Loneliness

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If you've experienced loneliness, when do you feel lonely? What strikes me the most is the times were I feel the loneliest are when I'm surrounded by people.

I understand that. It is when I am around other people that I notice how different I am, and that makes me feel lonely too.

All the time. That's life. I used to like alone time when it wasn't all the time, and when there were still people I could count on for the occasional visit. Choice makes a big difference.

I feel lonely when I want to talk to someone besides my family about things that interest me and I am reminded that no one really cares or understands.

I feel lonely when the (very few) people I feel like I can really connect with on a deep level are unavailable or seem to not want to connect with me.

Also going to add I eventually do start to feel lonely when alone, but only after a long time.

That's true!

I never get lonely when I'm alone. I like my own company. I have a good sense of humor and quite often laugh at my own jokes. I talk to myself. Whether I'm doing housework, tending to my Special Interests, listening to music, watching the sun rise/set with a beer and a smoke or just sitting in quiet solitude observing nature without thinking about anything (this is one of my favs ), I always enjoy my alone time and hate it when I have to go back out into the world!

I have found that if I preoccupy my mind constantly with new stuff to tinker with, I never feel alone. It is only when I let my mind go completely blank do I feel a sense of loneliness.

I can relate to this.
There are times when i'm alone and want some company, but a lot of times i feel more lonely when i'm with people.

Yeah, I suppose I seldom feel lonely when I am actually alone. I suppose if one is among other people - but is not interacting or connecting with any of them - that can induce in me a sad and lonely feeling.

This. My loneliness comes and goes, regardless of my environment.

Yep! It was a very sad day when I realise not everyone else shared my level of interest in my Special Interests.

I really angered my brother-in-law one afternoon years ago because I talked his ears off about computers non stop for over an hour. LOL! In hindsight, poor bastard. It must have been like a barrage of arrows going to his ears.

My ex-partner would never give me the time of day either. As soon as I started mentioning my Special Interests to her, she used to say something along the lines of "Not this poo again!" (except she didn't say poo)

I then climbed back into my shell and became too scared to mention them again to anyone.

BUT NOW, I've got this neighbor and he's FANTASTIC! I can even talk to him about Indian Myna birds (Acridotheres tristis) for hours and he just sits there and listens, nods and says "Yeah!". He doesn't seem to offer much but that's perfect. If he does, I don't notice! I don't know what's wrong with him but I'M LOVIN' IT!!

One of the reasons I got with my husband in the first place was because he felt as intensely about music as I did. It was a shock to me that even in college, other music majors were not really intense about music, even if they were good at it. Now I know that even *professional* musicians can't wait to retire. When I learned that, I couldn't believe it. I know of people in the Boston Symphony and other full-time professional performing groups that are counting the days to when they can be done.

Your neighbor sounds great. My dad is like that. He doesn't talk much, but he enjoys listening to others. Getting him to open up is a bit hard. Usually I just get one- or two-word answers, but if I tap into the right interest, he will talk. Going on for 5 minutes is a really long time for him. Trying to find out what he will talk about is a bit like doing water divination. I am glad your neighbor is there for you.

Having a lack of productivity makes me feel lonely.

When I've been out and come back to an empty house.
When I'm in a crowd.
When I eat alone.
When I find something interesting and there's nobody to share it with.

I too have tended to feel at my loneliest when surrounded by other people. It reminds me sometimes of how lonely I really am. But what probably makes me feel loneliest of all is finding that rare person I feel a connection to: usually a professional of some sort who there can't possibly be any future with and who soon moves on... :-/

It's fairly rare that I feel lonely in my own company, although when I move out of home I'm worried about the prospect of returning to an empty flat. Think that could be potentially depressing at times.

Thank you. I'm glad he's there for me too . Do you know what it feels like to suddenly have someone who's willing to listen to anything and everything I have to say about my Special Interests?

Do you know, after all those years of being repressed, it felt like putting a cork in a hole in a dam. Little by little, you could feel the pressure building up and I knew I just had to tell someone about my interests or the cork was going to blow out and God knows what the outcome would have been! Actually, in reality, I tend to suffer in silence for extended periods of time so if my neighbor hadn't of come along when he did, I probably would have gone on suffering in silence but that never changed the fact that I've always had this inexplicable need to tell people about my interests, even at times I suspected they didn't care! I didn't care. It was like I just had to get it of my chest!

Of course, by this stage in life, I realise not everyone is going to be interested in what I'm interested in but I still have a hard time believing that they can't be interested in it because it's so fascinating! And if I tell them enough about it, they'll wind up interested in it too and they'll see the beautiful wonder that is Myna birds! Perhaps then, I could have someone to share my interest with, but it never happens!