lonely

Unfortunately my home computer's down long-term as I've just moved house, otherwise I would suggest you could e-mail me to talk about this further. But we could always have a conversation on this thread.

We all present "edited versions" of ourselves when in the presence of other people, even if it's your loved one. It's a natural human characteristic, as if we were completely "open" and "honest" all of the time we'd scare everyone else away.

I will be coming to the Betsey on Saturday afternoon for the ILE Awards direct from Oxford, where I have to go and look at/give my approval to the headstone for Laura's grave. It would have been her 37th birthday tomorrow as well (5th Dec) so I can't imagine that I'm going to be Mr Merriment, so I would hope that others would have some patience with me, knowing the background. My gut feeling is that if you wish to share these kinds of feelings with others, then that's fine, provided that you are 100% sure in yourself that the people with whom you plan to share them will be sympathetic (and therefore, ideally, known to you).

These boards can be infuriating at times and hilarious at others but are usually quite a good template for people who wish to express feelings, problems, etc., without fear of ridicule or rejection, provided that you are aware that you can only derive so much help from what is essentially an impersonal board with people whom one largely knows only from the written word. So it may well be that other posters here are more than willing to help you but just don't have the means, because they don't know you as a person and are therefore scared of saying the wrong thing or sounding insincere or platitudinous. So don't think that we don't care - it's just that, the Web being the way it is, there are limitations. But don't be put off and keep on posting.

Crass but true cliche to end with: it's not worth getting yourself in a tizzy over money/things. It's people who matter.

So I understand about the fear of RIDICULE and REJECTION when you discuss your deepest emotions and feelings on this forum.

Thanks for all the prayers etc. for Laura. I didn't get round to acknowledging these but should have done. Be assured, though, that they didn't go unnoticed or unaccepted.

Really if anyone deserves to win "Best Poster" on Saturday then it's you. Without a doubt.

Take care.

Though it sounds trite, I have been feeling similar to what you describe for as long as I recall. I have a lot of casual acquaintances but wonder if they really like me. I have often been rejected when I try to be more honest, or serious so now I find it hard to trust people enough to confide in them. Being on my own is all well and good, but sometimes I just don't want to think about my problems and I bore myself. Its easier just to interact with others and focus on something else.

For what its worth you don't sound banal or fake. People who have everything all sorted out are often the ones who become tedious- after all what is there for them to struggle with. If you are not happy with the people you are hanging around with try to gradually ease off the acquaintance, or better yet use them for other people they might introduce you to. I have overhauled my social circles before, its an important thing to do because if these people are bringing you down it makes everything else seem that much worse.

Oh goddamnit I am beginning to sound a little oprah winfrey. There was a guy here in Dunedin who accused his sister of getting all oprah on him and threatened to cut her up with a big knife, perhaps I should take note. I do hope that this is a case of a temporary 'down' and you will feel better tomorrow, but you are welcom to e-mail me if I have said anything you found remotely interesting or useful. Perhaps good intentions count?

I've wound you up something rotten of late but we really need to have a proper talk, away from these boards. As with Anthony, will do so when I have a workable e-mail going again. You take care as well.

:-)

So I went out dancing w/friends at this Latin music club till four in the morning and upon waking up at 2pm the next day felt much improved and even cleaned my room.

Anyway, I'm not trying to turn this into a pity party. I just want to say that nothing stays bad forever. If things don't turn around on their own, there are people/services you can turn to to help you get through this and make things better. I've often felt that no one would want to be around me if I showed them "the real me", but a moment of epihpany showed me that the face I show to people on a regular basis has to, on some level, be connected to who I am, otherwise I wouldn't be able to show it to so many other people. This may not be true for everyone, but I thin it's true for most.

You too, Jess. Just not the Associates part.

I'm so hurt.

This is too apposite.

I don't have anyone to hug. :*(

*Inetrweb hug*

Big sympathies David, it won't matter what you do over the next few days, you'll still feel just as bad. Maybe by that time there'll be some good advice on the thread though. My only suggestions are - write it all down and then throw the paper away; drink in order to sleep*; organise some kind of visit somewhere else for a couple of weeks' time.

*if you're a sleepy drunk. Not otherwise.

Thank you for all the kind words.

I have been so bad to Katy. I've not abused her or hurt her or anything overt, I guess I've just neglected her which is a way of irredeemably bruising a heart and I wish every little nag, every dismissal of taste, every stupid insult disguised and justified as 'joke', every single hour I spent on here instead of with Katy I wish I could just start it all over again. Sorry.

(My mind keeps returning to the same thought: 'I need to get a haircut!' Why?)

I need to let her be, don't I? I've sent her e-mails, explaining how I feel, explaining how I can and will change, asking for a second chance, I just need to let it rest now until she's ready to come to me. I'm just scared she won't come to me and drive myself to death by not sleeping or eating or thinking other thoughts.

That's exactly what you need to do. If you've already let her know how you feel and how you can make it up to her, you have to leave her alone for a little while and let her figure out what she wants to do.

I can't believe she doesn't love me anymore.

This is what I hope; it's just a week is a long time when the minute hand never moves.

I'm feeling about 12 on Don Paterson's "Scale of Intensity":

1) Not felt. Smoke still rises vertically. In sensitive individuals, déjà vu, mild amnesia. Sea like a mirror.

2) Detected by persons at rest or favourably placed, i.e. in upper floors, hammocks, cathedrals, etc. Leaves rustle.

3) Light sleepers wake. Glasses chink. Hairpins, paperclips display slight magnetic properties. Irritability. Vibration like passing of light trucks.

4) Small bells ring. Small increase in surface tension and viscosity of certain liquids. Domestic violence. Furniture overturned.

5) Heavy sleepers wake. Pendulum clocks stop. Public demonstrations. Large flags fly. Vibration like passing of heavy trucks.

6) Large bells ring. Bookburning. Aurora visible in daylight hours. Unprovoked assaults on strangers. Glassware broken. Loose tiles fly from roof.

7) Weak chimneys broken off at roofline. Waves on small ponds, water turbid with mud. Unprovoked assaults on neighbours. Large static charges built up on windows, mirrors, television screens.

8) Perceptible increase in weight of stationary objects: books, cups, pens heavy to lift. Fall of stucco and some masonry. Systematic rape of women and young girls. Sand craters. Cracks in wet ground.

9) Small trees uprooted. Bathwater drains in reverse vortex. Wholesale slaughter of religious and ethnic minorities. Conspicuous cracks in ground. Damage to reservoirs and underground pipelines.

10) Large trees uprooted. Measurable tide in puddles, teacups, etc. Torture and rape of small children. Irreparable damage to foundations. Rails bend. Sand shifts horizontally on beaches.

11) Standing impossible. Widespread self-mutilation. Corposant visible on pylons, lampposts, metal railings. Waves seen on ground surface. Most bridges destroyed.

12) Damage total. Movement of hour hand perceptible. Large rock masses displaced. Sea white.

"If you love something, set it free; if it comes back then it is truly meant to be."

As for RIGHT NOW - company company company. If you're alone the chances are much higher you'll end up phoning/writing/hitting refresh etc etc. You need people around you who are going to talk about the rest of the universe rather than your collapsed bit of it.

The only other advice I'd give is to make sure you don't say anything that can never be taken back.

I hope you don't even read this post until tomorrow!

I've read your post, Tom.

What does 'don't say anything that can never be taken back' mean? I'm getting away from this computer now. See how it all looks in the morning.

But there in the clearing
I know you'll be wearing
Your young aching smile
And waving your hand

Can't go with my heart
When I can't feel what's in it
I thought you'd come over
But for some reason you didn't glass
On the pavement under my shoe
Without you is all my life amounts to

A final sleep
No words from my cutting
Mouth to your ear
Or taut wicked pinches
From my fingers to your bitter face
That I can't heal

I know tomorrow you will be
Somewhere in London
Living with someone
You've got some kind of family
There to turn to
And that's more than
I could ever give you

A chance for calm
A hope for freedom
Outlet from my cold solitary kingdom
By the forest of our spring stay
Where you walked away

And left a bleeding part of me
Empty and bothered
Watching the water
Quiet in the corner
Numb and falling through
Without you what does my life amount to

It's pretty much over for the time being. I think. Only time will tell how this all resolves. I still love her. She doesn't love me. Not currently, anyway. And that's fine. My heart and head have accepted this. I'm not going to love someone who doesn't love me back. The doors always open for her, she knows this.

I think that a large part of the blame for my degeneration has to fall at ilx's feet. Or rather at that part of me which is compulsive / addictive about it and I need to go away and really just reset from this whole experience. I've made a lot of friends, and a lot of contacts, I suppose, to look at it callously. I hope some of you remember me. I'll probably lurk for a while, mop up some of the responses to this thread, but this is pretty much me signing out.

I'm not scared of my name anymore,

Anyway, I wanted to say before how touched I am when people in distress bother to look for another thread to post to, rather than start their own.

keep ya heads up homiez, though.

I feel like the closer I try to get to the people the more the people run away

Loneliness is real.

It is very little pleasure.

This thread is heartbreaking. My soul feels cold.

40s and chipwiches for all.
-- lauren (laurenp), Friday, March 12, 2004 12:58 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

lauren's grown up a lot in four years!

if you are lonely, you should get a kitty cat. people are rarely worth the trouble.

Loneliness is one of the emotions I am least capable of handling.

I spent so many years being lonely. Dear god I was so lonely. And it's possible to still feel lonely even with loved ones. Like shingles after chicken pox: it's just been brewing there, and surprise! There it is again.

> people are rarely worth the trouble.

U R ME

Loneliness can be really annoying for sure. Also, bad for your health, unless you happen to be one of those extraordinary people who are inclined by temperament or what have you to be able to live alone in a cave for years at a time.

I don't think those people really exist.

My heart's seriously hurting. I'm glad I saw some excellent, amazing turtles this weekend. They're so calming.

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/LimitedLiabilityGirl/DontrunIloveU.jpg

Where did you see the turtles?

hahaha I love that robut

There is a natural history museum at the mall of all places! Free entrance. I saw a snapping turtle for the first time: its back was coated in some kind of water plant. And I saw some absolutely gorgeous softshell turtles, which I'd never seen before in person. They have anteater snouts! I cannot relate to spirituality, and I am not certain I believe in it, but turtles are the most spiritual thing to me. I love them.

xpost

Just guessing here, Curt1s, but the dynamic you describe might be caused by getting close to people by revealing a certain amount of sadness and confusion that you feel about life. When this is the case, many people will run away.

If one makes it plain to the listener that he or she is not expected in any way to solve your problem, give you good advice, or wipe away your tears for you, then it helps to neutralize this reaction. It won't in every case, but as I say, it helps.

This reaction can also happen when people perceive that your need to spend time with them is greater than their desire to spend time with you. This would be a matter of degree, and not an active dislike for you. It helps in this kind of case to ask, and to make an effort to discern what the other person wants or is comfortable with.

Closeness is not something you can force by an act of will. Will is personal, not interpersonal. Closeness happens as a result of shared experiences that allow closeness to grow, slowly and naturally. It must be mutual or it is nothing.

OTM

That's awesome, Abbott! I am a tortoise person, which is A WHOLE DIFFERENT THING...but close-ish...

ian, i may be all grown up now but i'll never be too old to share novelty ice cream and malt liquor with a friend in need.

I am surrounded by family and friends driving me crazy for drinking company/attention/favours/cash to borrow etc... I wish I had a bit more time to myself, obvs better than being lonely tho.

I feel really invisible, recently. I have tried to make efforts with ppl, esp online, I have tried to make amends with others I feel I've wronged, only for tumbleweeds to pass on by. Sometimes I feel like a lurker on here. Its unnerving.

Even automatic doors won't open when I walk up to them :(

i'm sorry, did you just post something, trayce?

*sobs into a hanky*

just thinking baout things

I don't have a single problem that wouldn't be solved by the ability to teleport.

Thanks Aimless! You are a wise man

Also I spent so many years being lonely. Dear god I was so lonely. And it's possible to still feel lonely even with loved ones. Like shingles after chicken pox: it's just been brewing there, and surprise! There it is again. Abbott OTM.

My saddest OTM.

sup y'all

what up curt

Hey C wassup?

big croot thinkin baout things

I think you get used to it. I've never once in my life spent my birthday with others, which my acquaintances find shocking and grotesque. Friendship is a strange beast; a mixture of time spent with others under certain conditions (school, work, etc.), plus the ability to reflect and see your reflection in the other.

Sometimes it feels life's a real grand party going on and you're just watching it. That's probably the truth. If you're thoughtful and inward and constantly pushing yourself forward to new goals, new experiences, etc., I guess it's hard for others to see themselves in you, which forms the bulk of most relationships anyway.

am0n used to be really different back in the day

yeah, well... (shrugs)

wait what

I admire people who are good at being alone.

I often feel lonely in groups of people - like my family, at times -and have been very lonely in a committed relationship.

I have a friend who is doing an intense ten day silent meditaion thing - I guess you're in a group of people but nobody speaks for ten days.
I don't know why I'm bringing it up except there is something about alone and/or lonely that trips me up. And speaking is usually the way to combat a feeling of loneliness.
The worst feeling, that I can attest to, is feeling really lonely in the middle of a social event. Or really any group event.

For me the worst part of a ten day silent meditation would be not talking (or singing) to myself out loud. Not speaking to others I could probably encompass more easily.

I know? how could I interact with my dog?

And wink and a nod and a good scratch behind the ears should do the trick.

For me the worst part of a ten day silent meditation would be not talking (or singing) to myself out loud. Not speaking to others I could probably encompass more easily.

-- Aimless, Sunday, April 27, 2008 2:55 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah I did a weeklong sesshin once and the not-talking was really easy, the hard part was dealing with the white noise in my head.

I once did 23 days hiking by myself in the wilderness, seeing other people about an average of three minutes a day. That included seven days without seeing another living soul. The white noise in my head was very annoying. I got stuck on some doo-wop songs for hours at a time. Since that experience, I've coped better on long, solo hikes. The noise has settled down quite a lot.

I've gone weeks at a time without talking; it's hard getting your voice back in the habit of speaking to people. New York City life can be as solitary as in a cave in the Nitrian Desert.

I'm looking forward to my next one though. Quieter mind is ideal. xp

My cousin recently did some kind of mostly silent, isolated in-home meditation retreat for THREE YEARS. I'm not sure how it worked, I think she had supplies brought to her, but mostly interacted with no one. intense.

(and I'm serious about this btw, she didnt just have depression or something, it was a serious, planned, retreat based on some form of eastern faith I'm not sure on the details of).

Is it over now? Is she back from the metaphorical mountaintop?

Is she an heiress?

Yep I think she's done now, and no she's not wealthy - in fact I think she'd saved up some money beforehand (hence the planning) to do it. I dont know or understand much more detail, I believe relatives brought her food and supplies and she did occasionally foray out, but for the most part was quite the recluse. I dont know her near well enough to ever ask and apparently she wasn't forthcoming to anyone much about what it involved.

I am interested in the idea of enforced retreat though, and the ways it can radically change people. I'm not sure I could do it, as much of a hermity person as I can be.

i feel lonely but its usually 4am and ive had too much to drink

^^ :(

i dont smoke weed as much anymore cuz it usually ends up with me feeling like that

ya early morning is when I get lonely. when I revived this thread last night I had just gotten back from a party and I missed people.

xpost I quit alcohol cos it does that to me

In my experience being alone at 4AM and sober is much worse.

i miss lingbert

otm

He's got a house made of glass
Got his own swimming pool...what a gas
We've got a one-room shack
Five by six by the railroad track, well

What about us
What about us
Don't wanna cause no fuss
But what about us

He's with a beautiful chick
Every night of the week, pretty slick
We're two poor hung up souls
Girls won't touch with a 10-foot pole, well

What about us
What about us
Don't wanna cause no fuss
But what about us

He goes to eat at the Ritz
Big steaks...that's the breaks
We eat hominy grits
From a bag...what a drag
http://www.free-lyrics.org/27156-The-Coasters.html

He's got a car made of suede
With a black leather top...got it made
If we go out on dates
We go in a box on roller skates, well

What about us
What about us
Don't wanna cause no fuss
But what about us

(Sax Interlude)

He goes to eat at the Ritz
Big steaks, that's the breaks
We eat hominy grits
From a bag...what a drag

He's got a car made of suede
With a black leather top...got it made
If we go out on dates
We go in a box on roller skates, well

What about us
What about us
Don't wanna cause no fuss
But what about us

What about us
What about us
But what about us

turn being lonely into a strength, everyone will ask you about it after the party's over

thinking baout things

don't think too hard, it seldom does much.

this is amusing --

turn being lonely into a strength, everyone will ask you about it after the party's over

-- strgn, Sunday, April 27, 2008 10:09 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

i have been that guy

learning to be alone is a healthy, positive way to cut out all that serial monogamy bullshit

post-semester bump

still no 77 invite bump

WTF is wrong with me when I feel lonely and down even though I have a great job and a wonderful partner and some grand friends?

I feel like I'm a huge disapointment to everyone.

Why do you feel like a disappointment to everyone?

key trick learned thru therapy = to always monitor the things I'm telling myself when I get into a funk. Seems like the obvious thing to do but I soon realized my unconscious was full of all sorts of irrational roadblocks & miscommunications.

Hah, you hit the nail on the head really - I am very, VERY good at telling myself I'm shit, and the worst will happen, and everything is horrible and bad. My latest bleak mood is really to do with my complete lack of confidence in my own ability to write music or create anything anymore. I'm around too many people more talented than myself, and too many cynics on places like here, to allow myself to even dare feel like I'm capable let alone good at anything.

Except cooking, I suppose.

So here's my bf, and my best friend (aka ex bf), both saying how they hate seeing ppl waste talents, and that's exactly what I feel like I'm doing, and yet I sit on my hands and stare at the wall and drink and on and on it goes. It's like some kind of paralysis.

OK thats about the most personal I will ever get on ilx.

Hmm. Paralysis..I can relate to that, actually. Sorry you feel this way, Trayce.

yeah i know the feeling too. the sex vs making music thread gave me a bitter laugh, two things i used to love that i now go right out of my way to avoid ever doing. i have all the means to be creative but no drive at all. the loneliness is for other reasons though.

Don't stress yourself too much, Trayce, everyone gets in a creative funk. At least you know yr good at cooking, and personally, I would rather be around a delicious cook than a good musician. I doubt yr guy pals mean anything personal by it, either, as I'm sure you know. When you "sit on my hands and stare at the wall and drink and on and on" just tell yourself it's "meditation." This is a comforting fib I tell myself in those states.

I need to drink less. It's making me become incredibly emotionally isolated.

Not like I have any idea what you're talking about or anything.

Heh.

The thing is Trayce, we're Pisces. And that's our deal. We have a hard time believing in ourselves and letting the creative talent come out. But it's there, Trayce, it is. You just can't see it yourself.

pisces dont trust people

because some post traumatic trust issues

Thats a rather odd thing to surmise.

Is loneliness a good enough of a reason to get in a relationship with someone that you will never fall in love with? I think I know the answer but let's suppose the girl doesn't fall in love with me so that I can't break her heart. It's possible if I try hard enough to keep the relationship at a purely 'lets not be lonely' level. I mean, that's possible right?

i cannot see the point of that at all

the point is to not be loenly

fuk me for writing poorly and dyslexic and I cant spell but can you get the point eh?

no no, don't get involved with someone purely because you are lonely. You'll feel the weight of it pretty fast - and it isn't at all fair on her, either. By all means spend time with someone you like, but don't make it something it isnt in the hope it will fill a hole (huh no pun intended) because it wont, trust me.

Alteratively you'll end up pining for her desperately and she'll screw you over and then you will feel even more poop. Trust me, been there.

(many many years ago admittedly, but I made that error once)

I was thinking I maybe would have to eventually screw her over because I'm the one not in love.

not the other way around

I think the point of this thread is 'I'm lonely because I can't find anyone that I like enough to be with' rather than 'I'm lonely because I can't find anyone'.

no one likes anyone.

I figured you meant that, was just covering both angles. Neither are a great idea. I'm frustrated atm watching someone I care about very much drag things out with a girl he's not in love with any more because he's too nice to tell her how he really feels and cant stand confrontation. It's all I can do not to shout at him.

Well at least this distracts me from my own glum mood, heh.

And hey thanks y'all.

well, the way I think about that situation you just mentioned is at least he's getting something, love seems impossible to find. and sometimes the best thing to do is fill that lonelyness hole. because I'm doubting I'll ever find that "soulmate". that someone that I'll share unconditional love with. Its just been way too long since Ive met anyone that has created any spark at all (besides lustful sparks)

be careful how you fill that loneliness hole

i can't even talk to people, i don't know what's wrong

you can talk to me!

awww am0n

the healing power of reggae

chill
ing

mean ol world

http://www.songsofsamcooke.com/images/nightbeat.jpg

"Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room sometimes and cry. It's so hard to make friends ...I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home"

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I think that is great song and great video, super, I like so much...

one of those days. seems like every day these days is one of those days.

From the outside i seem to have this great life but it doesnt feel that way. i feel alone, constantly w/o any genuine companions. i go over in my head my copius and constant failures. i am at the end of my rope in, debt further then i can pay, people i know that i really am not sure i like, playing this pardy hardy hey fellow well met because i want to be liked. i am sick of feeling banal and stupid and fake. i just want to be on my own but i cannot deal with the solitude when i am alone .

;-)

that's what I thought too

that anonymous WAS me. was. not with.

― jess, Monday, December 3, 2001 8:00 PM (7 years ago)

lonely strongo just hulking baout things

this is really awkard because i have been trained to avoid my emotions but i wrote this.

― anthony, Monday, December 3, 2001 8:00 PM (7 years ago)

well i've been out walkin'
i don't do that much talkin these days.
these days i seem to think a lot
about the things that i forgot to do
and all the times i've had the chance to....

Lonely, lonely
Tin can at my feet
Think I'll kick it down the street
That's the way to treat a friend

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
I wouldn’t wish that on you. I don’t
want to see your eyes forgotten
on a rainy day, lost in the endless purse
of those who can remember nothing.

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
I don’t want to see you end up that way
with your body being poured like wounded
marble into the architecture of those who make
bridges out of crippled birds.

Love’s not the way to treat a friend.
There are so many better things for you
than to see your feelings sold
as magic lanterns to somebody whose body
casts no light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp6rbMWcnVU

I've felt the sitting in a room alone sort of lonely. I've felt the living with someone but missing the connection of friends lonely. I've also felt the depressed, can't feel like I can connect with anyone sort of lonely. I really don't know which is worse. But really, I think some bouts of loneliness are fine for the soul, as long as you learn it's not an excuse to cling to others when they do come along, or you're willing to let them into your life.

Reading Abb's thing upthread about being lonely even when you have loved ones really resonates.
Dont know wat I am doing wrong any more.

I don't think you should look at it that way, Trayce. Feeling lonely is not really the result of your doing anything wrong. I generally consider loneliness just a part of the human condition, especially people who are aware of what's going on in their lives.

I burned myself making usa dinner last night and when I said so I got "mmm" in reply from someone who didnt even look up from their PC :/

sigh. Maybe I'm expecting too much. I'm gonna stop thinking about it.

:( sending hugs in your general direction.

thankz, I appreciate that x

feelin it

one of those 9:37 AM lonely times

ur never lonely with ilx in ur lyfe :)

truly!

loneliness can be terrible. i know -- it's only recently that i've felt as lonely as i have.

and if ILX can give you some company, then it's not a bad thing! even if you're just talking about football or some pop-culture trend.

ur never lonely with ilx in ur lyfe :)

Not always true. Nothing is lonelier than ILX when you are lonely and ILX is being hostile towards you or worse still ignoring you outright.

yeah, but if it weren't for ILX I wouldn't have anyone to bitch to about being lonely at the crack o dawn

man dawn comes late in _______

being lonely at the crack 'o dawn IS an awful feeling, i agree. it's often the worst time of day for that sort of thing. if posting here helps you to feel less lonely, then you should post here. if not, then don't.

it took three hours to type that post

i mean, nothing is going to guarantee a response anywhere in the ILX universe. you may be obsessed w/, i dunno, the TV show "Lost" or something -- and there are a lot of people that have that same obsession and will post when that obsession is foremost in their minds. if you're obsessed with something obscure like Javan gamalan music or Bolivian basket-weaving, though ... then maybe ILX isn't the place to talk about such obsessions (though who KNOWS for sure)?

the only way to find out for sure is to actually *POST* or *DO SOMETHING*. you may be pleasantly surprised.

if you wanted to talk about balinese gamelan anklung i might be interested by JAVAN? pffffffffft

Taking Sides: Balinese Gamelan v. Javanese Gamelan

^ delivers

... one of 8 Gamelan threads!

did you say BOLIVIAN BASKET WEAVING?!?!

seriously -- i'm a marginal character here at best and even i have found some company in ILX whilst feeling lonely.

:D

Me, I just get suggest bans when I'm lonely. Your mileage may vary.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a downer but this whole "ooh, isn't ILX a shiny happy supportive mountain of cuddles" is jsut not true for all people all of the time.

ffs kate

"Ways in which ILX is not like gravity."

or death or taxes

nobody said "ooh, isn't ILX a shiny happy supportive mountain of cuddles"

history mayne was being facetious when he said "ur never lonely with ilx in ur lyfe :)"

^^ gets it

"lyfe", bit of a clue there

And now you laugh at me for becoming the butt of a joke I didn't understand was even a joke.

??????????? I wasn't laughing at you, kate. I was trying to defuse the situation where you were getting defensive. I'm sorry.

cue "i'm not being defensive" post

there is nothing funny to me about your feeling like ILX gangs up on you, and I don't want to contribute to your feeling that way

xpost

I'm sorry, Kate. My post was meant gently but was uncalled for in this forum.

'Sup Eisbaer!

http://www.oneworldprojects.com/pics/totora-boat-pk-2-filled-boats_519x321_78.jpg

Kate, I sincerely, honestly believe that nobody was laughing at you.

Opened this thread because I'm feeling the loneliness too. I wish all of ilx lived in one mythical city. Or that I had a teleporter.

time for everyone to feel the love
http://api.ning.com/files/nw7OPojT0txX7*s2nRtw5wrZgOn-tQBd6OVCzoBayTVOsNCtnc2KQ4zinQyxaXSO89-wJaMmQhN978QbZ0mQ7Qy915SdnIy1/PeaceDove.jpg

had it so bad today at the office. haven't had a conversation that lasted longer than 30 seconds in the past 48 hours.

YMMV, as they say.

and i really didn't know that there was a gamalan thread anywhere on ILX. though i shouldn't really be surprised, right?!?

xp i spent at least 35 secs typing a reply to you on one thread last night, i reckon.

that may be true but I didn't feel it.

many many xposts to laurel:

your post it was not at all inappropriate! you are one of the most interesting and inoffensive posters on here! one of the benefits/drawbacks/characteristics of ILX conversation as opposed to real-life conversation is that there are always people to call you on shit you didn't even know was shit. sometimes merited, sometimes unmerited. but at least in posting here you can receive/give (potentially helpful) criticism and jibes. i sincerely feel that as long as we are practicing common courtesy and civility here, we don't /have/ to bend over backwards for fear of upsetting somebody's neuroses/sore spot/whatever. and that is something we all frequently have to do in IRL convos . In other words: what is posted/shared/overshared here is fair game for conversation, provided, i think that somebody's posts are not deployed or redeployed or quoted or warped with deliberate maliciousness. in other words: knowingly and acknowledgedly neurotic/paranoid people should not set the bar for the conversational tone.

what remy said :-)

(please pretend that i made a little attempt to edit that last post, and that it doesn't look like it was scrawled in coal by a hobo on the back of a cereal box)

what makes mornings so rough (for me, anyway -- maybe for crut too) is that i still live alone. most of my local friends are waking up or en route to work. and since most of the folks i speak to here from ILX are in the USA, they are mostly likely asleep (i live on the East Coast, so if i wake up @ 7AM then obviously it's MUCH earlier elsewhere over here).

plus, sleep is good. it's hard to wake up even during the best of times!

Thank you, thread, for reminding me why I don't talk about personal stuff on ILX any more.

now that i think about it, i don't really like talking about personal stuff at all, so ilx gives me a place to talk about the things i actually enjoy talking about

yeah, i've curtailed it a lot – but from like '03 - '05 ILX was the place I'd go to work through my crap. and it really really helped, TBH.

I would like to do that, but once I was told flat-out that my threads and posts were miserable bummers, so that kind of burned me on going any further.

1001 fantastic flavor combinations got everyone all long in the face.

people can just ignore bummer posters/threads/posts. if it picks you up, post till your heart's content.

Way to OTM, remy.

lonely gal, (over)thinking baot things ;_;

Weekends are becoming a real downer for me, and winter's approaching.

Same here (minus the winter thing of course). I think the work week just has me beat and I gotta get up at 7:00 tmr to do it all over again

That sucks :(

What I also hate is lately due to my situation meaning I'm just destroyig myself with booze and whatnot, I'll waste my entire fscking weekend sitting around hung over and moping when I really have a lot of shit that needs doing. Such as getting furniture rearranged and ready to be moved by the ex. Because he's not doing it is he. :/

fuck that dude

!!

not literally

and the rain doesn't help, either. :-(

I have nothing but terrible luck with guys. Im not sure what I am doing wrong. I was thinking about it this morning. I could write a litany about the horrible things theyve all done. I dont know how I'm not MORE bitter :/

Anyway no Im not turning this into a cheese & whine party sorry.

Oh you're in an actual situation. I'm just being an emo crybaby. Sitting around by myself in my bedroom wishing I could be around ppl tonight, not wanting to go to bed when I know better. And just combing over life, the usual where am I what am I doing, etc. GF just graduated college like two weeks ago and looks like she already has a job in her field lined up, whereas I'm nearly 30 and still working shitgigs like I am at now g00dwill and being fairly unhappy about it.

SAD TIMES CAN SUCK IT LETS ALL BE PARTY AND AWESOME

i'm on AIM now, trayce. feel free to drop in and chat if you'd like. about you, not me. :D

I may a bit later, but I really need to stop sitting on my arse on saturdays heh, so I might actually try and throw myself into some work for the distraction. xx y'all tho.

i am here, trayce.

hope all the lonely ilxors can feel better.

my life is two-tone at the moment, in work everything is fun and laughing and i prob seem like happiest dude in the world. at home and weekends sort of in a rut and lonely. think someone said "work overtime" here before when i mentioned this!

first thing in the morning does suck sometimes ;_;

be lonely with us, ronan!

This is, basically, me since my last band broke up, and nothing else has ever taken its place:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/28/emily-white-loneliness

What is interesting – and perhaps not wholly intentional – in that article is the way in which White ascribes all of the causes of her loneliness to external or passive agencies, i.e., she did not 'overeat or eat poorly and get fat' or perhaps 'keep strange hours and stay up too late' – but instead she is passive bystander while 'her body grows[s] fat' and her 'sleep go[es] haywire'. More pointedly, she refers to the sensation of her 'sense of self' shattering (though what does this mean...?), and she says the greatest/worst component of experience, 'what bothers [her] most' isn't the sensation of loneliness itself, but the fact that 'no one asked [her] what was happening.' No one, that is, among her friends.

This is, to me, what is especially strange about the article: Ms. White has friends who wish to spend time with her. She spends some of her hours "interacting with others" and mentions "friends and relatives" who care enough to notice something is wrong with her – but they do not know exactly what. Her loneliness has been (she tacitly indicates) a topic of conversation, and handled a little dismissively. Or has it? I'm not sure. I can imagine feeling slighted when much of the time I have with a certain friend is occupied by the friend talking about their pervasive, crippling sense of loneliness. While I am with them. As in:

trying-to-be-supportive-friend: 'hey, this thing we're doing is fun'
lonely friend: 'yeah, and it's so sad that i won't be doing anything else like this for a while, because i've not got a lot of people in my life
trying-to-be-supportive-friend: i'm really sorry you feel that way, but remember you're not really that lonely: you've got friends like me,
lonely friend: 'it is too real. i am lonely.'
trying-to-be-supportive-friend: (to self) hey, why should i even bother?

i like to be left alone. i think i've gained a bit of a bad reputation among friends for often turning down opportunities to hang out and stuff -- like, granted i'm a pretty shy dude, but generally, most of the time, i really enjoy being by myself

Loneliness and alienation and that sense of "feeling utterly alone, even while with others" can be a very real and crippling thing, perhaps akin to depression, but not entirely the same as depression, though they have the same effect.

Attitudes like those Remy expresses above are part of what makes it so hard to discuss emotions like these, The message that comes through is: "How dare you feel lonely when I am taking my valuable time to hang out with you." Which makes the sense of guilty for feeling lonely worse. And makes it harder to reach out to a person from whom you feel disconnected.

People don't want to talk about other people's loneliness. It's got this weird double-edged sense of failure about it. The lonely person has failed through being lonely, through coming disconnected from these former friends whose lives she no longer feels anything in common with.

And then when the friend seems to feel both resentful and dismissive about your having brought it up in the first place... it hurts.

I do wonder if Ms White's loneliness and alienation became a trigger for depression - because clinical depression *can* feel like an outside force imposed on you, that takes away your life, makes you slow and fat. It is like a cancer of the mind and emotions in that way.

Remy, i don't think that's fair - i mean, yes, the passiveness of it all is striking, but the bit about friends that you find so odd strikes me as really quite understandable.

"Interacting with others, I had to hide my feeling of marginalisation, and since marginalisation had come to define my life, I wound up hiding most of myself."

I don't think she does tacitly indicate that she tried to talk about it in any depth - I think this means she felt that she couldn't, because she didn't want to be the one dragging the conversation down to herself and her loneliness, because she was afraid that she'd be looked down on for having a problem that wasn't 'real'. She wonders why no-one asked her what was wrong - so she wanted someone else to be concerned and to initiate the conversation for her, someone else to tell her her problem was a thing which had a real effect, because that would mean it was a real problem.

Consider this: perhaps she thought that if she said 'i am lonely and my loneliness is a sinkhole in which i am disappearing; these days i am grown stupid and unlovable and unreal' her friends would feel constrained by it, and treat her differently, and think of her differently, and that she would be less in their eyes for her weakness in the face of something normal like being alone.

and then they would want to spend less time with her, because she was a drag what with her being lonely, and so she would become even more lonely.

well, the fear of telling friends about loneliness -- or some other such feeling -- because you don't want to bum out/piss off/alienate your friends IS a common thing. i don't think you can get too down on her for that.

i understand these feelings. i'm not lonely in a general sense but this early summer is reminding me that it's been too long since i've spent all day saturday in bed with someone. xpost to crushes are awesome lol thread, tmi board and, like, fleetwood fucking mac thred

I had to hide my feeling of marginalisation

Arrggggh! How exactly is one supposed to feel genuine contact with one's fellow humans, when one is withdrawing that which is genuine in oneself? It takes courage to put yourself out there when you are in doubt of your reception, but fuck it, there isn't any way around it. You just have to go through it unitl you get to the other side.

Sometimes there isn't an other side.

Sometimes you just wind up outside, in the cold, by yourself.

with that attitude you will

life is loneliness.

as someone who suffers from clinical depression I understand that it can be extremely difficult to overcome that attitude, but in the end it is essential to your well-being that you do so

i know. you have to keep trying -- even to the point of being annoying or coming off needy. maybe there is some other way, but that's how i've done it lately.

I understand what you guys are saying, but let me know if you still feel the same way when you're 40, and you've been through this thing of moving to a new town and establishing a circle of friends and then watching them drift away as they get husbands and babies and lives, for, like, the 4th or 5th significant time in your life. And then see if you really have the energy to go out and do it all again.

I know I have to kind of pull myself together and go out and establish new interests and try to meet people who share them, but at this point it really does seem like less hassle to just stay in on a Saturday night and watch other people through the one-way glass of the internet.

i am 40, kate. and i've been through the same thing re moving to a new town, watching friends (old and new) drift away absorbed with their new lives. so i speak from some experience. not that we've been through all of the same things -- but i struggle with a lot of the same things it sounds like are getting you down right now.

and believe me, i know ALL ABOUT watching life from a remove -- whether it's a real-life or an Internet window. it sounds lovely in a song in "waterloo sunset," and sometimes it is -- but at the wrong time, it can be sheer hell. so i know.

It just hits harder on the bank holidays, I guess. It just kind of opens up the yawning gulf of time to fill up. And I'm pretty good at filling up time with meaningful (but solitary) activities but that doesn't mean there's not sometimes an ache. Heck, I always thought I'd turn 40 in a bar full of partying friends like 25 and 30 and 35, not utterly by myself in a luxury flat in Cornwall without knowing a single soul in few hundred miles.

Life doesn't always turn out like you'd like it.

And I'm sorry to complain. I know things haven't been easy for you, lately, Eisbaer. I guess it's kind of more meaningful when someone that you know has been down in that shit says to pick yourself up and go on. It's like less of a platitude and more urgent.

well, it's the Memorial Day holiday over here and yes it can hit hardest during holidays of any type (when people our age are with family and stuff). it didn't bother me much till lately. but not to impose too much, but i do think i know some of what you are going through.

sometimes, i think that i am talking as much to myself as to you -- and anyone else. thanks for the kind words -- but talking helps. if you are on AIM, lemme know if you want to talk -- it may do the both of us some good :-)

Never could get AIM to work on this computer. More's the pity.

all i know is, if one doesn't try then one is guaranteed to remain stuck. you can try and still remain stuck, too -- but you may not either. again, i am talking to myself as much as i am to you or anyone else -- trying to convince myself of all of this. some days, i feel like willpower is all that is keeping me going. it is tough, i know.

You know, reading some of this thread has riled me up, but this is a good thing because it makes me realise: we each own our own feelings and reactions. Theyre not an external force thrust upon us. The *situations* are, yes - but our feelings and reactions to any situation are our own, and only we can alter them. No one else can turn a switch that makes you happy. No one else is the reason you sit up at 3am imagining a scenario in yr mind that never even happened. No one else can save you from the nostalgia or the "whens it get better". And no one should - because if you rely on that to haul you out and then they cut the rope and walk off, you'll fall back into the hole (like I just did).

So stuff it, I'll fix this myself.

Other people don't exist, they are a figment of your mind. Just like everything else in the universe.

Eisbaer is absolutely right: life is lonely. And it can be lonely in the midst of great happiness, friendship, romance.... what have you. I'd posit myself: in a happy relationship, near to family (both physically and emotionally), in a productive and creative and expansive phase in my life, and still – at not uncommon intervals – full of that lonely feeling (haha, Jonathan Richman's 'Summer Feeling') that sneaks up from behind and smacks me with the subtlety of a Mack truck. I have lately become savvy that the new 'lonely' isn't different in its constitute elements or effects or expression from the loneliness of five years past. And that particular emo-saga I experienced then, while semi-homeless, unemployed, deeply indebted, habitually single, overweight, and three thousand miles from my intimate circle. The key (and significant) difference between my Bad Times Then and my occasional Bad Times Now is in the fact that I can't ascribe my current bad feelings to anything but an internal discontent. But... the feelings Now are the same as they were Then. So what do I interpret this to mean.? I'd like to think that the parallel characters of loneliness (in happy circumstances) and loneliness (in sad circumstances) don't devalue the legitimacy of feeling in either case (although it does suggest both are equally absurd, and in no way special or unique to me – just conditions of the human experience), but instead demonstrates how much they are internally motivated phenomenon rather than situationally induced.

It is sometimes easier to see things more clearly about yourself when you're attempting to give advice to another person. It makes sense.

But I often think, looking at mine own life, that such significant portions of it have been spent in a state of aloneness. That what I should really do is stop trying, stop struggling, and accept and try to reconcile myself to this state. That it is my natural state, and that to be alone doesn't mean necessarily that one has to be lonely.

Because I've spent so much of my life trying to built community, trying to put things and people together but it's this constant feeling of never quite fitting in, even to a hole I've specifically designed. I'm just not naturally a joiner.

I sometimes just think that in my case at least, acceptance is a better approach. That it's a better direction for me to channel *my* willpower in than pining after something that used to be but couldn't be maintained.

x-posts to Eisbaer

Sometimes you just wind up outside, in the cold, by yourself.

I must point out that this observation, however true it may be, does not constitute a reason for giving up. See also: "nothing ventured, nothing gained".

If you are happy in your own company and feel no need for the companionship of others, then one may simply choose whether or not to put oneself out. But, if you would like to form bonds and attachments with others, there's just no option but trying to reach out, as best you know how.

^ truth

I am about to try to reach out by sitting at a bar alone through two drinks. gonna see how that works out.

i can't put any better than Aimless just did. it's tough even during the best of times -- it's even tougher when times aren't good for whatever reason. all i can say is that while i've had my share of slaps/doors slammed in my face, i've also had pleasant surprises (at times when i had no logical reason to expect such pleasant surprises) when i've reached out to others. you can't expect such surprises as a matter of course -- my philosophy has always been, "expect the worst so that if you are surprised at least it will be a pleasant surprise" -- but i know that it can happen b/c it's happened in my own life.

on a related note: good luck, crut.

hell, you don't even have to go into yer loneliness per se. just TALK, INTERACT -- find something at all, even if it's just dumb small talk shit.

Crut: I did this once many years back when I hit a point living in Melb where I didnt know anyone much, except for online. So one night I just forced myself to go to a club on my own where I knew at least some online ppl might be. I made myself strike up conversations with random people, and it was terrifying... but heck on a bun, it worked. I suddenly had a social group.

it may be best to go to a local neighborhood bar/pub ... as opposed to a big meat market (if there are such places where you live, crut).

how did it work out, crüt?

did you say BOLIVIAN BASKET WEAVING?!?!

seriously -- i'm a marginal character here at best and even i have found some company in ILX whilst feeling lonely.

Dude i know, maybe i shld investigate. Might be up my knitting loving alley

Anyway hugs to all u lonely guys n girls. Love u tons

had it so bad today at the office. haven't had a conversation that lasted longer than 30 seconds in the past 48 hours.

Oh man. :-(((((((((((( I am so fucking lucky: husband kids and friends. I wish we lived closer so we cld talk shit

i envy friends w/ family for that reason. it causes other stresses -- like having to support kids, etc. but you also have someone there to talk to when needed (assuming that you get along w/ your spouse of course).

What enabled me to feel less lonely (make friends): my hobbies. First music and now knitting.

Eisbär, kids actually put your relationship to the test. Not ours actually/thankfully.

how did it work out, crüt?

wound up getting a call from former ILX poster and what and we had drinx, wound up being a decent evening

yeah, i've seen that happen with some of my friends -- and my parents too (they've admitted that to me lately). not just the expense (which is substantial), but the emotions and the responsibility that they impose (or SHOULD impose).

wound up getting a call from former ILX poster and what and we had drinx, wound up being a decent evening

excellent! even w/ the argument with the pro-lifer?!?

yeah, my self-righteousness helped get shii off my mind

then diversions seem to be key -- esp. diversions caused by other people!

xxxpost to Masonic Boom, I can totally relate to your thoughts although for me its not just the passive drifting of friends due to outside factors but my active (unconscious?) pushing apart of friendships helping things along.

Plain old lonely is very different from lonely + moderate-severe mental illness- the latter requires much more than a few lines of William James type platitudes and getting out and about. Ive been where you are, at least as much as one can be, kia kaha.

Nearly everyone wants human companionship,although in some circumstances I guess its not in everyones best interests, actually how often that is true Im not so sure. anyway was out for a hill trail run yesterday and came across this inscription and thought it captured the lonely , Shakespeare and running threads as one...

"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a"

Thanks, kiwi.

I suppose it's not just passive drifting. Though it's not entirely active pushing out (though I certainly put my hand up to having been guilty of that in the past.) Over the past couple of years, after seeing a couple of really valuable (non-romantic) relationships fall part in a way that was quite hurtful, I guess I went through a kind of... I wouldn't say "purge" per se. But I was feeling quite one-sided in so many friendships, like I felt that I was putting way more effort and organisation into seeing them than they were into seeing me. So one day I just stopped. Like, I just thought "If these people care about me, then they'll find the time to come chasing me, instead."

But the thing about putting people through tests like that is, you may not like the answers you get. People I thought were close friends just didn't. And I think that's what triggered the inwards collapse. And then the rest of the connections went. It's like the sucking gravitational mass of a collapsing star that just pulls you further and further in upon yourself til you get to the point where you can no longer accept friendship from people even when it's offered.

But yeah. It's hard. And very not helpful when people kind of mumble platitudes at you about "stop whinging and just go down the pub and meet some people" - you know, if that were the solution, don't you think I would have done that 20 years ago?

Blah blah blah I'm repeating myself and I hate that. Sorry for oversharing.

Damn. It's when I post things like that that I wish ILX had a delete/edit button like other forums do. :-(

what this thread really needs is a link to Scooter's song "I'm Lonely".

Thought you meant this guy for a moment:

http://www.triv.org/fat-charlie/images-muppets_scooter.gif

thanks Abbott ... that pic actually livened my day a bit!

And very not helpful when people kind of mumble platitudes at you about "stop whinging and just go down the pub and meet some people"

for the record I never meant this w/anything I said ^^

I didn't think you did. But there are plenty of people (including some on ILX) who have basically said that.

Scooter's jacket is awesome. Is it wrong that I'd totally wear that?

it is wrong if someone wouldn't wear that imo

The crucial difference between the "quite whinging and go meet people" advice and more palateable formulations of the same thing isn't really one of substance so much as tone. If it were easy for you and those in a similar situation to "just do it", you would have just done it ages ago without any trouble and with hardly a thought. That needs to be acknowledged and respected.

The difficulty you feel is obv quite real and it's a formidable obstacle that should not be dismissed as trivial or "all in your head" or anything like that. But at the end of the day, you still have to meet and talk to someone if you want a relationship with them. How you get there is the barrier you have to get past.

I am very lucky to have escaped loneliness. It was a near-run thing as they say. So I do know how hard this can be. I can remember vomiting on the way to a party where I didn't know many people, purely out of nerves at having to face that roomful of strangers and be sociable and charming.

aimless just gotta say...your efforts to advise and help people (almost always spot on advice imo, tho weirdly i always almost know what you will say in advance, i guess sometimes the answers to problems are clear but you need others to articulate them back to you) on ilx are really valuable, you should be proud of yourself.

aimless just gotta say...your efforts to advise and help people (almost always spot on advice imo, tho weirdly i always almost know what you will say in advance, i guess sometimes the answers to problems are clear but you need others to articulate them back to you) on ilx are really valuable, you should be proud of yourself.

― I see what this is (Local Garda), Monday, May 31, 2010 3:29 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^^^ this. and not just here, but just about everywhere else i've read your posts Aimless.

find someone, Kate, ANYONE you know well -- and reach out. i know it's tough and that there are a zillion reasons that you can come up w/ to NOT try to reconnect. and success is not guaranteed. but you may be pleasantly surprised -- and you won't know till you try.

i know that this is glib, and you may have already done that. if you haven't, though, please do so as soon as you can.

xpost

I'm 55 years old. I ought to be good for something by now. ;-)

btw, thanks. It's nice to think I am appreciated, even if I do what i do for my own reasons. call it bhuddist cyber-compassion. it helps me, too.

ack... buddhist

And very not helpful when people kind of mumble platitudes at you about "stop whinging and just go down the pub and meet some people"

for the record I never meant this w/anything I said ^^

― ᵒ always toasted, never fried (crüt), Monday, May 31, 2010 11:38 AM (1 hour ago)

I didn't think you did. But there are plenty of people (including some on ILX) who have basically said that.

Scooter's jacket is awesome. Is it wrong that I'd totally wear that?

― Using an Aural Exciter in an Orgone Accumulator (Masonic Boom), Monday, May 31, 2010 11:57 AM (1 hour ago)

I actually don't recall anybody saying that anywhere on this thread.

the one thing where i still need help is morning loneliness. as in, how do i combat that feeling when i wake up in the morning and need to get going (and don't want to feel dragged down). tips and pointers would be really great here.

other than, "get a girlfriend/wife you can whine to when you wake up." XD

get a boyfriend you can whine to when you wake up

Have somewhere to be. I have to assume not working (or working from home?) may leave you without a forced starting point maybe?

I know the only thing that gets me going is having to go to work, some days.

Even if its "go to a regular cafe every morning for a coffee and danish and do some research" maybe. I dunno ...

The only thing that used to get me out of bed on weekdays was Achewood...thank god I don't rely on that anymore, or I'd be out of bed once every two weeks.

as it turns out, i do have somewhere to be (other than the local coffee shops) both tomorrow and Wednesday. lately, i've been waking up pretty early (for me) so that gives me time before i shower/get to doing whatever i need to do that day. i guess the trick is to NOT let myself get down during that time period.

i hope i'm not sounding whiny ... though i am a bit clueless here. XD

I can't recall having any difficulty with present loneliness, but I did have a really hard time with future loneliness. How silly is that. I always tend to worry about future (non-existent) problems. :-(

Morning is the one time I'm quite happy to be alone. It's really quite a relief not to have anyone around to complain about my grouchiness or get in the bathroom when I need the shower or whatever. Very rarely feel lonely in the mornings. Late at night is my lonely time.

(That said, having a partner is no defense against loneliness of the kind we're talking about. Some of the loneliest times I've ever had in my life were while technically with a partner.)

Anyway. I am (apparently) going to a party tonight. Which I am kind of dreading, but we shall see.

And I'm going on a road trip with a friend's band next weekend. Roadtrips are good when you're feeling socially weird because there's always stuff to do like read the map and play with the radio which are guaranteed to start conversations. (Well, sometimes fights, but mostly just conversations.)

I wonder if being an only child helped me in feeling less lonely than others? Or maybe because I have a shop (or run my parents' to be precise) gives me an overdose of human interaction?

A road trip sounds awesome!

I want to do a houseboat trip with my friends! I reckon it'd be fun. Or go mad. Or both.

thanks for the advice, everyone!

True love will find you in the end
You'll find out just who was your friend
Don’t be sad, I know you will,
But don’t give up until
True love finds you in the end.

This is a promise with a catch
Only if you're looking will it find you
‘Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
Unless you step out into the light?
But don’t give up until
True love finds you in the end.

^ all everybody needs to know, to be honest

Except it doesn't. That song is a low down dirty lie. What usually finds you in the end is just death.

Oh, and to make things even worse, I realise that I plagiarised that off a friend - who doesn't bother to talk to me any more.

there is no such thing as just death

"only death" then.

death is the end of life, how you live your life is a choice only you can make.

True love is still a fucking lie dreamed up to keep hysterical teenage girls and lonely middle aged men from throwing themselves off cliffs. It's an absolutely useless concept and an incredibly damaging one.

throwing oneself off cliffs is a less useful concept.

and more damaging, one would imagine.

and by usefulness - what is the goal that you believe one is trying to achieve? that which the concept of true love fails?

Really getting this lately. My problem has always been severe (and I mean SEVERE) shyness and social anxiety, partly just a natural part of me and partly from a pretty hellish adolescence. I never felt like I belonged anywhere, and it was made very explicitly clear to me that I wasn't welcome, so I kind of shut down socially until I could get away from the south and to a decent-sized city for college in the hopes of meeting more people like myself and starting a real life. It turned out that not attending a traditional campus-based school was a mistake, and I was so unable to interact with other people that I fucked up academically and retreated even further into myself. I dropped out to get my shit together, and that turned into six years of sitting around doing nothing because I felt like a worthless freak, and any kind of ambition or drive had been killed off when I failed out of school. Now I've finally gotten.a job that gets me out of Alabama again and back to civilization, and I'm really feeling the loss of that chunk of my life. If anything I'm even more socially awkward than I was at 19, and I have no contact with anyone outside of work or family, both very small groups of people I don't have anything in common with.

and there I go again, making people uncomfortable. What the fuck was I thinking...

I'm really feeling the loss of that chunk of my life

Don't look back...Before about 40, it's completely natural to make lots of different 'mistakes' - directions in life that turn into dead ends. Don't get hung up on them or blame yourself - just move on and try a different direction.

telephone thing, i read your post and wasn't at all uncomfortable, i just didn't know how to respond without sounding trite and platitudinous, but here goes. many people have experienced these kinds of feelings. i have. the most damaging thing about them is that they feed the kind of self-obsession that drives people away further. what i have learned to do is to not expect much from other people, and to try to be kind and helpful and compassionate, and to grab any lols i can along the way. also to give myself a break when i feel terrible, instead of berating myself and adding self-loathing to my troubles.

Ay Telephone Thing, I can relate to a ~lot~ of that. Flunking out, pissing away years of time, ambition lost to imagined helplessness and to a hardening toward much of the world (etc/complicated), being originally from a place I felt I didn't have much business being from (for lack of better/more tactful ways of putting it). I was lucky enough to have a way out of that, I was lucky enough to find great friends who were approximately as goonsquad as myself; there's hope and it can be done. And man the anxieties, too--those were huge for me and took a lot of eye-of-the-tigering my way up and over them. I'm better off socially than I was as a teenager which I attribute entirely to willpower and just shoehorning myself into social situations so as not to let my antisocial tendencies calcify and take over (alcohol=something of a lubricant tbh). I mean I really had to grit my teeth and say "ok, there're those feelings again, and those feeling is wrong, and I am moving forward." And I didn't cure myself but I can ~comfortably function~ in a bajillion more social situations now.

Dudes like us can get past these things. It takes a certain willingness. And it has to happen in our own time. Estela isn't wrong, either.

feelings are wrong... and other typos I may have dropped.

Just moved to Stillwater Oklahoma for my work. I will be here until after christmas. I had to leave my cat Lilly at my mom's house. She usually travels with me, but I couldn't arrange an apartment before I came here. The only person I know is my labor stewart. It's going to be a long summer.

ugh, oklahoma. hang in there, man

you too, phone thing

I do like the rolling fields of wheat, corn and rye, but that brings me little comfort at night.

I'm really feeling the loss of that chunk of my life.

Stop regretting the past, focus on the future. Really. For the longest time I felt really bad because I was a failure - I dropped out of university, couldn't live up to the expectations of my mom, was never any good at anything... But y'know fuck that shit, I stopped caring. (Well, most of the time anyway. I have waves of anxiety and insecurity.) I never felt as bad as you when it came to social interaction, but I can definitely understand. Thing is, only you can change that. And you have to realize you can. Hugs.

the most damaging thing about them is that they feed the kind of self-obsession that drives people away further.

This is OTFM btw.

I was like this a little bit at some stage in life but better now. There was a revelation of some sort but I can't really put it to words something like the more you care about yourself it seems the less people care about you, I guess?

Hell yeah.

My mum said something to me once years ago that has always stuck with me.

"No matter how much you worry about what other people think of you - they just don't. They're too busy worrying about themselves, they don't give a shit about you tbh".

"No matter how much you worry about what other people think of you - they just don't. They're too busy worrying about themselves, they don't give a shit about you tbh".

this is so very true.

and telephone thing: i read your post this weekend as well. i didn't say anything b/c i didn't really know how to respond w/t quoting cliches and giving you what may be useless-sounding advice. if it helps any, though, i also was a college drop-out -- i was also extremely fortunate in that i found a job that paid for a significant portion of my tuition (as a part-time student), i was able to graduate and went on with my life. i know that you may not be so fortunate, but it's not too late if that's what you want to do. try to reach out to others outside of your work and family (since you say that you don't feel that you have much in common with them). and don't be a stranger here or elsewhere on ILX, if you think that that will help.

"No matter how much you worry about what other people think of you - they just don't. They're too busy worrying about themselves, they don't give a shit about you tbh".

Yeah! An Australian friend of mine once quoted me something like that, "Don't worry about what other people are thinking about you -- they're not. They're too busy thinking about themselves, JUST LIKE YOU ARE."

always wondered what people thought about me. turns out "nothin"? bummer!

98% of the time it's a comforting thought.

My mom said a similar thing, but worded it more like, "You're not interesting enough for others to care about, so don't worry that they're thinking about you or judging you. You're too boring for them to even bother." Thanks, mom!

How to make yourself more interesting to others:

http://www.louisebova.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/turkeyhelmetJPG.jpg

Your mom is not otm and sounds like a right meanie. xp

It's so mean that it is funny to me all these years on. Moms!

My mom said a similar thing, but worded it more like, "You're not interesting enough for others to care about, so don't worry that they're thinking about you or judging you. You're too boring for them to even bother." Thanks, mom!

Man, as a mom, I don't think I cld even get these mean words to part my lips. That is so fucking hurtful. And untrue.

How terribly sad! It ought to be an injunction against disproportionate self-involvement, NOT some kind of put-down. I mean the point of freeing yourself from thinking about yourself is to have MORE fun in lyfe, not to feel like crap.....

maybe she meant the same thing but just wasn't as eloquent as trayce's mum, she probably knew that she wasn't, but just didn't think that anybody else cared.

Yeah, it's exactly that, ken. I mean if she's actively trying to knock me down in front of others, it's by doing really goofy zings, like saying, "Abbott is a really great cook. She can make great ice water!" I

i thought that i knew some personal examples of tough-love, but that is pretty harsh. though probably well-meaning?!?

c'mon, i'm a misanthrope and I worry about people sometimes!

Oh dont get me wrong my mum prob put it more in the "yr too boring" way as well, now I think about it haha! But. She would have meant in the universal sense ie you = everyone. We're all boring in the end, I mean we arent't, but... well you know.

Other people're fascinating! So detailed, and independent, and a lot of the time they have vaginas... my Mum's a bit like this, but she got stuck in a stupid marriage so I take it w a grain of salt

a lot of the time they have vaginas... my Mum's a bit like this, but she got stuck in a stupid marriage so I take it w a grain of salt
― The reverse TARDIS of pasta (Niles Caulder), Friday, June 4, 2010 10:25 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

o_O

a grain of sand

lonely nightz

so lonely it feels normal

we're here so don't be lonely ;D

Same here--my husband's in another dead depressed phase, so he's emotionally out of reach for a while.

And Curt1$, it looks like you'll need one of these tonight *kiss*

Pretty great All In The Mind show on loneliness and how social-neuro-psychology intertwines with it.

Feeling this badly tonight. Thought I had plans, turned out I'm on my own again. Not so many friends in London, and the ones I do have all have kids and there is no social scene any more. I've been sulking too much to get out and try to make new friends, and my unpredictable work schedule makes even joining any clubs or classes really tricky.

I just want a cuddle, haven't even got a cat.

<3

*hug*

I hear ya on this, Z. London is hard like that, especially as one gets older.

Since I no longer have a job any more, I'm realising how much I let my social life just slide while I was working at that awful place. (Partly not having the time to do meeting people stuff, partly being so often too angry to want to meet new people.) I mean, I'm naturally quite introverted so I can go for long periods without speaking to anyone. But I went to class tonight, and I realised it was the first time I'd had a conversation in days.

I know I'm no consolation in the way of cuddles or cats, but if you ever want to get together and talk mad art schemes, my time is much as flexible as it can be at the moment?

Thanks everyone. WCC, you know what, I would really like that. It seems such a waste to be in London and *not* be talking about mad art schemes!

I'm working in Liverpool all next week but I'll try to get your attention somehow when I get back. Yay!

That would be rlly cool. I'll DM you a working email address, and you can get in touch with me whenever.

Cool, very cool. Let me know which bits of town are convenient for you. I commute from Putney to either Canary Wharf or Dartford, so right across the middle is easy enough for me.

Zora, hugs. I have been going to bed with a hot water bottle lately in absence of cat.

aw <3 hwi (or) genowgh (or) dhywgh

Is that Cornish?

Hugs ljubljana!

yes? i was just quoting wcc -- they are second-person plural pronouns, ie <3 y'all

It would actually be ragowgh to mean "to or for you (pl)" but thanks for the sentiment. My a gar. :)

I actually live SW so Putney/Wandsworth/Clapham are all good for me (or indeed Central London)

I'm just having one of those "woe is me" mornings when I'm feeling so out of time. Like ~women my actual age~ are all only interested in chatting about partners and children, when I just want to chat about synths and pop music and cuet boys - but the only ppl who want to talk about that are actual high schoolers. And there's nothing wrong with being a high schooler, but there's just this massive gap of experience and you realise they don't want you around or joining in their LOLs because you're like their parents' age and it's actually pretty creepy for you to be still doing this, as far as they're concerned. And, y'know, they're kinda right.

Which I then feel stupid about feeling bad about. Like, I know that some people are born the same age as everyone else, and just carry on having the interests of their peer group, so when they're teenagers they like pop groups and when they're middle aged they stop liking music and start liking middle aged interests. And then there are other people who just have ~their interests~ and although you might get older and mature because of your experiences, but you don't "grow up" in the same way. And my interests at 15 were odd and age inappropriate for a teenager, and my interests at 40 are still odd and age inappropriate, and why should that bother me?

But then I remember that in many ways, internet messageboards heighten the feeling of loneliness rather than allay it. I should go to the park or something but it's freezing. Anyway. Blah.

Cataloguing the different varieties of melancholy. This is not depression, this is the soul-crushing emptiness of loneliness. And you just want to stave it off with light-hearted chatter - whether that's depictions of sexuality in Brideshead Revisited or Thom Yorke's trousers, but there's that crashing nothingness which makes you feel worse sometimes than even being told off for talking about that stupid shit. And that drops you down a trapdoor into sadness you can't even fathom. And there's nothing, and there's no one.

And you can just imagine what ppl are thinking "God that chick is so annoying when she talks about dumb shit like Thom Yorke's ass but jesus christ she's even worse when she admits how lonely she is, why doesn't she just shut up and go the fuck away?"

Yeah, I know.

WCC, you absolutely need someone who cares about how you slept, how you are feeling, and whether you'd like a spot of milk in that tea or usually take a dash of lemon and one lump. This is a fundamental human need and it strongly appears this need is not being met in your case.

So, here is the good news. Because this need is so nearly universal among us, you have an enormous pool of people who might potentially serve that need. The size of the pool does require that you do quite a lot of sampling to maintain quality control, but it is certain you can find what you need if you are willing to make some effort. If you are, like me, an introvert, the number of samples you can take in a day is limited, but not so few that you can't obtain desireable results. You just have to be more efficient. Rehearse a bit mentally, then practise on shop clerks until you feel more at ease.

The main trick is reciprocation. Show you care somewhat about someone and see if they reciprocate at all. Just develop a knack for asking them how they are doing and then listen to their answer. This tells you quite a lot about them and their reciprocating tendencies. Right there you can establish an initial basis for friendship. To develop that basis, try sharing some mutual activities. Add in a dash of reciprocal va-va-voom and you could really go places.

The main trick is reciprocation. Show you care somewhat about someone and see if they reciprocate at all. Just develop a knack for asking them how they are doing and then listen to their answer. This tells you quite a lot about them and their reciprocating tendencies. Right there you can establish an initial basis for friendship. To develop that basis, try sharing some mutual activities. Add in a dash of reciprocal va-va-voom and you could really go places.

This is so beautiful and true!

the ones I do have all have kids

Since having kids I have lost contact with so many. Maybe you can ask your friends if you can visit'em at home?

x-post to aimless. You know, I've done this. I've done this multiple times, building up a friendship, and getting that kind of rapour and making the effort and establishing the mutual caring and remembering the small things thing. And then the other person moves to California. Or Sweden. Or gets a boyfriend and stops returning your calls until you just give up on them, and then you read, like a year later in the newspaper that they've got married and you weren't even invited. So it's not that I don't know how to do these things, it's just that the transitory nature of modern life sweeps these people out of my life and the older you get, the harder it is and the slower it takes to replace them.

So, like, I don't aim high any more. I don't want to establish that special friendship with someone, only to have them up and move to the States. Again. I just want to post gifs of pop stars making dumb faces and go "ha ha that is a dumb face." But I guess ILX is not the place for that any more, and I should just get a tumblr and pretend to be 18 so no one thinks it's weird that I still post pictures of pop stars.

Go ahead and do it on ilx, if you like. There is scope here. We embrace multitudes. And there's nothing wrong with 'ha ha that is a dumb face". I was just responding to a perceived dissatisfaction you had with that approach. Something about unfathomable sadness, iirc.

I've very recently become unemployed and I'm having a hard time adjusting, I think that's having a lot to do with the unfathomable sadness feeling. You don't realise how much of a structure a day job provides, even if you hate it, until it's gone and you have to find some kind of structure - oddly, weekends are actually harder than weekdays.

Here is your golden opportunity to go on a personal crusade. Find a vacant lot to clean up. Start a campaign against disposable nappies. Enlighten the cyberworld about your love for Thom Yorke's dorsal-mid-region. Bring back public phone booths. Have the local cigarette kiosk declared a World Heritage Site. Write a strongly worded letter to the editor. You know, be English!

All those are good suggestions. Esp the dorsal mid-region. I'll try and think of something. Probably architectural sketch related.

Sorry. Probably not the best response to "I've very recently become unemployed and I'm having a hard time adjusting." However, poorly structured, even random, activity may be better for your mental outlook atm than any amount of inactivity.

No, I didn't think it was a bad response at all! It's way better than the usual "so are you sending out CVs and applications" type response, thinking of like, odd stuff that could fill one's days with small and petty and English but ultimately satisfying meaning. It's the kind of thing that would appeal to me way more than "have you been down the Jobcentre"

For your amusement I offer the following non-lonliness-related screed I penned 9 years ago to another job-seeker, nervous about a job interview. It appeared on a defunct board named Mindless Prattle:

---

The first thing you should know is that the so called 'real' world is no more 'real' than the world you and I live in. It is merely more painful, that is all. Simple-minded people often credit pain as granting life a greater measure of reality than it otherwise incorporates. Stuff and nonsense! Pain is just hard to ignore, whereas ignorance is the primary state of such effigies of humankind.

A sufficiently subtle person (such as I take you to be) will carefully discriminate between "occupation", "employment" and "a job". I beg you to take note of their differences.

What is "a job" (apart from an abomination)? After careful observation, I take it to be a fruitless and pointless repetition of the same or similar activities, mysterious in intent, and utterly remote from one's own devices.

We are often encouraged to take pride in a job well done, but why? I surmise it is because all emotions, pride included, have a facility for attaching themselves to objects or activities willy-nilly, just as baby chicks might imprint upon an alarm clock, a handpuppet or any other rubbish as a surrogate mother. Thus, the presence of inapt pride in our jobs may cloak from us (in part) our more natural feelings of
pain and disgust at their idiocy.

Employment, I would have you notice, is somewhat more neutral. It is supplied to us, as motion is supplied to a cat's paw. But woe betide the person who is "employed" in this way by another! I have always preferred to employ myself, usually in such delightful pastimes as scratching and spitting, neither of which can be done too much.

Finally, occupation is what comes most naturally to those such as you and I. It comes as naturally as breathing (a very healthful and sensible occupation). I find that, no matter what, I am fully occupied with something or other. It matters little what. I have sometimes been occupied for several hours picking at some bit of food stuck between my teeth.

If you are so foolhardy as to seek employment at the hands of another, and an interview is required, then whatever you do, pay no attention to the pernicious and ill-considered advice peddled by the employment quacks and shills. They give the worst possible advice, tatamount to pandering and procuring for the bosses of this world.

An interview is, quite logically, an exchange of views; keep it that way. Come to every interview equipped with a steamer trunk full of assorted views of your own devising. Sow the air thick with them. Make mortally certain that your potential employer is acquainted with your views upon as many subjects as possible. The purpose of this is to weed out the unattractive employers early in the game.

But, under no circumstances should you reveal to your potential employers any whiff of servility, self-doubting or self-loathing. Get a good grip around the neck of your base, cringing, sniveling self and throttle it deader than a whippet on a pikestaff. Both you and your employer will benefit greatly by this arrangement.

By all means, skirt any employment that you deem base, vile, or unbecoming to one of your grace and attainments. If forced into such employment by base, vile or unbecoming circumstances, then you must simply rise above, that's all. If that fails, there is always single malt scotch as a fallback.

Ha ha, that reads like Dickens. In a good way. I shall bookmark it for use when I have to come back to seeking employment at the hands of others.

Also you have reminded me that I never did pour that glass of Talisker so I shall now do so.

:(

I feel ya man. I have like 2 local friends atm. And if they both are busy (or uninterested) I have to go to a concert by myself or with a family member

Sorry to hear, jed.

Fuck man. Protip: never talk to a socially successful extravert when you're already feeling like your social life's probably done for the rest of your life.

:(

you're a cool dude, gott punch 2 hawkwind

seconded

feeling you too, but hang in there dude, everything is impermanent

Fuck the loneliness away with a bit of melancholic jazz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-EBTbiOvZY

didn't Kaoru Abe commit suicide at a relatively young age?

Drug overdose.

Hey you guys thanks, y'all are nice. Been a shitty week.

Also thanks for reminding me to check out more Abe/Takyanagi.

There are only 3 CDs - 'Gradual...' is the quiet-ish thing, not too many dashes of melancholia on that one.

they were reissued about 6 years ago, right? a friend of mine wrote a review about them for the local weekly - he moved to the other side of the country a couple years ago; i miss that guy a lot.

About 5 years for sure - not sure whether these were ever issued in the first place? - both the Projection CDs are accompained by wonderful photographs.

So. This. Again.

Lonely and insomnia is a bad combination.

Wish there were some drug one could take that would just shut down the social connection centre of the brain so one could survive without it.

Why must I keep going on in this intolerable half-life? Why can't I just get the courage to just shut up and die / go away permanently / etc?

Feel like a ghost in my own life.

Oh k7, that shit hurts.

It does. And you are a beautiful and lovely person for recognising and acknowledging that.

I find tackling the insomnia helps a lot with the loneliness, otoh Ambien addiction beckons.

I thought my mum was going to post me some melatonin but she never did. I had some luck with the white noise machine, and got a couple of weeks of good sleep. But this week, it's gone to hell again. I think the brain-rattle is causing the insomnia right now, not the other way around.

i can't think of anything you probably haven't tried but i know how horrible insomnia can be, and it impacts on all your other thoughts and moods way more than you realise. hope you get rid soon.

I've emailed you wcc. I'm crap company atm but if you don't mind that, we could hang out a bit.

Melatonin is quite cheap in the states and you can get it any any drugstore without an rx. Not the case there?

Prescription only, here. And the Chemist looked at me like I had three heads when I asked for it. In a country where I can buy enough codeine to kill a horse with no one even blinking. Priorities, right?

I am no longer lonely tonight. I have a new girlfriend named Shiraz.

I will try not to be too hungover tomorrow, Z, but you never know.

Wow rx melatonin. My parents used to dose me with that stuff all the time when I was a little kid. In fact my dad thought it was some crazy panacea smart drug and wanted to administer it for all kids of ills.

About a year ago, I started listening to comedy podcasts on earbuds before going to sleep. It really enabled me to relax and it stopped the constant worrying that kept me from sleeping. At a certain point in the night, I get to that "half sleep" state and toss the earbuds away. I don't know if It takes me longer to get to sleep, but it keeps me from thinking about all the fucked up shit in my life for 30 minutes or so is nice.

Feel like a ghost in my own life.

this

Feel you, Z. I'm okay at the moment, but have felt like this for much of the year. Haven't got anything helpful to say, but, you know, take this as a fist-bump of recognition and acknowledgment.

Thank you fizzles. I'm glad you're ok atm.

I might well be ok tomorrow, but right now I feel like I'm worse than invisible. Worthless. I just don't want to be alive and feel like this, and I don't think anyone would really miss me. I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see knives.

I've been here before and it passes, so I'm not in any real danger. I'm just hanging on. Later today I will go to my sister's and put a brave face on, keep it there for the rest of Christmas, and hopefully by the new year it won't be just a face.

good luck z <3

if you're able to elaborabe, we're listening intently and will try our best to help. If not, you can always follow your instincts; they're good ones.

Kept thinking of you today, Zora.

Best wishes, Zora (and Fizzles). It's not a good time of year for this feeling.

I've felt it before and I may soon be feeling a lot more of it, but that's not one for a publicly-viewable board...

Thank you everyone. Elaboration, eh, well, it's nothing new or unusual. My mum died on Dec 21st 5 years ago, the same year my marriage ended, last Dec I lost that pregnancy as you all kno, well at the same time one of my cousins conceived, so her baby is now a month younger than mine would have been. I'm meeting him for the first time on Boxing Day, and I'm terrified I'll cry in front of the whole tribe. My dad has just decided that he'll leave his estate to my sister's kids, skipping my sister and I, and I just turned 41 and didn't get any birthday cards at all. I always seem to be throwing parties for other people's birthdays and spending mine in front of the TV. I have no sense that I'll ever feel well enough to work again. I'm like - I have thought about it hard and I don't think I care a bit about not inheriting my dad's house etc. It's just that a) I don't want to think about him dying because losing one parent is bad enough and b) I feel like the world has already moved beyond me; I've been written off, just a kind of odd stump on the family tree. It adds an extra ache to missing my ma. She never let me feel forgotten. And damn Christmas, and damn the Hobbit film, which would have been her best thing ever, and fuck her not being here to talk about it.

Anyway. Chin up, old girl. Nobody loves a sorrypants, and the knife thing can gtfo.

I hope you're all having good, happy Christmases, if you celebrate it. spacecadet, err... that sounds bad. A priori best wishes to you. x

Oh Zora! That's a whole lot to hit at once. Thinking of you.

I don't really know what to say, but Zora my heart goes out to you cos that sounds like a horrible bunch of stuff to deal with all at once, and I wish you all the strength to get through it for the next short while. Both you and spacecadet seem to be damn fine people - please know that I am rooting for you both!

this time of year is always so inexplicably horrible

hugs to zora and a passing spacecadet

I'm ok! just relationship issues which are making me totally up+down but compared to Zora's list, well, I feel bad for feeling bad. Agreed abt the time of year though.

(clouds, from yr recent posts on the Blue Saturday thread it sounds like you could use some hugs too, though I don't know the details. best wishes to you too)

Sending good wishes to all who are having an anxious time this year when it should be relatively easygoing, quiet..

Big hugs to fizzles, passing spacecadet, clouds, and everyone else going thru a difficult time....

I don't recall if Zora wrote about her relationship with her dad in this space, but is it just me, or is astoundingly rude and insensitive to gift his entire estate to his other daughter's kids given the circumstances here? Don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to will their estate to whomever you wish for whatever reason they may have, and if you like one of your kids better than the other, you can give the everything you own to the other kid if that's what pleases you. But what we have here is a man with two daughters, one who has children, and the other who tried extremely hard to overcome biological impediments to have a child, spending nearly all of her available funds for fertility treatment, but was ultimately unsucessful. Maybe there's more to the story than I know, but to skip Zora's side of the family because she didn't give him grandchildren seems like intentionally rubbing salt into already deep wounds. (LMK if i'm going somewhere I shouldn't be, but I think these are all things you've posted here and I'm just connecting dots; apologies in advance if i'm misstating anything).

Anyway, that's just way more than anyone should have to deal with at one time, and I so wish there was something I could do from afar that would be of any help. I know there probably isn't, but if you ever again get to thinking that "I don't think anyone would really miss me" if you were gone, well, I know at least one person that would.

and I just turned 41 and didn't get any birthday cards at all.

well ok, we can take care of that one real fast.....

╔═════════════════════════════╗
║                             ║
║   ZZZZZ  OOO  RRRRR  AAA    ║
║      Z  O   O R   R A   A   ║
║     Z   O   O RRRRR AAAAA   ║
║    Z    O   O R R   A   A   ║
║   ZZZZZ  OOO  R  RR A   A   ║
║                             ║
║             <*>             ║
║             ||              ║
║             ||              ║
║             ||              ║
║        \^^^^^^^^^/          ║
║         \       /           ║
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║   444      444     1111     ║
║   4 4      4 4    111 1     ║
║   4 4      4 4      1 1     ║
║   4 4      4 4      1 1     ║
║   4 44444444 4      1 1     ║
║   4444444444 4      1 1     ║
║            4 4      1 1     ║
║            4 4      1 1     ║
║            444    111111    ║
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╚═════════════════════════════╝ 

my love to zora and all

that struck me too, lee, though without any knowledge of familiar particulars

even skipping a generation with inheritance seems questionable unless the parents are rich enough already or they would lack the discretion to use it in their children's interest

About to move within my new city, from one end to the other, more friendless than I've ever been after (inadvertently) ostracizing the one good local friend I did have. (Awkwardly, I am moving within close proximity to that person though there's little hope of reconciliation in any event.)

giving a friendly noncreepy telepathic hug to anyone who needs it

happy holidays Morbs!

why thankyew, mazel tov

hey morbs

merry christmas

happy birthday zora and love to all

Oh wow, thanks guys :) Leee, the birthday ASCII is so cool, it's like being 11 again. :)

Merry christingmas everyone!

fwiw my dad doesn't mean to be insensitive. He is a very kind and charitable person. His thinking is that we are well enough off to get by, whilst things will be harder for the next generation. Also, he was a teenage parent so he's looking to avoid death duties being payable twice, you know, us not being that much younger than he is.

good to know he means well

(and yeah, that was my first attempt at ASCII art in about 15 years - took me a few minutes before i even remembered how to fetch the box outline characters)

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/84386b2542109c869a362fa3db3d12e0/tumblr_miw32ks4zu1qisuj3o1_500.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog's_dilemma

i didn't know about that term. thanks for the link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Uua9xwK4Q

If I could just grab a melon baller and dig this little bit of loneliness out of my mind I could really get on with this numb, pointless existence in earnest.

word

i agree that there is a lot of numbness in the world, but i think there is a point. i think people have a point, but sometimes it's very hard to find. and loneliness is a problem. last night i went to the pub and got a plate of fries alone. the fries are always amazing there.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/3320c7fb0e65bb18e4767bfdcf0bb2d4/tumblr_mmvjnh6seb1re30fbo1_500.png

http://25.media.tumblr.com/c882a4517b939c20a4aab96eb2f8d704/tumblr_mmvjnh6seb1re30fbo2_500.jpg

aw william jones man :(

So I was gonna post this on the GURL thread, but then I thought "If I think this is gender-land-grabbing bullshit, wouldn't it be better to get other perspectives?"

http://www.dailylife.com.au/life-and-love/love,-sex-and-relationships/are-women-lonelier-than-men-20130618-2ofn3.html

The title is deceiving; it's not about "are women lonelier than men" but "is loneliness worse for women than for men." I mean, I dispute the former utterly; this thread certainly shows everybody in their loneliness. But the latter... I suspect it's complicated. I certainly think that society treats the condition of "being on your own" differently for the genders. On one hand, there's such a prevalent and accepted view of a male "loner" as Being A Thing, while an unaccompanied woman is a vision not of strength or resilience but portrayed either as victim, or the subject of fear, loathing and demonisation. On the other hand, I suspect that the portrayal of "women" as "the social gender" makes it harder for men to admit to or try to ask for help with being lonely.

Anyway, you know how much I hate pieces like this which unnecessarily gender Things Which Are Not Gendered. But there's a rash of "loneliness and how it diminishes your life expectancy" articles lately. And FFS, like it's not bad enough feeling the stigma, and the embarrassment at having to admit to Being Lonely, but now I have to worry that it will kill me, too.

Aeon Magazine did a similar piece a while back, which was much better written IMO:

http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/olivia-laing-me-lonely-in-manhattan/

one of those "sad loser surrounded by companionship" days

even after Jesus Christ superstar

People who spend all day posting to ILX definitely aren't lonely

broad statement

i cried all the fucking way thru Jesus Christ Superstar

well if that's not what alw musicals are for then idk what

truth

the last JCS I caught had an absurdly nourished Jesus I found it difficult to fully engage

cast for this was great tonight, including my two

rah so

srsly tho the Romans never built a structure woulda held this guy up for three days

what roles did yr two play?

Han was in the chorus and Jay was an apostle. it was a big production for an amateur drama school, used the city's main theatre. set still wobbled a bit tho.

awesome

at least you aren't don henley

small blessings

this would explain p much my entire PC MUSIC posting spree fwiw

met my best friend today. we meet in small installments. it's nice and i enjoy it. but now night has settled - long, dark, abandoned. is this a state one must grow accustomed to

sorry this is so egotistical, something will happen to make me feel less lonely soon, others are suffering more, i'm just attention spoilt. um i'll be in other threads

I love to be alone, I have gone to Silverdale for peace and quiet. The noise of others is deafening sometimes

^me too and i rarely am these days and i fear it is actually killing me

lj yr polysyllabic spree brings content, and content is king, regrettez rien

My son's school requested some photos for PECS assistance and two of the categories they gave us was Family and Friends and we have had to explain that outside of the school he has no friends at all and none of either of his parents families give a fuck about him, so there are no photos we can add as family and friends other than me his mum, me and the fucking labrador! It only bothers me that by the time I am dead this will be a problem and he will be truly lonely.