I don't know if this is the right place for this but here are my stats. I'm a 32yo male, divorced with 2 kids whom I have little access to at the moment. My childhood friendships have withered, my divorce left me untrusting of women (at least for now). I work alone and don't have many opportunities to meet new people organically.
The thing is I don't even like hanging out with people most of the time but I get into this space where it feels like a biological necessity.
Does anyone have any tips on how to give myself attention? Or, in other words, how can I learn to be alone without feeling lonely? I feel like I need this lifeskill in order to proceed in my life.
I have a pattern of loneliness pushing me into making very foolish decisions.
That’s pretty unusual self awareness. Respect. Glad you’re asking for help.
Let me proffer some of the obvious suggestions: D&D type of gaming (not for me but my adult child has met many great people that way), going to the gym, yoga class, chamber of commerce, get involved with a charity that means something to you, start going to church.
Try talking to people but when I say talking I really mean listening with all your heart, and being interested in them. Everyone has a story. If you’re genuinely interested, they will reveal everything within a few minutes. my kids make gentle fun of me for interviewing people, but I just like to listen to what people are really saying and respond by learning more about them. (If you are sincere it will incidentally help you enormously with women.)
A slightly less obvious one: get really good at something. When I do this I shoot to be better than about 80% of people, which you can usually do with raw work and without requiring some kind of genetic superiority. If you do it right the process is rewarding, and the outcome is also rewarding. Get fluent at a challenging language like Chinese or Arabic? Work out enough to get fairly ripped? Give away something great on GitHub? You’re a recruiter if your username applies, and maybe just focus on making a lot of money? That sounds shallow and you don’t have to take it very seriously, but I have learned that getting better than most people at some kind of lucrative or socially valued skill just helped me enormously, and you can you can usually do that simply by working hard and with common sense. The reason I harp on this angle is that when you’re pretty darn good at something, it attracts people. And getting good at something usually requires that you take on multiple topics well at once, which makes you feel better about yourself.
You can reach out to me via the email address in my profile and we can chat if you want. I have no agenda but I’m a decent listener.