30 yo gay man feels completely lost

[Gravity]

I am so very lonely. I miss my ex terribly (we were together for 8 years), dating doesn't work since I never meet anyone I really like and I still want to get back together with the ex anyway, I have very few friends here and never see the ones I do, I live far away from my family, several people in my family have passed recently or are about to, many of whom I was close to, and I'm coming to dislike my job a lot (it's the reason I move around so much and don't make many friends, and part of the stress that led to breaking up with my ex).

I feel like I have NO source of strength in my life, and it's been this way for years now. If I spend one more weekend sitting alone in my apartment I might lose it. I've been through therapy and feel like I'm being as healthy as I can be given the circumstances, but I don't think anybody was meant to be this alone for so long - certainly not people as used to being around and involved with others as I used to be up until a couple years ago. It seems like I've taken more wrong turns than I can count, without even realizing it, and I'd give anything to have a second chance on even one of the many things going wrong now - with my ex especially.

Not sure what there is to say, but any advice, or support, would be much appreciated. Honestly I don't know whether I want people to sympathize or not - I wouldn't wish this feeling on anyone.

 

[Callie]

I don't know what good I would be at advice other than it will get better with time, as long as you LET it get better. As far as the dating goes, are you honestly trying to find someone new or are you looking for things wrong with the people or comparing them to your ex? (Not being a bitch here, just a legitimate question)

Your source of strength is yourself, believe in yourself, believe that you can do it and you eventually will. People make wrong turns, there's nothing wrong with that. Find a new way or find your way back and try again.

Welcome to the forum

 

[Peaches]

I feel so much for you as I am in a similar situation - I hope that you won't sit alone anymore and go out where the people are - it takes so much discipline, and effort, and trust, it's unbearable, but maybe things will be better. Wrong turns happen, it doesn't always have to be our faults. I send you greetings

 

[Gravity]

Well, I do feel like I've been trying to let it get better, but no luck yet.

As far as the dating - I don't really try to compare other people to the ex, I realize that would be ultimately pointless and counter-productive, although of course similarities do pop up sometimes and they don't exactly make me feel great. Hard to say if I'm looking for them or not - I mean, there was a reason I was attracted to my ex, right, and someone completely opposite from him I probably wouldn't get along with very well. But I can definitely say I'm not looking to replace him in some way - I don't want to do that and wouldn't even if I could, it would feel really uncomfortable. I would say over the past few years I've met two other guys that I felt like I would have been happy to be with, one of whom sort of reminded me of the ex and one of whom didn't, or at least not too much. Unfortunately neither of them turned out to be all that interested in me, so that didn't go too far.

And as for getting out and seeing people - I would, and I really have been trying to get out of the apartment more, but quite frankly it just hasn't gone anywhere. For a variety of reasons I've never really had to go out and meet new people before, just kind of ran into friends because of work, but that's changed now. I call up the few people I know and try to go out in public as much as I can, but nobody seems to want to do much lately and quite frankly I'm getting tired of going out with friends only to be consoled about my crappy mood. So I started genuinely trying to be more upbeat and social, but that just turned into me pretending to be happy when I don't feel that way at all. Recently some people called up to ask me out to a party and I turned it down - that was a first, and they seemed pretty surprised and, for what it's worth, were really nice about it - texting campaign to try to tease me into coming out, lots of love when I stuck to it and promises to see me next time, etc. But I just couldn't bring myself to put on a happy face again, and I didn't want to go out and pretend I wasn't feeling crappy either.

In the interest of honesty, will be seeing someone later today - my ex is coming over to visit for a bit. Oh the irony. I actually feel good about it, it will be nice to see someone for a bit and I've never felt like I needed to lie or be overly dramatic in front of him, so it seems like a really healthy thing. But sometimes I have to laugh at myself.

Sorry if this sounds really emo - I can honestly say that I DO want to make things better, and I do want to take steps in that direction, but I'm just so unsure how to do that at this point with everything that's going on (not even getting to family stuff in this post) and it's been so long since I've felt like I was on the right track that I'm not sure what to do at this point, and I'm starting to worry that maybe I'm just making things worse, even though that's definitely not my goal. Thanks so much for your thoughts though.