I’ve been feeling lonely lately

I’ve been feeling lonely lately.

I think it’s partly to do with changes in my family. My sister had a baby a couple of years ago and she spends a lot of time with her partner’s parents and siblings. She goes on holiday with them, has Christmas lunch with them, and there’s other frequent get-togethers. She recently sent me a bunch of holiday pics. And it was seeing her leading this whole new life, with a family who are a lot closer and way more sociable than the one we come from, that stirred some feelings of loneliness in me. It threw into stark contrast just how disconnected and isolated the members of our own family are from each other. We never do anything together. We’re not close. 

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This year I’ve made more of an effort to check in and meet up with members of my family. This has been motivated by a genuine desire to connect, to be around people a bit more. 

If I didn’t initiate the meet-ups, I could probably go for months without seeing or speaking to anyone in my family. None of us are particularly sociable anyway, but when it comes to me specifically, I believe my family has formed this impression of me as someone who never wants to be contacted, who always prefers her own company. They therefore leave me alone, wait for me to get in touch. And this has suited me just fine… until the past year or so. It’s starting to bother me that I’m always the one that needs to initiate contact, to invite myself over; I think, ‘it would be nice to be invited every now and again, you know?’

I recognise this is loneliness – a need for connection that is not being met. 

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I find it incredibly difficult to ask, ‘can I come over,  do you want to catch-up?’ A lot of this is down to a fear of rejection.

It has echoes of my youth, when I was on the outside of the group, and had to ask whether I could join in, whether I could be someone’s partner in PE, because I was never invited, never accepted, no wanted to be my friend. 

I still approach with trepidation, with hesitation in my heart, whenever I reach out to people now, because I think that I’ll be imposing, bothering them; that I won’t be welcome, won’t be wanted. 

But it’s also about not wanting to come across as ‘needy’ either. Having cultivated this reputation for being a super-independent person, a loner, I don’t want people to think I’m lonely, that I might need some company every now and again. 

It’s hard enough admitting that to myself, having told myself for so many years that I don’t need anybody else.

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This is new territory for me. What does it mean that I’m now experiencing, and admitting to, feelings of loneliness? 

This website is about ‘those of us who don’t need other people (that much)’.  

‘(that much)’… Even when I set up this website two years ago – during an incredibly solitary period of my life which suited me just fine – even then, I knew, on some quieter, deeper down level, that no human being is completely solitary, that no one has no need whatsoever for any contact or companionship with others – hence why I included the ‘(that much)’. 

I suppose the question is ‘how much’ is ‘that much’? 

Maybe it’s less a case of ‘trait’, and more one of ‘state’. 

For those reading this website, it’s likely that for the majority of the time, throughout most of our lives, we won’t get lonely, we’ll get along just fine with no one but ourselves for company. 

But to be a solitary/asocial/schizoid-whatever person (the ‘trait’), does not mean, (in my view), that we’ll never experience loneliness or a need for others (the ‘state’). 

There will, probably inevitably, be times when we become more acutely aware of our solitariness, how isolated we are from others, and feel some need to reach out and re-connect, to re-establish that other side of our self, however slight it may be compared to our solitary one, that can only come into being when we surround ourselves with others.