Thanks for posting this! I found myself feeling quite lonely at the end of a 5-year relationship a few years ago and have spent a lot of time in the past few years trying to work through loneliness. I can't compare it to your situation - divorce with children must be really difficult - but I think male loneliness is a super important problem in our society and unfortunately it's something I had to put in a lot of work to address.
> 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.
Connecting with people is a biological necessity! It takes work but it's totally worth it.
I definitely agree with others that therapy is a good place to start. Also, it's okay to feel lonely. It's also okay to want to connect with people and to put work into it.
A few things that have worked for me:
- Just because older friendships have withered doesn't mean they can't be revived. Reach out to people to catch up - everyone loves feeling wanted every once in a while. Most of these won't turn into close friendships, but some might. And even if they don't, seeing old friends will make you feel more connected to more people and make life more colorful. The world is a lot more interesting when you hear more people's perspectives, I think.
- Join a club. Or join multiple clubs, even. A lot of people are looking for social outlets as pandemic restrictions recede. I like running so I joined a running club, but I'm sure you can find other clubs to join. There will probably be a lot of new members like yourself wanting to socialize - my running club is 20 years old but most of the active members joined since June 2021.
- You might consider finding roommates. Living alone is nice in some ways, but having roommates gives you built-in social interaction every day (as long as they're people you can tolerate). IMO more than one roommate is best.
- Make friends at work. If people don't eat lunch together, try to invite people to lunch. If they don't hang out after work, try proposing going to a bar one day. This might be higher effort than other ideas here, but I usually find that having casual work conversations fills at least a little of my social needs each days. (Obviously this doesn't apply if you work remotely.)
- Be vulnerable. You might be worried about others judging you for feeling lonely, but I don't think they will. You can express it to them in less direct terms, too - maybe "I feel like I've lost touch with my friends and I wanted to see how you're doing" or "I've been trying to rekindle friendships since the pandemic/the divorce." I had a conversation with a high school friend just a few weeks ago just like this, in fact. I think being vulnerable about things in my life (including but not limited to loneliness) helps deepen the relationships I have and makes my social interactions fill more of my emotional needs too.
For me, a mix of all these things have helped. I still feel lonely sometimes, but I feel a lot better than a few years ago. It's a lot of work to build friendships and a social structure, but it's well worth it for your happiness (and it'll make your new friends' lives better too).
> 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.
Connecting with people is a biological necessity! It takes work but it's totally worth it.
I definitely agree with others that therapy is a good place to start. Also, it's okay to feel lonely. It's also okay to want to connect with people and to put work into it.
A few things that have worked for me:
- Just because older friendships have withered doesn't mean they can't be revived. Reach out to people to catch up - everyone loves feeling wanted every once in a while. Most of these won't turn into close friendships, but some might. And even if they don't, seeing old friends will make you feel more connected to more people and make life more colorful. The world is a lot more interesting when you hear more people's perspectives, I think.
- Join a club. Or join multiple clubs, even. A lot of people are looking for social outlets as pandemic restrictions recede. I like running so I joined a running club, but I'm sure you can find other clubs to join. There will probably be a lot of new members like yourself wanting to socialize - my running club is 20 years old but most of the active members joined since June 2021.
- You might consider finding roommates. Living alone is nice in some ways, but having roommates gives you built-in social interaction every day (as long as they're people you can tolerate). IMO more than one roommate is best.
- Make friends at work. If people don't eat lunch together, try to invite people to lunch. If they don't hang out after work, try proposing going to a bar one day. This might be higher effort than other ideas here, but I usually find that having casual work conversations fills at least a little of my social needs each days. (Obviously this doesn't apply if you work remotely.)
- Be vulnerable. You might be worried about others judging you for feeling lonely, but I don't think they will. You can express it to them in less direct terms, too - maybe "I feel like I've lost touch with my friends and I wanted to see how you're doing" or "I've been trying to rekindle friendships since the pandemic/the divorce." I had a conversation with a high school friend just a few weeks ago just like this, in fact. I think being vulnerable about things in my life (including but not limited to loneliness) helps deepen the relationships I have and makes my social interactions fill more of my emotional needs too.
For me, a mix of all these things have helped. I still feel lonely sometimes, but I feel a lot better than a few years ago. It's a lot of work to build friendships and a social structure, but it's well worth it for your happiness (and it'll make your new friends' lives better too).