#85 - Lonely like me! Thoughts about being single and lonely.
Loneliness is common among singles. We all have our reasons why we are not in a relationship. Some are single by choice, others are forced into it through death or divorce. Loneliness creeps up on all of us at different times for different reasons. For some of us, it is thoughts of a lost love. For others it is missing the closeness of a special someone. What are your reasons for feeling lonely?
For me, loneliness most often creeps in on the weekends. During the week I have plenty of opportunity to interact with people at the office, on line, at the grocery store, the post office and any number of other places that bring me face to face with people. On the weekends, I don’t have my weekly business contacts. There are weekend events that can fill some of my time, but generally they will only account for no more than a few hours of a 48 hour weekend. This is when I start falling into the desire to reconnect with a past love. Why? Because it is easy to do. It is usually comfortable when I reconnect; not because it is a great relationship, but because it is with someone I know. I’m not starting the learning process all over again with someone new. The problem with this is that the relationship ended for a reason and odds are, that reason didn’t change. The big problem with reconnecting with a past love is that it will eventually end and you have to start the breakup all over again.
So, how do you cope with loneliness when it sets in? Some turn to alcohol (or drugs). Some turn to family and friends for company. Others turn to church or social organizations to fill their time by being of service to others. There are those that turn their attention to pets. And then there are those that just tough it out on their own. However you choose to deal with your loneliness, it is a choice. There are a multitude of options available to all of us to help deal with loneliness. The question is; how proactive are we going to be in dealing with our loneliness? Sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves is rarely beneficial and complaining to others about being lonely is not much of an endearing quality.
One thing I have learned is that as lonely as I feel, I am not the only one feeling that way. There are thousands of others that feel the very same thing. The odds are that when you are feeling lonely, one of your single friends is feeling the very same way. Make a phone call to one or more of them and do something spontaneous and different. Reach out to others; focusing outside of ourselves, focusing on others is a time proven way to combat our loneliness. This point was driven home to me after having a conversation with a friend that over the past weekend we were both struggling with loneliness. A simple phone call would have made a difference for both of us. Yet, we both chose to tough it out and both had a mediocre weekend.
How do you deal with your lonely times while you are searching for the right person to come into your life?