Ask HN: How to be alone?

Go to where the people are.

Volunteer your time .. animal shelters, food kitchens, trash cleanups, habitat for humanity, or even just drop in to a nursing home .. there are tons of people that would also love to talk and share.

I live remotely in a very isolated area and work remotely (no slack, just email). I live with my partner but she is in town for work during the day. I go to town a couple of times a month. Before COVID I had an office in town but realized I don't need it. I've lived here for about 15 years.

Initially I was lonely occasionally during the day but it went away. I'm now perfectly comfortable with no human contact except comments (like this) on the internet for very long stretches. My girlfriend went on a 3 week trip to visit family last year and I visited town twice and saw a friend once during that time and had one long phone conversation with a brother. It was a perfectly comfortable 3 weeks. I don't play video games.

I'm not recommending this way of life. It's probably more psychologically healthy to have people around and so I have to recommend trying to rebuild social connections as you can, but the point is for your situation, it gets much more comfortable as time passes. I don't want to say "it's all in your head" but something along the lines of that sentiment is kind of how it works I think. You do need something to do, a reason to get up in the morning. I garden and keep animals.

I am kind of put off by your description of your psychiatrist.

No, it's not a great psychiatrist when they subscribe you drugs to "fix" things. Drugs should be the very last resort. A psychiatrists' role is to help you with self debugging your memories and to help you put them into a context that you can understand easier. They should be a guide for dealing with emotional trauma and help you process and understand the loops that make you feel helpless, and to help you understand the moments that were out of your control.

Please, OP, find a psychiatrist where you feel safe to share, and that helps you to deal with the emotional loss. Swallowing it up because society expects you to be a "man" is unhealthy behavior, and carrying over trauma into your next relationship is unfair to the other/next person in your life.

Other than that, my advice would be to write a list of things you always wanted to do. And just do them. Find out what you are passionate about and what makes you happy.

Find a sport to keep your biological machine maintained, and find the thing you care about the most. There is a lot of problems in our society to get involved with. If there is no community around the things you care about, then found one and invite others to join.

You are not as alone as you think, you just stopped reaching out.

Depression will make you want to be antisocial, but positive social situations are good for your mental health so sometimes you have to force yourself into it. Exercise is very good for your mental health, and I think part of your issue is working from home. Take vitamins because many people are deficient in them — B will give you energy, C better immune system and D will help with your mood and sleep. It is good that you have pets, because they are company.

I would say that hobbies are a good shout. Especially those that result in the production of something physical whether it is a knitted item, a wooden thing or whatever. Also very good to take up a musical instrument. I was put off music for decades but am finally playing something.

Online socials are no real substitute for meeting in person. I've learnt that the hard way. If you want socialisation, then consider night classes (especially spoken language since they are interactive), writing groups, and joining societies. If you are religious, consider joining a congregation (mileage may vary so shop around), if not there are atheist groups that do meetups and secular sunday services etc. If you need to, take the initiative and start up your own group. I have done this for nearly four years now and it is still working well.

Get out into nature, not just manicured parks and artificial environments.

You should travel, the whole point of being remote is to enjoy life without being tagged to a location, since you have pets depending on how comfortable you are with them being in hostels you should definitely be traveling a lot more and then be able to meet folks and have a more filling life, start local and then go abroad often

Converse: How to not be alone without putting up with people you shouldn't?

You need a therapist - someone to help you through.

I love being alone as long as I have a couple of the friends to talk to a couple of times a week.

It's actually my ideal setup.

However I'm lucky enough to have some friends I can just chat with occasionally which makes all the difference.

When I was truly alone it was rough.

I feel like making friends is somewhat of a part-time job at first. You just got to do whatever you can to get around people.

A warning: predator type people can also sense vulnerable lonely people so don't just make friends with anyone who will be friends with you right away. Be vary careful and if you get a sense that something isn't right don't let the pain of loneliness override your safety.

Board sports. Longboard, skateboard, surfskate, etc

Leave your house every single day and don’t go back home until you’ve talked to 10 people you don’t know. Say yes to any social invitation you receive no matter how much you don’t want to do it. Never flake on anything.

I had a very positive experience volunteering in retirement homes. The work mostly involved talking with the residents. Many of them often have no one to talk to and very little happening in their lives, so almost any conversation is interesting to them. You can learn a lot from them, have someone genuinely interested in you, and do a good deed at the same time.

reinvest in your relationships with friends and family. they may have been neglected during your relationship.

I have the opposite problem. Spending time with people is difficult for a few years now. Even though I was born in the west and have only known this world. Now I will be leaving the west soon.

Something I’ve wanted to do for reasons for 1-2 years. I will usually say it’s because of my finances/possible recession. That is a helpful practical benefit. Reasons due to a series of life events that “broke” my worldview during and right after the pandemic causing this [purposeful] loner situation are the actual reasons.

I wish I didn’t feel this way. It sucks never wanting to talk or hang out with the remaining people I am in touch with.

Well it sounds like you miss this other person. If they're still alive I would probably try to talk to them, explain your feelings and and let them know you want them back.

If the person is no longer alive then you need to allow yourself to grieve. You can allow yourself to revisit past times in your mind. You can keep their memory alive in your mind.

If the person broke up with you and doesn't want to get back together then try to focus on their negative personality traits. Nobody is perfect and you can surely find things that you are glad you don't have to put up with anymore. Focus on those things. Worst case, focus on how badly they treated you and reflect on what it says about their character... Maybe that will make them look less appealing. My experience is that when someone mistreats me (or others) in any way, it creates a natural deep dislike for them. Maybe focus on that.

Life is rarely fully comfortable. You're almost always dealing with something. The key is to not focus on the things that make it worse.

> Everything feels hollow now

I feel the same way sometimes (most times?)

> In many ways it feels like being imprisoned, except at least in prison there are other inmates to socialize with. "Solitary confinement with internet" is probably a better analogy.

To me this feels more like shouting in the void type of feeling at times. Like no matter what I say on this forum or that, the chances of real change from it stems unlikely :/

The world is in a depressing mood right now so I'd recommend to shut off news for some time if it troubles ya (genuine suggestion) and my friend, use a hackernews filter to block news related or AI related things as well. I suppose, just have some interesting cool facts that get shared on HN or something cool tech related! (I need to follow this...)

Another point, Just take things slow. Human mind desires intimacy and friendships and our brains are simply not designed for isolation for the most part. (I had written more part but it just felt like talking what I was feeling which was good to write personally but would've been hard for others to read and maybe get something nice out of so I have removed it now)

So what I am saying is:

1. have patience with yourself even if it feels hard, you are doing great by talking with us as I am telling you that you aren't alone in this struggle and I want you to please just do small steps towards just interacting with people in a more positive light. Maybe make the spirit as tomorrow's gonna be a brand new day :D

2. Use study-together Discord server (This is something that I personally used) or any place essentially where you can find people who are working when you are working and some of whom are relaxing when you are relaxing. This allows some talks in middle of just normal stuff. Maybe there can be a work-together community too I am not sure.

Anecdotally, I have found the idea being that this problem is within us. This is actually good because we can actually solve the problem (to some degree) and we have control. The freedom is also scary especially for someone like me who lacks discipline/patience at times but yeah.

Recently I had felt so alone in my head like completely alone sometime sort-of and then I had a marriage of my cousin and within just 3 days, I felt so connected. I danced so much that I lost track of my breath or even what's going on. I just danced :D, Perhaps there can be some event where you can just give every part of frustration into something external and feel happy as I did with my cousin's marriage? [Not that things are doing extremely better now but for short term, it was so absolutely good]

A lot of that joy came because like, I was myself and people appreciated me for it. Like even in hackernews or like whatever idk, I try to be myself but still feel short sometimes. Like the idea of greed even maybe of wanting more but I don't think that Internet or IRC can completely substitute but rather alleviate in the sense of making friends.

I am experimenting with some new things on the internet though. Anything which makes me feel passionate actually.

Another Idea I wish to say is that perhaps you are trying to replace the intimacy with Internet or Gaming or any hobby. That's completely okay and I have sort of done that but I have found some sort of same feelings as you lingering when I try to do that. I think they still linger and some feelings of acceptance , as harsh as it sounds feels like the stoic way to approach. These are your feelings tho and you are correct feeling them but just acknowledge them and try to co-operate with them and work with them and maybe you can figure something out. I am sure.

(I usually start these messages with saying I am 17 or something, but this time I'd rather end with saying it. So right now, I absolutely get the idea of high school sweetheart and so I imagine that and the situation that you are talking about 20 years later. That's almost my entire age, It's entirely true that its gonna take some time to adjust. It means that you cared, cared enough that you are bothered by its lack. You are human. Have patience sir and with the patience , try new things which make you feel alive. Not necessarily something risk taking but suppose even a good game of chess in real life with pieces moving and people watching makes one feel alive. Here's a hug and you aren't alone, I suppose everyone feels lonely online in some capacity. Connected yet disconnected. I am trying out some new yet old things on internet like sharing links) but that's not really the point to bring back some control but yeah. It's 3 Am and I have spent around an ~hour when I have a maths test tomorrow :)

I sort of believe that every generation has some loneliness when you think about it so I also think that there are people who are likely to give you perspectives and help you out who are far more knowledgable than me. I might have to go sleep now as I am unable to write anything which can be more useful for ya even though I have tried.

I wish you to have a nice day, sir

The onset of the pandemic in 2020 left me more isolated than I'd even been before in my life. I was single, I was working remotely, and the lock-downs finally killed what was left of my preexisting friend group. I have a naturally solitary disposition, but even for me, it was hard.

Here are some coping strategies you can apply right away:

→ Listen to podcasts, especially podcasts in a chatty & informal style. It really helps to just hear people talking. If you're looking for recommendations, I'm very fond of If Books Could Kill.

→ A lot of podcasts have Discord servers associated with them, where fans of the show congregate & talk. Sometimes you have to pay a couple bucks on Patreon to get access. These can be good places to go for a very easy, low-effort social space. You can keep it open on another monitor & let it serve as background chatter that you can dip into at any time.

→ Do stuff. Go to museums, go to movies, go to dinner. Some people have hangups about (e.g.) eating at restaurants alone, but you must overcome this psychological hurdle immediately. You will feel much more alive if you go outside.

→ Read a book. If it doesn't grab you, then set it down and start another. Beauty is good for the soul, and the wonderful thing about a paperback novel is that, unlike TV and movies, you cannot pull out your phone and multitask. With practice, you can stay immersed in a text for longer & longer periods of time. Eventually, a good novel will be able to eat up your whole weekend and leave you feeling great afterwards.

→ Start a journal. Without an intimate partner to talk to, it can feel like your head is heavy with half-formed thoughts that you just can't get rid of. Getting them down on paper is almost as good as voicing them to another person. The podcasts are nice, but spending all your time listening to podcasts can gradually teach you to be uncomfortable when left with your own thoughts. Keeping a journal helps you stay on good terms with yourself. I can't recommend it enough.

Now I'll get into some longer-term lifestyle changes. These can take a while to come to fruition and may require leaving your comfort zone, but they're worthwhile.

→ For me, there is nothing better for my mental health than a 90-minute park run on a breezy day in late spring. Even a 30-minute stint on a treadmill in the dead of winter will clear my mind. I don't know what your relationship to exercise is, so I can't really call this a quick fix, but think about ways to incorporate exercise into your routine in ways that you'll enjoy. Personally, I suggest running.

→ There's a broad stratum of fun social events designed for meeting people and developing shared hobbies. Pottery classes, choir programs, ultimate frisbee. You pay a couple hundred bucks to sign up, then you go to the event on Thursday nights and maybe get drinks with some of the other members afterwards. You won't be best friends right away, and you'll probably never get that close with most of them, but having a loose community like this is nice, and if you stay in contact with people after the course ends, you may take away some lasting friendships.

→ Undertake a creative project. I wrote a novel during the pandemic. It sucked, but I put a lot of time and love into it and I really felt like I did something. (The trouble with writing a novel, of course, is that nobody will want to read it. If you're smarter than me, you'll pick up something like painting, which produces stuff you can hang up, show off, and give away. Pottery and music I mentioned earlier, but I'll mention them here again.) Creativity is extremely fulfilling. It takes time to feel like you're producing anything valuable, but when you do, it'll mean a lot.

As weird or hard as it sounds, you need to embrace being alone. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to expose yourself to situations where you meet people or think about how you spend your time (may I suggest: limit internet/computer time). It just means you should enjoy the positives that come with being alone and avoid seeing it as a shameful thing you need to distract yourself from. Other people in other circumstances never get a chance to be for themselves and have the reflection and thoughts this allows for. You are with yourself and that is hard and frightening, but also a chance to come to terms with yourself. From your description it is pretty clear thst this is probably something you need to do.

Get something to care for, plants for example. If you need inspiration on a deeper level consider watching Perfect Days by Wim Wenders. Don't read too much about it before. It is one of those films that gave me a new perspective on things, may it do the same for you. To find joy in the simple things and go through your day in dignity.

> I have a great psychiatrist who has me on antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and mood stabilizers.

One of the things that has happened to be several times on different meds is a compression of emotional peaks and valleys.

The highs don't feel nearly as high but the lows don't feel as low, either.

This situation for you is going to take a lot of time to work through.

I wish you the best of luck.

Dating sites and online are not going to make you feel better so don't expect anything from that. 38 is young for a guy, and I met plenty of women in my 40s (in real life) who would have made a a good couple with.

You asked on HN thinking that there would be at least one person who is pathetik enough to cope with such a lifestyle. You are correct.

But I don’t feel like answering this question.

I went through a similar experience with a high school sweetheart. I am in my thirties. I focus heavily on being a father now (maybe too much), and it’s extremely rewarding. I picked up guitar and took lessons, was introduced to a beginner cover band, and met friends through that. The gym is another big one. For me, exercise makes me feel better mentally in a noticeable lasting way. My advice is to pick up a hard hobby you really enjoy and finding places where people doing that thing would be.

Drop medication and go out. By which I mean meetup/join a club/choir/whatever you can tolerate or maybe even enjoy the activity on its own (to get company and not feel forced).

By rethinking everything about yourself and your relationship to the World as a whole.

I live alone with a hermit-like lifestyle (even though i live in the middle of a big city) and so perhaps my advice may be of some use.

Read Philosophy, Read Psychology and orient your entire Worldview accordingly. This is very important; you cannot choose solitude while thinking and longing for external socializations/validations. Self-Denial and Self-Control are the key attitudes to practice. A complete framework/discipline like Patanjali Ashtanga Yoga is a good one to follow.

Keep Body Active, Maintain proper Diet and Sleep. Whenever you feel down/depressed get out and walk (or do any physical activity). Become aware of what in the environment triggers your "loneliness" and consciously move away from it.

When you go to the grocery store/coffee shop/restaurant/etc. converse/joke/laugh with the employees/customers there since that is your much needed essential "socialization" fix. Understand how the self uses social-surrogates to satisfy its social needs eg. social media.

The key idea is that you limit socialization/interaction to the absolute essentials i.e. to that which is impelled by nature.

Also Mind and Body are one and so problems can be solved by approaching them via both avenues. This is why motion/exercise is so good for the mind.

Cultivate total Zen-like "mindfulness in the present" so that your mind forgets the self and is fully occupied in any activity you are engaged in which could be as mundane as house-cleaning/dishwashing/etc.

Live in the present, with your consciousness externalized momentarily but without any effort; when the mind stops linking itself to the past and to the future, it becomes no-­mind. If from moment to moment your mind dwells on what is and drops it effortlessly at once [just before moving on to something else], the mind becomes no-­mind, full of purity.

-- Yoga Vasistha

PS: Some of my previous comments which are relevant here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40978488 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44987175 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41538322 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29777785 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32918811

>There are a few parts to the difficulty. One is that when I have something to say about my day, there's nowhere to say it; no one on HN cares whether I fixed up the blinds or cooked pork steaks. I hang out in an IRC chatroom for that, but sometimes nobody's around for hours.

I wasn't necessarily gonna reply to this thread, but you struck a chord with me here. I spend a lot of time on IRC myself. I would say branch out to more channels and/or invite more people to your usual channel. I have some IRC friends I like more than others, but pretty much around the clock someone is around. The Finns, the Poles, the Brits, the Americans/Canadians, not to mention the NEETs and night owls with shifting schedules who could pop up at any time. Sometimes there are lulls and I'll write 20 lines in a row talking to myself, and maybe I'll have moments where it feels pointless or like I'm going crazy, but then one of the lads wakes up a few hours later and starts replying to stuff and everything is fun and exciting again. Find a way to stick out the lows, and make the highs more common.

As for no one caring, someone probably cares at least a little. Maybe they prefer to lurk, maybe they're busy, maybe they feel weird replying for some reason. There's probably someone who'd miss you if you stopped posting for a while. I know I find myself doing a .seen (bot command) on a handful of nicks throughout the day if they haven't posted in a while, or cycling through some saved quotes with the bot to get some conversations going again. I try not to spend all my free time chatting because I do have things I want to watch and play also, but IRC is hugely important in my life for sure, as someone who doesn't get out much, and frankly doesn't like to get out much either.

As for games, YMMV but after a long multi-year break from games, I found fun in them again by approaching them a bit differently. No more shooters (first/third person) since I think the genre is extremely oversaturated and tired, plus I played too many in the past, keep the game count per month low, aim to get all the achievements if possible, and if all is on track, switch games at the start of a new month. I basically deep-dive into every game that I decide to play and get to know it quite well. It's fun then to write a review at the end of the month as well. I stick mostly to games which are either singleplayer or still fun when played singleplayer. I do not want to play anything that relies on other people to be any good, there's too much room for failure. I try to avoid AAA or FotM stuff. I'll resist using the word but I don't play games like Peak or Lethal Company. I end up saying no to most games suggested to me, or delaying trying out a game for a few months because I'm in the middle of another game, or already have the next game or two picked out. I find this a lot more fulfilling than jumping between 10 games in a day, feeling bored and aimless, never finishing anything.

I don't know how you feel about anime, but you could pick out some seasonal anime and keep up with it as it airs. MAL and LiveChart have the season charts. Gives you reason to look forward to particular days of the week, and the shows all have clear ends, giving you lots of stopping points. Optionally you can read/participate in episode discussions afterward. Watching a really good episode of anime is one of the best feelings.

I started going to tech meetups in the nearest large city. The tech scene is utter crap there compared to SF or Boston but I get to interact with a few smart, like-minded people almost each week. My wife says it's been good for me.

Marrying the right person helped. I'm quite in the opposite situation from you: I married for the first time in my mid-40s. I know what it's like to be alone, and to an extent I grew comfortable with it. Now that there's someone in my life, I'm all in disarray. That's not a bad thing, as I've been forced to grow to become worthy of this: two humans, six nonhuman animals, love filling the house.

I have been alone for quite some time in my life, for various reasons.

Here is my advice

1. Don’t listen to people telling you that there‘s something wrong with you if you aren’t happy alone and that you need therapy. You probably don‘t.

If you aren’t able to survive a single day on your own, then you have an issue, but in general people are social animals and need talking to and touching other people on a regular basis to regulate themselves emotionally. Some don’t, but you don‘t seem to be one of them. (In my experience people who honestly enjoy being alone for weeks at end often got used to this in their childhood, for example by being single children. If you had a noisy, lively house when growing up you will always miss that.)

2. That being said it is still nourishing and useful to follow the tips for spending time on your own (cooking for yourself, going into the cinema) now and then. But don‘t expect it to magically fix your yearning for social connections.

3. Doing sports and going to the gym often is great advice, because sports generally gives you a more positive mood and a better outlook and it quiets down negative thoughts. But also keep in mind here that it will not replace social interactions and touch.

4. So the question remains where you get your social interaction from, and I suggest that you replace the single person you had with a lot of tiny social interactions.

None of those is going to fix your solitude on it’s own, but the mixture will enrich your life. If you do all of those things once per week, your mood will improve:

- Online dating and chatting with friends (but don’t expect anything to come out of it)

- Dancing classes (this is especially great because you get the physical touch component)

- Regular coffee/dinner dates (1-2 per week) with a friend, coworker or relative.

- Going for a walk and talking to a random stranger

- Singing in a choir or similar hobbies

- Going to pubquizzes or free to join community walks

- Commuting to the office instead of doing home office.

5. I won‘t argue against your psychiatrist, but I find that medication is only useful in a minority of cases. Both anti depressants and anti anxiety meds can actually reduce your motivation to go out, by mellowing you into a not-great-not-terrible dreamy state.

6. Don‘t start rummaging and contemplating your thoughts when you are lonely. Being lonely makes you weird: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/07/lonely-people-see-th...

Firstly, there's a difference between dealing with being alone and dealing with the emptiness of losing someone you love.

For being alone - many people will suggest you should try to get out and socialise, but imo this isn't a good coping strategy. I'd argue you need to learn how to enjoy your own company rather than be dependant on others for happiness. That's not to say you shouldn't try to get out the house and socialise from time to time, but it also shouldn't be painful for you to spend a few days by yourself.

Meditation will help with this. I used to hate being alone and would constantly try to fill my free time with social things to not feel alone, but I really enjoy being in my own company these days and never feel lonely anymore, even if there are times I want to be social. That took a lot of introspection, but I'm much better for doing it now.

Dealing with the emptiness of losing someone close is the harder bit here... I'd argue that again, you should try to embrace the pain rather than find ways to avoid or silence it.

First understand that one can replace the person you loved. Even if you find someone new, they're not the same person and will not replace your loss. This is why going on dates and trying to find someone new cannot work and if anything will only make you feel more empty and lost in most cases. You need to find ways to come to terms with your loss while not letting it control your life or overwhelm you.

I've been depressed for the vast majority of my life and I want to die almost every day, but for me it's quite manageable because I've learnt how to allow that pain be there without controlling me (more or less anyway – somedays can be hard). In my opinion medication, drugs/alcohol and other methods of silencing the pain don't work well long-term. You simply have to learn how to manage your mind.

My advice would be to go for a walk with your dog, not to avoid the emptiness you're feeling, but to embrace it. Go out specifically to experience how much it hurts going for a walk without the person you love by your side. Be really inquisitive about all of the emotions and thoughts that appear in your mind, and slowly learn how to come to terms with them.

Please don't take this as me suggesting you should come off the meds, but I do worry about you being on a cocktail of drugs to manage a natural human emotional response to loss. Keep in mind meds can also make you feel empty and unmotivated, but more importantly they're not much better than substance abuse as a means of coping with pain in my experience – prescription meds are just the socially acceptable way to do it. People will say, "yeah, but they work", and that's true of course, but it's also the problem. I can say from experience that alcohol extremely well as a way to manage emotions... But ultimately these are not good long-term strategies for dealing with emotional pain - assuming you rather not be dependant on these substances. But maybe you don't care about that, and that's fine. I have my reasons for feeling the way I do so can only speak from my own perspectives as someone who has struggled with the emotions you're feeling and nearly allowed it to kill me as a result.

Best of luck. At least being human is interesting, huh?

It's tough, and I must admit the times I've lived on my own for any length of time weren't always easy. I've done it twice.

First time I realised I was spiralling a bit and looked for a form of exercise I enjoyed, which was cycling, and getting into that, doing long-ish rides every so often, it really helped my outlook, I got a little fitter and it made me feel more positive. There are also cycling groups in most places that you can join, that make it more of a social activity, some more relaxed than others. It doesn't need to be cycling, but some sort of stimulating activity is always good, even better if it can casually involve other people.

Second time, I just spiralled into drinking too much, too often, and it wasn't healthy. So, you know, I'm only so good at following my own advice.

You've already identified the cliches - 'get a hobby' being a big one, but the thing is they are clichess for a reason. If you can find something that interest you outside of the house, you'll probably naturally meet people while doing it, get some interaction and improve your mood.

You could look into volunteering things that are going on in your local community. My local community does a 'planting day' each year where volunteers plant shrubs and trees in an area undergoing regeneration. There's some light socialising, you're doing something useful, it's good for you. They do various other volunteer days throughout the year, and they aren't a big, regular commitment that way.

I love games too, but IMHO they're really good as respite from other things, not as a replacement for social interactions.

There are many people that feel this way. I think one has to take the initiative, has to go somewhere, in real life, where other people are and the the conditions are right for getting to know people. Computer Games or IRC are just a weak substitute. Turn off the PC, go out. Give other people the chance to meet you. Go to (local) events, concerts, sports, anything where other people are. It doesn't really matter what, anything that doesn't bore you. Try things. Opportunities will come. Then take them.

Here are a couple of things I did where I got into contact with others naturally or where conversation with strangers developed easily. I think such activities or places can generate opportunities for a start of something that could be developed further.

Getting a gig as an extra in a film production. I registered with a free extras agency. They semi-regularly ask for availability, mostly for 1 full day, paying minimum wage. I've been on a couple of shoots, and there's always a longer wait time (hours) and a bunch of other extras to talk to. The people there are very diverse and very friendly: students, people of various ages, professions and education, locals, foreigners. They often strike up a conversation because there is really no other thing to do besides looking at your phone. It's very easy to start talking with people there; one can start commenting on the costumes, the set, the project, and the past extra experiences, then segue to what they do in real life. Often when shooting, we get paired up or grouped with people, which is another opportunity to chat casually, because there are also wait times between shots. I've met nice and interesting people there. Some are also there because they are lonely.

I think this has key elements that one might look for in other potential activities: - common location in the real world - people are open to talk - multiple people - natural topics to start a conversation, commonalities - no expectations, relaxed atmosphere, no pressure, informal

Other examples: Going alone to an outdoor basketball court in a public park, shooting hoops. I got asked to play in pick-up games. When having a break, a conversation can happen naturally.

Going to a park, playing soccer on a little pitch alone (taking some shots at the goal, dribbling). Some young kids also came onto the pitch, and I asked them if they wanted to make teams and play a match. At a break, a woman, who must have watched, came to me to ask me what my profession is. She said she thought I was in education because I was good with the kids. I think she might have flirted with me.

I know a person coming from another country, not really knowing anybody here. Now she has more friends and social contacts than anyone else I know. Besides her work acquaintances from her job training and job here, she actively looked for potential friendships on apps (Bumble BFF) and also was successful there. She also goes to dancing class and to meetings of a kind of Free Church, where they mostly talk about non-religious topics and help each other out. She often gets invited to birthday parties, weddings, etc., where she meets new people.

While going by train, in an almost empty cart, a guy I didn't know started a conversation with me. We talked for an hour. I think if I had asked him if he wanted to meet for another chat, he would have agreed.

Book recommendations:

Dale Carnegie: "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

Viktor Frankl: "Man's Search for Meaning"

Good Luck.

As someone who has been alone in some deeply dark places, I'll share what's worked for me - YMMV.

* You gotta force yourself out. There's no trick, you just gotta fuckin' do it. It's hard. It sucks. You've also gotta do it if only to make sure you're varying your day and creating the opportunity for chance encounters. I spent fifteen months bottled up alone and it was only through the good graces of friends that I didn't...yeah.

* Eat out more, specifically for the human interaction. Find a local restaurant with a good deal on food (like a happy hour), and head there once a week for a meal you didn't make, and to be surrounded by strangers. Even just a "Yes Sir/Ma'am" and similar pleasantries will help, weirdly enough, because it's direct human contact. If there's a trivia night, even better - Buffalo Wild Wings was my brief go-to for that sort of thing.

* You gotta learn to love yourself, somehow. If there's an aspect you don't like, set about fixing it. For me, it was weight and my soft skills, so I worked on both in the time I could with the energy I had. Being alone means if you don't like yourself, you're never going to be in good spirits.

* You're also not really alone, depending on perspective. Setup a bird feeder and just sit and watch it. Talk to the wildlife, silly as that sounds. Your pets help, but they're "at home", while the rest of the world is decidedly not "at home". You gotta get out of the home if you don't want to be alone.

* You mentioned playing games, and I'll add that's actually what kept me sane during those fifteen months of solo unemployment. I joined a multiplayer game server community, worked my way into administration, made friends, ran events. Gaming can be a form of community if it's intentional, i.e. not just joining random lobbies to kill time.

Look, as someone still single at 39 (but blessedly living with my best friends), being alone sucks ass. There's no way around that, even for someone who generally enjoys their solitude. Lacking the warmth and intimacy of another person is debilitating in a way nothing else is, at least to me, but friends do help in their own way. We cook for each other, share our days, treat one another when we're dour, and do what we can to lift others up. So maybe I'm suggesting you reach out to other friends you may have in similar boats, see if they'd like to spend more time together.

Beyond that, some life lessons I've learned since I had more folks come into my life, that I use when I'm feeling alone or lonely again:

* Go to a city at night, downtown ideally. I look around at the empty buildings, the changing lights, the abandoned sidewalks. I remind myself I'm one of eight and a half billion people, on a single planet in a vast galaxy, itself a small part of an immense universe. Weirdly enough, the smallness of being helps me feel less alone, knowing how lucky I am to be amidst all this, right now.

* After the above, I grab a burger and a milkshake, because I deserve it.

* Pop in some earbuds, go outside for a walk, and dance. Fuck the onlookers, just exist for a moment outside your home. Prove to everyone else you're still here.

* VRChat has been damn helpful. Pop on my headset, drop into an avatar that reflects me in the moment, and world hop. Nobody judges what you do in VR, provided you're not breaking instance rules, and there's so many people there to hang out with, all while staying home. It legit got me through COVID.

* Run a game night! Gathering around Jackbox from every corner of the globe for an hour or two of weekly shitposting also got us all through COVID. Just make sure to all be in voice chat or video conferencing to rib one another.

As tired and cliche as this is, the last point I'll say is that this is exactly what the prior phase of your life was: a chapter. Chapters have endings, and this one is no different. Prepare for the long haul, but hopefully you find someone - and something - better, sooner. You're not alone in being alone, but you'll remain alone only as long as you choose to be alone.

Get out there. Force social interactions. Build those muscles.

You got this.

Oh, man. I feel you, i feel you so much.

I’ve gone through pretty nuch the same.

First things first… it’s gonna take time, to start feeling life normal again. It’s better if you already know about this beforehand. For me it was 1.5-2 years ago.

Talk to a psychologist. It’s good to be able to talk to somebody that is literally trained in helping you go through the pain of the trauma.

Go to the gym. It’s almost a meme, but trust me it works. It fucking works.

Start dieting along with the gym. Trust me, seeing yourself thinner and more tonic does help a lot.

I’m not sure what to advice about dating. I tried to date at the beginning but i quickly realised i was just trying to fill a void, and that just doesn’t work. Nowadays i managed to find my equilibrium, still single but i realised i got much more picky regarding women.

Do social stuff. For me it’s been a language course for a while (underwhelming, to be honest) and nowadays piano lessons.

Btw: stay away from the dating apps. They just don’t work, it’s an awful waste of time.

Good luck man!

Just for some perspective, it could be a lot worse.

Some of us:

- don't have a psychiatrist

- don't have medication or healthcare

- work remotely but their client often doesn't check in for days or over a week

- when they do they always mention they are extremely busy and only have a few minutes to talk

- are working overtime for outsourcing wages to just barely scrape by

- client usually fails to read messages and barely reviews work

- when client wants something like Sesame TTS for a big presentation in less than two weeks and you give PersonaPlex as an option and manage to build a whole fine tuning studio in a week and integrate the moshi fine tuning into PersonaPlex and create a LoRA that proves it can be trained for outgoing calls and for his specific use case.. but it is overfit and sounds rough and so instead of letting you do a few more iterations of tuning parameters etc. he instead tells you to start frantically generating more calls to look for good demos, even though the system has already been up and running for months and numerous audio files have been posted and available in the UI.. this making it impossible to complete the PersonaPlex demo on time..

- then when you spend all day going through old calls looking for good ones and create a zip file and he doesn't even see the message and when you remind him and try to manage expectations for call quality, he refuses to even listen to the files because he is too busy.. leading to a fight on the phone where you say the wrong thing and he suggests he might fire you, but in an ambiguous non-committal way so you don't even know if you are fired or if you are supposed to continue to scramble to complete 250 automated calls the next morning (even though the most done in a day has been around 100) or if that is a key task for his operation (supposedly was live data) or if it is completely unnecessary

- despite all of these problems overall has been one of the better clients in recent years

- has unresolved health issues

- does not have a dog

- does not have a cat

- lives in a small apartment where that's not allowed anyway

- does not have an IRC hangout

To be honest, there are a lot of levels of misery. And although it's valid to complain when things have gone downhill, from where I'm standing it looks a little bit like whining.

Although perhaps quite unhealthy, a lot of people cope partly with "parasocial" "relationships". In other words, watching the same Youtuber or whatever whenever they come out with a new video. I believe this profoundly reduces loneliness. Although obviously it's not an actual solution.

I believe that sunlight affects mood and everything quite a lot and so going outside or taking Vitamin D3 can help.

Whenever I hop on my Quest 3 there is always someone there to do Eleven table tennis with.

I think for me, for much of my adult life I've been in a state of poor health and poor financial situation and have actually avoided attempting to socialize because I feel I have to take care of other priorities before I can present to society in any confident way. Because people can tell that you are not quite well and don't have financial security, and they don't want to be around it.

I have had very varying experiences with suggestions (or talking to someone) about these kinds of changes in life and how to deal with them. Most of the times what I have to say has been met with resistance (sometimes even some sort of resentment or confrontation, or a mix of the two). Why is that? No, not because I consider that they thought I was being a jerk or flippant. But because they had considered certain things undoable, or they didn't do them before, and didn't want to change that and hence when I suggested exactly those things to do in life (or in some cases 'not do') it was considered of no use, being repetitive, clichéd. Of course, by saying this as the leading text in my comment it might look like I am saying OP might be that, but I am not saying that. What I am going to say is - in such a case of OP exactly those things help, what many have actually listed below, and that's why they are cliched and repitive (again, because they work), and can be summed up as:

1. Physical activities as a routine

2. Going out (regularly but maybe not as a routine)

3. A physically engaging hobby that involves someone else and something tangible (besides the two mentioned above)

4. Pickup an intellectually engaging hobby (may or may not involve others)

I shall expand a bit on these (but this will mostly be a huge text wall).

By [1], I mean giving your body the physical exercise it literally "requires" (yup, for us humans it's not a choice, but many of the capable us don't do/get that). Gym is the easiest and helps a lot. Better still, pick up a sport - actually, what works best is doing the two, as one helps and accentuates the other.

If someone is looking for a short, readymade "first to try" list, here's one: gym, running, or/and a racket sport.

Very important: if you have the means and money, consider joining a coaching program to begin with. It's a game changer (no pun intended), and that includes a non-"typical gym-bro/gal" gym trainer.

The [2] is not "let's go out" kind of going out - but just physically stepping out (regularly!!) of your house or usual comfort zone spots - for walks, backpacking trips, travels, treks, camping, hiking, window shopping, attending plays, films in cinemas, puppet shows, bookstores, museums, music shows, comedy shows, get those perfect walking leather shoes for yourself and go around the stores trying to find that and be disappointed that the perfect hasn't been made yet (if you find it, then great).. and so on. You get the gist.

The [3] and [4] are somewhat similar, and I wouldn't regurgitate a lot about that. But just a few examples (you pick your own): for [3], learn to play guitar/cello/violin/drum/some shit/explore - do this under a tutor; and for [4]: pickup reading (may or may not be a reading group), world cinema (a cine club maybe), writing literature (for your diary, you don't have to plan to publish; though you can join a group for sharing if you want). Etc.

None of these is going to happen in a day. But you might not want to make these a months-long research and execution project either. Give it a few days to a few weeks. It's perfectly fine to switch, get bored, move from one to another, get frustrated, try something else, something entirely diagonal, and get disillusioned, but keep trying, keep exploring.

Saying it again, try to get trainers/guides/tutors/groups wherever needed or can. If nothing else, it helps with getting good at something in somewhat shorter time and helps you avoid unlearning a lot of basic things later, and since you are older (as in not a kid or teen), this could be a tad bit more productive, especially in sticking with it.

For me, the point of "how to be alone" is very different from "how to be lonely" (which I doubt anyone wants or hopes so, at least I don't). These engagements give you the bare minimum to sufficient human exposure without having to "socialise" and set you up to be perfectly fine being alone, at least in the short term, and slowly opening up paths for you, giving you some road to decide what turns you want to take in life over time and get back hold of things.

(From your story, it's clear I am not from your geography/culture/etc., so if something seems very weird/odd for you, please note where/why it might be coming from.)

Good luck.

Humans are social creatures. We’re not meant to live alone. The advise suggesting we should be able to seems to me like cope. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.

The pain of loneliness exists because it signals harm, danger to you. The US is hyper-individualistic because it serves capitalism. They want you to be alone so that you can fill that "pain point" with all manner of pleasure sold to you. I can only urge you to stop being alone by joining a run club, improv class, and saying yes to every invite. Move to a big city if you don't live in one. You must do this.

Honestly, I think meeting people at 38 is really hard. Especially if your social skills are somewhat rusty.

I think a lof of the advice is well-thinking, but it's not very good as things aren't that easy.

I believe that the easiest is to get into something geeky, but not competitive. Maybe it's 3D printing, or treasure hunting, or setting up fish tanks, or board game design, or fan fiction writing, or cosplaying, these kinds of stuff. If it can be physical, it's good. Like, bouldering is fairly geeky. It's also very hard if you're on the heavy side.

I think the geeky competitive hobbies are not good. Like chess is not great to meet people, as you'll need a lot of time to build up the skill required to even talk to someone without sounding dumb.

You need something that:

1. You can spend long periods of time doing on your own.

2. Has a strong ONLINE community (it's a lot easier to get into online stuff)

3. Allows to occasionally meet up in person.

The main thing is that geeks are nice people. They are way more welcoming than the average couple who's usually tangled in kids' education, paying the mortgage back, seeing their friends and family. And you can meet people online, which in itself is social contact that's good for you.

If I was in your shoes, my plan would be:

- try geek stuff that requires some advice. More ideas: clay sculpting, jewelry making, woodworking, and find one that I like.

- seek online communities and chat to people there. This would allow me to build up my skills, show off my stuff, get feedback, and start creating friendships. I wouldn't worry about being online too much at this stage. I think I'd try to find different coomunication channels, like IRC and discord. I don't know if things like second life are still a thing, but this used to be good too.

- Become "someone" in these communities. Like people know who you are. At some point people don't talk about the hobby, but conversation easily go more intimate.

- Meet people up when you can.

On top of meeting people, this has a great benefit: you have something to talk about to other people.

Like if you get into treasure hunting (like I did for a while), it's a great conversation starter. People think you're a bit crazy, but they love to hear that you went in the woods with your pickaxe and your shovel.

Anyways, I know that's what I'd do.

Good luck

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Go to the hard techno party. It will reshape your soul.

M.D.M.A and new friends

Probably a bit biased (as it's totally my modality) but maybe consider an extended ayahuasca retreat.

If you just want to talk about your day or receive psychological support or even answer questions like this one, LLMs are great: Opus 4.6 is currently considered the best, but also try Gemini and ChatGPT.

As for interacting with humans, if you are finding it hard, maybe you can try something that is easy because it has a structure, such as some sort of workshop where you either share in a circle or are paired with a random partner and share (ask LLMs for help in finding them).

Or even pay someone to talk to them, such as a psychotherapist or a counselor.