are countless people out there who notice you but are just waiting for your nod. Go say 'hello' and watch what happens, OK?

Thank you for participation and the comment you just left above. Please register as Catherine and many others have this past week. This is good advice and it would be nice to be able to refer to you as something more than just "hey you" or "anonymous".

Wesley Hein Wesley [at] lifetwo [dot] com Sign up for the LifeTwo Newsletter!

There are no such things as strangers...only friends waiting to meet - the feeling of loneliness is horrible but there is no need for anyone to be lonely

Regards Stu UK

Thanks for the comments. I don't equate being alone with being lonely, and I think everyone experiences loneliness sometimes, even with people around. I think I must have seemed to need reassurance, when really I was hoping to open up a dialog about an emotion that's hard for a lot of people to admit to and talk about.

The advice seems to imply that one *should* do something about loneliness when it occurs -- but we don't act on every single one of our other emotions (thank goodness). I think that loneliness is somehow scary in a very primal sense.

Catherine http://ourladyofperfection.blogspot.com

Catherine, I agree that the earlier replies suggested that people equated being alone, or a singleton, with loneliness. You can feel lonely in a room full of people if you don't have a connection to them.

I don't normally have a problem being alone, although I prefer to be around people. Growing up an only child is a good preparation for periods alone. It makes you (me) more self-reliant, I believe.

However, recently I have felt very lonely. That's because I moved from the UK to Algeria. I thought that a complete change of scenery would help mend a broken heart. I hadn't realised quite what a culture change it would be. And of course, wherever you go, you always take yourself with you so I've been forced to confront my own beliefs and fears.

It has been very hard. Sometimes I even called friends back home and told them I was homesick - which I've never been before! Other times it was just a matter of gritting my teeth and hanging on in there. I did wonder at times if I'd crack up.

I think loneliness is tricky because if you own up to it you get the sort of advice that people have posted above - go out and say hello to people, as if you were some kind of social misfit. I think that saying you are lonely - or even alone, makes other people feel uncomfortable.

Having decided early on that I don't want motherhood or happy families I appreciate being invited to share things like Christmas with my cousins, but I'd much rather avoid the whole business. Possibly one of the problems of being outside the "conventional" family structure is that it can be harder to develop an alternative one. One of the strengths of families is precisely the fact that they carry on even if you opt out. There isn't the same inertia about friendships. They require more maintenance. You can't take them for granted in the same way, which is why (I suppose), when they work, they can be even more rewarding than families.

I seem to be drifting off topic so it's probably time to stop!

Being alone is not equal to being lonely. Someone alone may be not lonely, someone lonely may be not alone. Everyone may have ever experienced loneliness at heart. But we don't know your loneliness is about friendship or partnership?

Sometimes I hope I become a lion, but I am just a cat! http://www.seniorwoo.com/blog?thatsme

I agree with what's been posted above.

A little while after cancer treatment I was in a very busy mall and found myself feeling very "alone" even though I wasn't lonely. Far from it.

I haven't ever spoken about it or read much about it, but I think this is referred to as "existentialism".

On that whole topic though, just like with everything in life there are different degrees of it all.

Some people don't even like 1 hour of being alone, let alone a lifetime like some people who are chronically ill and housebound etc etc.

I agree that we might be able to talk about the topic of loneliness without trying to put a fix on it.

I go to my workout class and all the other women gravitate toward each other like elementary school kids. They have their preferred conversation partners, and they're all of a more similar age and background. I end up working out solo most of the time.

Sometimes I am down about it. I wish someone would come up to me and choose me to work out with. I'm afraid to go ask them, for fear they'll go, 'no thanks' and pair up with their usual buddies. I realize I've always been this way, ever since I actually was in elementary school!

Other times I use this solo time to really concentrate on the weights, crunches, lunges, situps. It's a better workout if I concentrate. I might be feeling a bit lonely but at least I'm working hard.

Still other times I don't feel lonely at all. I'm not feeling lonely then. I'm feeling 'solo.'

It seems to me like my mind establishes everything that happens to me.

Feeling lonely also reminds me of how happy I feel when I talk to my friends and my sisters and other people who I have an affinity for.

I feel lonely too often. I paint and write and make soap. My goal is to have coffee with friends once a week. This is about enough socializing for me. I'm going to make a post about confronting oneself in midlife. Maybe you'll see it.

"Other times I use this solo time to really concentrate on the weights, crunches, lunges, situps. It's a better workout if I concentrate. I might be feeling a bit lonely but at least I'm working hard."

I know that your post isn't about working out but when I'm at the gym I do appreciate the ability to focus on my workout. I look around at so many people chatting it up and feel that while they might be having a good time they'll have to be there 2x the time I will do get any kind of work out. I love friends and talking to people but if I only have an hour for weights I just can't spend 30 minutes chatting about last nights game.

As for this...

"Feeling lonely also reminds me of how happy I feel when I talk to my friends and my sisters and other people who I have an affinity for."

Bingo. Right on!

Wesley Hein Wesley [at] lifetwo [dot] com Sign up for the LifeTwo Newsletter!

"The advice seems to imply that one *should* do something about loneliness when it occurs -- but we don't act on every single one of our other emotions (thank goodness). I think that loneliness is somehow scary in a very primal sense."

It seems to me that unless what one truly craves is simple proximity to other hominids (and I think for natural extraverts that's a real viable possibility), the only thing you really can do about loneliness is learn to deal with it internally. In the first few years after my husband died, loneliness ate up a lot of my mental bandwidth. I felt excruciatingly lonely, but just spending more time in the company of others wouldn't have helped a bit. The loneliness I felt wasn't a matter of just wanting to be with people in general, it was a matter of wanting the kind of communication, understanding, and trust that I shared with my husband.

Paradoxical as it seems, my experience has been that spending time alone is really the only way to learn to really deal with loneliness. I'm not saying this would necessarily be true for anyone else, but for me its been a matter of finding what I want within myself, rather than looking for it in the company of someone else. I've learned to really enjoy my own company in a way that's difficult to describe, but deeply gratifying nonetheless. When I do that, I'm never lonely. But when I slip into wanting someone else to provide what I feel is missing in my life, loneliness reappears.

Like I said, what's true for me won't be true for everyone, but maybe it will help somehow.

play your best game in the second half - http://betterover50.info

from webchick "The loneliness I felt wasn't a matter of just wanting to be with people in general, it was a matter of wanting the kind of communication, understanding, and trust that I shared with my husband."

I appreciate you articulating this in this way; It applies to me precisely.