I’m the complete opposite to you. I love being alone. I feel safe there, like no one can destroy me. I have a terrible fear of being seen, in case the connection I make does me more harm than good. Am I making sense? It’s a different kind of lonely to yours, but as much of a problem for slightly different reasons. Loneliness is actively painful. I think people who aren’t too familiar with it are too quick to equate it with boredom. But loneliness can kill you, whereas boredom is easy to solve.
"Human connection with people who understand you, are willing to listen to you, with whom you can relate, and who can sometimes make you laugh"
This resonates
I live in rural Wales, with all my 'mates' elsewhere - the ones who "understand you, are willing to listen to you, with whom you can relate"
I play local cricket and just joined a darts team - but there's none of my people. It's fine and all - and you can stay busy, but it does get lonely at times.
On the back of this, going to organise a mate coming to stay
Years ago I took one of my kids to a swimming birthday party. There were signs everywhere saying “Drowning Prevention Week” and I thought the same thing. I guess I was lucky the party was in that week… ;-p
I work with a couple of small mental health charities and regularly see the power of conversation and connection. Getting blokes to talk to each other is still incredibly hard and I think there is still a problem with the perception that there is pressure to talk about your problems. That, in itself, is obviously a good thing to do in time but the first step is having a conversation about your dog or the weather or whatever which builds a bond - and it happens really quickly once you take that first, often scary/awkward step.
Being an only child,and having lived deep in Himalayas, Arctic Norway and mountains and islands of Japan,I find that I only feel true loneliness when being in huge cities, especially London or Tokyo.
I’m the complete opposite to you. I love being alone. I feel safe there, like no one can destroy me. I have a terrible fear of being seen, in case the connection I make does me more harm than good. Am I making sense? It’s a different kind of lonely to yours, but as much of a problem for slightly different reasons. Loneliness is actively painful. I think people who aren’t too familiar with it are too quick to equate it with boredom. But loneliness can kill you, whereas boredom is easy to solve.
"Human connection with people who understand you, are willing to listen to you, with whom you can relate, and who can sometimes make you laugh"
This resonates
I live in rural Wales, with all my 'mates' elsewhere - the ones who "understand you, are willing to listen to you, with whom you can relate"
I play local cricket and just joined a darts team - but there's none of my people. It's fine and all - and you can stay busy, but it does get lonely at times.
On the back of this, going to organise a mate coming to stay
Years ago I took one of my kids to a swimming birthday party. There were signs everywhere saying “Drowning Prevention Week” and I thought the same thing. I guess I was lucky the party was in that week… ;-p
I work with a couple of small mental health charities and regularly see the power of conversation and connection. Getting blokes to talk to each other is still incredibly hard and I think there is still a problem with the perception that there is pressure to talk about your problems. That, in itself, is obviously a good thing to do in time but the first step is having a conversation about your dog or the weather or whatever which builds a bond - and it happens really quickly once you take that first, often scary/awkward step.
Cheers for that.
Being an only child,and having lived deep in Himalayas, Arctic Norway and mountains and islands of Japan,I find that I only feel true loneliness when being in huge cities, especially London or Tokyo.
Interesting.