Help me understand....myself??

[Living_in_solitude]

Dear all,

I am certain that the word loneliness has been exhausted to death. Although this has been discussed countless times and maybe this thread will be no different from most of what people had to say about loneliness. Nevertheless, by creating it to fit my perception about loneliness, I am hoping that I get some light about this, sickening phenomena. I hope that many among you will participate in my humble thread. I hope that many will analyse, advice even criticize. All are welcomed with open arms.

I understand that childhood plays a big role in shaping one’s character. By the time a person reaches teenage, his character becomes almost carved in stone. I am certain that many have already guessed that my childhood was not the ideal one; hence at age 35 I am still battling to win my place in today’s, ever challenging society.

I am not going to talk about my early years of teenage in this thread, suffice it to say that I lived through many hardships and there were big contributors in making what I am today. What I would like to talk about is that I am aware of them and cannot go back in time to prevent this. What I am aware of is that i need to get out of this slump and do something before it’s too late.

How do I know that I am lonely? Easy! When I spend most of my time coming on the net checking my countless email accounts, jumping from one to another, hoping to find an email from the so called “friends” dropping me a small “Hello, how are you?”. When I call my house to check my answering machine, to see if anyone has remembered me, 10 times during working hours. When I get anxiety attacks on Fridays afternoon, knowing that the weekend is here and that I will walk into a dark apartment dominated by silence. I know that I am lonely. Mind you this is not something new to me; I have been living like this for... as long as I can remember. Even when I was in a relationship.

In the past three years I decided that enough is enough; I need to do something. So I subscribed to many dating sites. I had a very mature and a presentable profile and I was approaching women with the utmost respect. During my times on the dating sites I had written 100’s of emails if not 1000’s to find my inbox empty! I could not understand why. Surely I am doing something wrong, but what? The dating sites experience has shattered all my confidence and self esteem. So after 2 yrs and some 500$, I cancelled all my accounts and decided to pursue relationships in real life but where can I create meeting opportunities? So I decided to go into Latin dancing, knowing that it is very popular among women. Let me tell you the hardest thing anyone can do while his self esteem is below 0, is to go dancing ALONE without a partner. Yet I braved all and I went. Surprisingly I enjoyed my first lessons even though men were more than women at my school; usually it is the other way around. But still that did not discourage me because I did find a new passion in dancing; besides I said to myself that I can always make new friends, even male friends, to go out dancing. I went even further; at the same time I said to myself that staying home will do me nothing, so I picked up language lessons; Spanish to be exact. I mean what is the point of dancing on salsa music if you cannot understand what they are saying?

Friends, I have been in dancing business for a little over a year. And I am currently at an advanced level in salsa. And yet I am to make a single friend!!! I could not meet anyone at my work, dancing lessons, Spanish lessons or anywhere... and this is driving me crazy even depressing me most of the time because I am doing the best I can do change my life and I am getting nothing in return... I will criticize myself and say that I am obviously not doing a good job but I cannot take all the blame... I am sure that society is playing a role in making things difficult for me.

My question is: Why things have to be so difficult???

I hope that we can discuss this a little deeper now that I have provided you with a starting point, hoping to get to the bottom of this.

Regards

 

[SadRabbit]

Well, welcome to the reality of life. First of all, I must let you know something. There is no such thing as friends per se. It is just a form of lie that we tell ourselves. Infact, we need friends because we need to make use of people. In all these years (21 lol... I am not too old), it has come to my attention that people will make friends to you if you are of use to them or even share their interest. So ya... give up the hope of finding a real friend but ya, you said you wanna make friends....Let me ask you...how do you define friends?

 

[Living_in_solitude]

SadRabbit,

Thank you very much for your input and I must say that, and only to a certain extent, I agree with you on the notion of "Friends". I mean surely if I had something of a value that I can offer to people who are going to hang out with me; I wouldn't be so alone! Now, that being said my perception of a "Friend" is simple. Although this can be debated because many think that friends are people who should constantly be involved in your life, but that would qualify more of a relationship rather than friendship. Back to the question; someone with whom I can have something to talk about and some common activities and interest. Someone I get along with; can be qualified as a friend. Maybe the use of the word friend does not apply here; probably I should use the word activity partner?

Now that I have provided a brief answer and I hope that it was adequate. I don't think that I am asking the impossible when my understanding of a friend is so simple. Yet my question remains, why does it have to be so difficult to make... "Activity partner'?

 

[Whoaisme]

Do you talk to random strangers?

At least for me I don't really talk to anyone and I need to make a conscious to do so. I have a tendency to smile when I talk even if I'm not happy and it tends to be infectious. Of course, if I don't talk to anyone no one will talk to me.

I believe the first steps in getting a friend are getting to know someone by asking random questions about nothing (i.e. What do you think about this weather?) and talking about yourself (i.e. When I was a kid it rarely rained...) before they will talk to you about themselves. The goal is trying to be quick on your toes and not let the conversation turn stale. Also, don't forget to introduce yourself. When you see that person again you must say "Hi Steve" or whatever their name is. Don't forget their name. Don't be discouraged if they have forgotten your name the first time you see then again or two.

Another thing is that you must start another conversation. Find out if you have anything in common and work from there.

 

[Sunday]

I believe we all desire companionship to some extent. I am positive that everyone experiences lonliness at some points in life and for certain periods of time. This forum is a perfect example. There are people of many different ages, stages, and walks of life that are experiencing lonliness. Some of us just have a little more trouble coping with it. I think it all relies with us. If we are constantly sad, negative, isolated, and boring, who would want to be our friends. What we see isn't always the truth. Even the people we view as extremely social and popular are even lonely sometimes, maybe more than us. They just choose to branch out. We would rather come back to our rooms than have a panic attack in front of people or "make fools of ourselves." Really guys, to some extent we are in charge of our destiny and situations. Perhaps we shouldn't be too reliant on external forces for our happiness. Friends are great, but a certain amount of independence in healthy and beneficial too. I say keep trying to meet people. Dance classes are some of my favorite things to do. Just keep at it and add a little more variety. I guess we should over analyze less and do more.

 

[Living_in_solitude]

Do you talk to random strangers?

At least for me I don't really talk to anyone and I need to make a conscious to do so. I have a tendency to smile when I talk even if I'm not happy and it tends to be infectious. Of course, if I don't talk to anyone no one will talk to me.

I believe the first steps in getting a friend are getting to know someone by asking random questions about nothing (i.e. What do you think about this weather?) and talking about yourself (i.e. When I was a kid it rarely rained...) before they will talk to you about themselves. The goal is trying to be quick on your toes and not let the conversation turn stale. Also, don't forget to introduce yourself. When you see that person again you must say "Hi Steve" or whatever their name is. Don't forget their name. Don't be discouraged if they have forgotten your name the first time you see then again or two.

Another thing is that you must start another conversation. Find out if you have anything in common and work from there.

Hi Whoaisme,

Thank you for your reply. Hum let me see. Well to be honest I must admit that I am the sceptic type of guy and I used to be extremely negative. But soon I noticed that no one wants to be around a negative guy so I took it upon myself to change a little and start projecting a positive attitude. Well I hope I don't get blamed for being a little negative because I did have my fair share of life when I was younger. But thankfully I spotted my weaknesses and started to work on them; such as always putting a smile on, even when it's fake. Trying to engage in mature conversations etc... But it seems that in order to get attention you need to have some kind of a status. I don't know what status is that but you simply need it.

The second part to your reply is I don't talk to random strangers of course because I am a little timid when it comes to making first impressions. And I relate that to the number of failures I had trying to engage in conversations. Like for instance I noticed that people find me a little...uninteresting when I talk about my passions, my dreams so what I do I become curious about them and start asking them about themselves, so that they can feel important and feel interesting. But at the end of the day.... guess what nobody knows your name anymore... I truly believe that status nowadays is very important whether it was the number of friends you have, the place you visit, the food you eat... it starting to sound like I need to be as superficial as I can be... Am I wrong?

 

[Living_in_solitude]

I believe we all desire companionship to some extent. I am positive that everyone experiences lonliness at some points in life and for certain periods of time. This forum is a perfect example. There are people of many different ages, stages, and walks of life that are experiencing lonliness. Some of us just have a little more trouble coping with it. I think it all relies with us. If we are constantly sad, negative, isolated, and boring, who would want to be our friends. What we see isn't always the truth. Even the people we view as extremely social and popular are even lonely sometimes, maybe more than us. They just choose to branch out. We would rather come back to our rooms than have a panic attack in front of people or "make fools of ourselves." Really guys, to some extent we are in charge of our destiny and situations. Perhaps we shouldn't be too reliant on external forces for our happiness. Friends are great, but a certain amount of independence in healthy and beneficial too. I say keep trying to meet people. Dance classes are some of my favorite things to do. Just keep at it and add a little more variety. I guess we should over analyze less and do more.

Yes Sunday, I believe that too. I mean if I was staying home and wining about it I would've said ok he's got a point (or she? lol). But the frustrating part about it is that I am doing the things that need to be done to get out of it and still getting negative results. I will credit you on the fact that staying positive is a good thing, but even positivity needs to be nourished so that it can go on. Right?

 

[Whoaisme]

I personally try to never talk about my dreams and wishes with anyone. It makes me seem pathetic and needy. I stick to safer subjects that people will always feel obligated to answer.

 

[Living_in_solitude]

I personally try to never talk about my dreams and wishes with anyone. It makes me seem pathetic and needy. I stick to safer subjects that people will always feel obligated to answer.

It is true what you have said. However, with us being lonely and somewhat empty we are constantly in search of things to stimulate our emotions. Talking about our dreams somehow gives us hope and fills us with some joy, even if it was short lived. By sharing our wishes and dreams we are inviting the others to join us since we are having trouble joining them. So I don't see it as pathetic or needy. We see it as a form of expression.

 

[SadRabbit]

Well, for one, I sub divide my friends into 2 class. Those that I make friends purely on a social basis to kill my boredom and help me out in school work and stuff. These friends, I may not share secrets with them but it is a mutual thing, we help each other out. The second group, a very class I reckon (I haven't had any yet), are the very friends that you will help them no matter what, be there for them throughout their life and share deep personal secrets with them.

 

[JustLost]

How do I know that I am lonely? Easy! When I spend most of my time coming on the net checking my countless email accounts, jumping from one to another, hoping to find an email from the so called “friends” dropping me a small “Hello, how are you?”. When I call my house to check my answering machine, to see if anyone has remembered me, 10 times during working hours. When I get anxiety attacks on Fridays afternoon, knowing that the weekend is here and that I will walk into a dark apartment dominated by silence. I know that I am lonely. Mind you this is not something new to me; I have been living like this for... as long as I can remember. Even when I was in a relationship.

I've been in the place you mentioned above...the bit about constantly checking email accounts, message forums and my answering machine sounds exactly like me. When we feel lonely we always seem to be waiting for someone to notice or remember us. And as you said, even when in a relationship I still occasionally get lonely. It's hard to overcome the feeling of everyone being a separate island.

In the past three years I decided that enough is enough; I need to do something. So I subscribed to many dating sites. I had a very mature and a presentable profile and I was approaching women with the utmost respect. During my times on the dating sites I had written 100’s of emails if not 1000’s to find my inbox empty! I could not understand why. Surely I am doing something wrong, but what? The dating sites experience has shattered all my confidence and self esteem.

Someone here gave me an awesome but incredibly simple piece of advice when it comes to dating sites. The advice was to simply "keep trying". They were absolutely right, because I did end up meeting someone. I had rotten luck with it at first. I couldn't get ANYONE to talk to me on one of the sites I tried, so I started another profile someplace else and had better luck. I'm certainly no expert, but I did find one thing that helped was putting more humor into my profile. I think people are more apt to talk to a person if they think they can get a few smiles or laughs out of it. It definitely opened a few doors for me. Just keep changing your approach until you find something that works...and keep changing it until it does. The law of probability is on your side even when you feel like it isn't.

Meeting new people is just hard for some of us. It doesn't seem fair, but I do know that it isn't an impossible task. I'm starting to learn the key to a lot of this stuff is "effort and perseverance". Learning to keep at something and shake off the disapointments really does make a world of difference. If you can do this it WILL get better...

 

[Living_in_solitude]

I've been in the place you mentioned above...the bit about constantly checking email accounts, message forums and my answering machine sounds exactly like me. When we feel lonely we always seem to be waiting for someone to notice or remember us. And as you said, even when in a relationship I still occasionally get lonely. It's hard to overcome the feeling of everyone being a separate island.

It's an awful feeling having to desperetaley check emails constantly despite knowing that it is in vain. Everytime I do check my emails i think to myself: "boy i am one heck of a looser to do this"

Someone here gave me an awesome but incredibly simple piece of advice when it comes to dating sites. The advice was to simply "keep trying". They were absolutely right, because I did end up meeting someone. I had rotten luck with it at first. I couldn't get ANYONE to talk to me on one of the sites I tried, so I started another profile someplace else and had better luck. I'm certainly no expert, but I did find one thing that helped was putting more humor into my profile. I think people are more apt to talk to a person if they think they can get a few smiles or laughs out of it. It definitely opened a few doors for me. Just keep changing your approach until you find something that works...and keep changing it until it does. The law of probability is on your side even when you feel like it isn't.

Meeting new people is just hard for some of us. It doesn't seem fair, but I do know that it isn't an impossible task. I'm starting to learn the key to a lot of this stuff is "effort and perseverance". Learning to keep at something and shake off the disapointments really does make a world of difference. If you can do this it WILL get better...

As for dating sites. I think persevering for two years and constanly remaking your profile to reflect on what women are looking for is more than enough, don't you think? I mean what more and for how long am I going to do this untill the ONE comes along? I trully believe that it is not the ideal place for me because logically there are many guys out there that need not to provide any description at all. only a pic and their off to a good start. And those kind of guys I cannot compete against because, whether we like it or not, women, and I mean no disrespect at all, tend to be extremly picky when it comes to physical appearances. Not that i am hidious or something it's just i cannot compete with those sharks. Plain and simple.

I think people are more apt to talk to a person if they think they can get a few smiles or laughs out of it.

Funny you say? Well I agree on that particular point, but how can you judge a person if he is funny or not by simply reading his profile? I mean when many women on the net claim that they are looking for love and extreme emotions and wanting to settle and looking for honest decent value oriented man only to pass on you because they did not take a chance to even reply to an email because it is not funny? I think that the dating sites are only a reflection on what society has become. Why settle on the good when you can do better. and this is where the dating site have become; dog eat dog, just like in real life. there is always somone who would come along and push aside guys like me... Am I making any sense here?

 

[JustLost]

As for dating sites. I think persevering for two years and constanly remaking your profile to reflect on what women are looking for is more than enough, don't you think? I mean what more and for how long am I going to do this untill the ONE comes along? I trully believe that it is not the ideal place for me because logically there are many guys out there that need not to provide any description at all. only a pic and their off to a good start. And those kind of guys I cannot compete against because, whether we like it or not, women, and I mean no disrespect at all, tend to be extremly picky when it comes to physical appearances. Not that i am hidious or something it's just i cannot compete with those sharks. Plain and simple.

Maybe you're right. I don't know you, so maybe dating sites aren't your thing. They're not really mine either, but I did it anyway because I really didn't have too many options to choose from. The thing is, it actually sort of worked. I'm not particularly wonderful to look at and I'm certainly not rich so I do know that not EVERY woman out there is looking for wealthy male models. However, I missed the part in your initial post about being at it for two years. I can understand your frustration and desire to give up on it.

Funny you say? Well I agree on that particular point, but how can you judge a person if he is funny or not by simply reading his profile? I mean when many women on the net claim that they are looking for love and extreme emotions and wanting to settle and looking for honest decent value oriented man only to pass on you because they did not take a chance to even reply to an email because it is not funny? I think that the dating sites are only a reflection on what society has become. Why settle on the good when you can do better. and this is where the dating site have become; dog eat dog, just like in real life. there is always somone who would come along and push aside guys like me... Am I making any sense here?

You're making perfect sense. I've gone through this rationale in my head before as well. "I can't compete with this, I'm not attractive/rich/tall enough, etc..." It does seem like a silly, competitive, pointless thing and the desire to say "never mind" is a big one.

Honestly, I should have never replied to this thread. I thought offering a few suggestions might help but I realize now that's not what you're looking for.

so skip it...pretend I wasn't here.

 

[Living_in_solitude]

Honestly, I should have never replied to this thread. I thought offering a few suggestions might help but I realize now that's not what you're looking for.

so skip it...pretend I wasn't here.

On the contrary JustLost, I value your input allot and I thank you for it, although the dating sites is not really what this thread is about. It is more about disceting my way of thinking and trying to understand better society so I can Improve on my social skills. I mean as I always have mentioned i don't actually put all the blame on the way which society is functionning nowadays. I will try to articulate better on the dilemma which I am facing. You see, I am a practical man. I follow logic and try to applly them with common sens. When all my logic, and everybody else's for that matter, tells me that for given a simple equation, let's say 1+1 = 2 but surprisingly it's 3 this is where you fall into a think mode loop. I just can't understand where did 3 come from. it should be 2, right?

Now If take this simple reasoning and apply it to social functioning I should have had at least results. for instance the laws of probability dictate that being on several dating sites and emailing members, after having read their profiles and reaching to a conclusion that member x and y are compatible Ishould at least get a result! 1+1 = 2, remember? The same thing applies to making friends outside the virtual world by doing activities like taking dancing lessons, languge lessons etc... logic dictates that i should be able to meet someone, a friend, a mistress a soda can whatever... yet all the results go against all my reasoning.

And this is the part which I am struggling with.

Surely my logic has failed me. But why, is it because the society is misleading me in making me think what is not true?