How do you deal with loneliness?

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Yes I think if you get diagnosed as a young person or child, there's lots of support available. My daughter gets lots of support. But me? A list of websites and phone numbers which didn't lead anywhere.

Most support for adults is for very low functioning ASD people, which is not what I need.

I get what you mean. I wish we could go out together. You seem similar to me.

I had friends come and go in my life. I remember when I was 20 I had met a few people at my volunteer job but the friendships just died out. One of the friends I'd met was this couple who weren't much older than me, and we got on so well that they often invited me out for lunch or shopping with them. They even said I could go away for a weekend with them in a caravan by the sea, which I was thrilled about because I'd never been on holiday with friends before, only family (and now my partner). But I could feel the friendship getting weak, like they grew bored of me because I wasn't interesting enough or something. One time they invited me to hang out with them but even though they didn't have any other plans that day I got the impression that they didn't want me with them after about 20 minutes. One of them said "oh, are you going to get your lunch now?" in a way that actually meant "I don't really want you hanging out with us, please go away". I was polite and everything but they didn't contact me any more after that.

There are a few people I used to know who I'd lost touch with and would like to get back in touch with them and ask how they're doing, but when I found them on Facebook they had their friend request and message features switched off to anyone who aren't their Facebook friends. Such a shame, because all I want is to broaden my social circle as much as I can.

I've had so many friend requests I'd sent out to mutual friends be rejected, even though those people know me. Even some people at work don't want to add me on Facebook even though we're friendly at work and they have everyone else at work as their Facebook friends even people they don't talk to at work. But it's not really something you can ask them, as it'll feel awkward.

Maybe I have the wrong name. Or the wrong face. I don't know.

Poorly.

I don't know if I get lonely or not

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Last edited by babybird on 11 Jun 2023, 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Do you have any pets, bee?

Well, I am pretty isolated.

I suppose my way of dealing with it is joining a forum and attempting to make friends in my usual awkward way. Which is me posting in response to subjects and not actually speaking to anyone directly. Add in a large.amount of.time spent trying to think of something to say and you have my internet social activities in a nutshell.

Outside.of the internet I go through stages of being upset about being lonely and ignoring the fact.that I'm lonely by distracting myself.

Thanks Joe, that is nice

Another problem I have is that I seem to appear rather different offline. I'm pretty eloquent and socially adept online. I'm not like that in real life because I don't get the thinking time in verbal conversations, my brain doesn't work quickly enough and I just blurt things out or sit silently. I also seem to have the wrong face, it tends to look harsh and cruel when I'm not feeling like that inside at all.

I've met a couple of people off the internet and they seemed shocked by my real self and didn't keep in contact.

I'm sure the world has changed. I never had any problem at all making friends til I was mid 30s or so. I think people thought I was a bit weird and quirky but it didn't stop them being my friend. It seems the world is too fast and kind of 'set in its ways' now- everyone is looking for other people's faults and unusual traits, and if you have such faults or unusual traits, you're excluded in a second.

People didn't used to be like that I'm sure. They were more accepting.

I have chronic fatigue (ME/CFS) so I don't think I could take care of pets. Definitely not a dog, but I don't think even a cat, really.

Sorry to hear that your feeling lonely. To be honest I think we all do to some extent. Even people who are very comfortable flying solo.

The problem with fiction is that we want to believe it.......

We all struggle with our expectations of what we think life should be versus the actual reality.

Your not alone . Take care.

I suppose I just try to trudge on and hope something turns up. Luckily, a long time ago I happened to learn to play the guitar and sing a bit, and that has opened a lot of doors for me over the decades. Another trick is to stay close to family, though in my case I didn't have enough in common with most of them. A popular bit of advice is to find out what activities you like and then seek out others who also like those things. I think a common purpose can be a great thing for uniting people. Not that I put much effort into solving the problem of loneliness these days. That's strange because it bothers me a lot, and I usually try hard to solve problems that are making me very uncomfortable.

When I started out, I was probably much less tactful than I later learned to be, so I guess I used to put people off. These days I've learned to be more careful what I say, but it makes me feel that I'm not really being myself any more, so I can come away from a social event feeling that there was no genuine bonding and that the people there only saw the version of myself that I chose to present. And a lot of the pleasure is spoiled for me because I focus so much on avoiding social gaffes.

So far I've been doing ok keeping to myself and staying within my apartment. It does have its moments but thankfully I have things that keep my mind going so it doesn't last long where I'm back in a good, relaxed mood. Usually the stuff that keeps my mind going is consumer tech where I'm watching old tech conference keynotes like Google I/O and Apple's WWDC, or watching pro wrestling shows that either I grew up with or what I heard about on social media.

Essentially, loneliness can be a royal pain at times, but with the right stuff it can be mitigated.