How many of us are lonely? What is the cause of our loneliness?

I have never felt that way here.

There have been times in my life where I felt quite lonely. Even when having a bunch of people around. That often happens when I’m depressed.

I am definitely not lonely anymore, although just a bit over 3 years ago I considered just allowing myself to slowly die because of loneliness.

@CaptainHarley that is sad, i hope you don’t mean that

I am lonely and have been my whole life. I prefer it that way. I can socialize well with people when I have to or want to but I’d rather just be alone inside my own head.
There are many reasons why people are lonely.
Fear of being hurt.
Just want to be.
Nobody will accept them.
Isolated from society.
Past problems or dislike of people.
Hiding a secret.
Depressed.
So on so forth.

I have times of loneliness when I feel disconnect from my partner, family or friends and as temporary as it is, I’ll get restless and gripey. I have to remind myself things always smooth after a few hours or days if I just look at past performance.

@Neizvestnaya GA! I am the same way.

There are times I feel very lonely even when family and others are around. Sometimes being a bit depressed helps cause it and you isolate yourself. If you can’t share things in your life that mean something to you then you can get lonely. Being alone doesn’t mean lonely but feeling isolated and like you are the only person who understands what you are and how you feel will cause it. I also think we are beings with much more than this mortal body and unless connected to the inner self and the spiritual self sometimes one can feel that loss or loneliness.

I am occasionally lonely, but it’s rarely persistant.

I feel there is a component of loneliness that has to with one being able to be content with being alone. In my opinion many of us have had TV, internet, movies, music, radio all around us forever and never learned how to be alone with oneself. To be able to take a walk without a sound device in a quiet woods, camp by yourself, drive with no sound except the tires on the road, can, in my opinion help cope with loneliness by finding contentment in your inner self.

Loneliness and boredom are twins and they stem from the expectation of satisfaction from something of someone other than yourself.

Therefore you would look outwardly for your fulfillment and satisfaction.
Nothing outwardly can ever do this.

So long as you remain in such belief you would find fault with people, places, situations or things.

The trick is to remember that no one nor anything, nor situation can give you fulfillment.
For you your fulfillment can only come from you.

You can always escape loneliness and boredom simply by changing the way you think.

You must remember that the situation place person or thing was meant for you, and since it is meant for you, then you must look for the good of It.

Once you adopt this mindset everything will change not because the situation, person ,thing or place has changed in themselves.

But since your perspective of them has changed, Then to you, even if its only to you they have changed for the good.

I get very lonely but it usually comes in condensed bursts. Something minor will upset me and then it will snowball into me thinking I am totally alone…despite having a loving partner and parents and friends. There is no reason for it, usually…and I tend to wallow in it, and then once I get my mind off it I’m totally fine, and I look back on the little episode thinking how silly I was.

@kelly: Being alone with yourself and feeling lonely are two different things. Being lonely when surrounded by others who seem to function on different planes of existence is unnerving.

I will be having a nice glass of wine feeling content with the world. Then I will have the one extra during which I am so sad and no one will ever love me and I answer questions on this basis and bug poor Dr. Lawrence who is so patient. Without booze, I’m okay with alone. I felt lonely in my marriage because conversation with a passed out drunk is not fulfillng, I found. I’d love to meet someone to have a quiet life with but not now.

I have times of loneliness. I wish I could say it’s rare, but it’s actually quite often these days. I think I Fluther more when I’m feeling that way in order to feel connected to someone and something.

For me, it all stems from being so far away from my husband and the friends I have back east. I have made some wonderful friends here and we do things together quite a bit to get through the deployment, but the times when I’m home alone, with nothing to do, it tends to hit me. I also feel that way after any of my OB appointments. I really wish my husband was home to go to them with me and see our little one at the time instead of through pictures later. I’ve heard the baby’s heartbeat a few times now and he hasn’t gotten to do that yet.

So I’d say, my main cause of loneliness is this deployment.

Hmmm… GQ.

I’m usually alone by choice, and as a result sometimes lonely. That is, sometimes I feel ‘more alone than I would like to be’, but it seems to be a transient condition, and I understand and deal with it. It’s getting more difficult to ‘take corrective action’, though, when I choose to not be so much alone.

That’s one of the reasons I appreciate meetup.com so much. It’s like a ‘nearly instant’ way to get involved with others in the real world, meeting face to face. (And as often as not it ‘cures’ my loneliness by reminding me why I prefer to be alone. <sigh>)

The scary thing is that I completely understand @CaptainHarley‘s response, which is why I think I need an attitude adjustment of my own before too long.

I am very comfortable with being alone, I feel whole and complete and do not ‘need’ any sort of connection to bolster a fragile sense of self, or, should I say, lack of sense of self.
I was far lonlier in my unhappy marriage than I have ever been being/living, physically alone. lol

I am rarely lonely, social but also enjoy my own company, live in a secluded country place and, at age 51, almost ,the friends pool has shrunk considerably, as is often the case as one ages.

Between consciously choosing to let quite a few people go over the past 8 years or so, due to differing levels of compatibility and dysfunctions that don’t resonate with me.

I enjoy a few old friends and one newer one and I am content just doing my thing.

Quality over quantity is my motto! ;-)

@CyanoticWasp

Yes, Meetup is awesome for finding likeminded groups to fraternize with! :-)

My loneliness has, almost always, been linked to depression. When I’m depressed I can’t see love. I can’t see that anyone cares about me. I don’t believe there is anything to me that is worth spit.

I’ve learned some of the things @kess said. Primarily I understand that the wholeness comes from within, not from anyone else. When I am whole, I am not alone. I’m just not. I can’t really explain it because the transition from nothingness to wholeness happens either when I’m not looking or at an impossible to perceive place. One moment, I could be doing anything, I become aware I’m not in pain any more. I’m not alone. I believe that people like me and find me valuable. Like magic.

I guess it has to do with the work I’ve been doing. But since there’s no direct sense of cause and effect, it’s hard to really feel the connection between what I’ve done and the result.

I believe people on fluther have been very helpful to me. Thank you all. I believe fluther, itself, is helpful, just for bringing caring people together. Just for keeping this a constructive environment. But mostly because there is a lot of empathy here. More than in the real world, anyway.

Loneliness comes and goes like magic. Like a change in medication. I think that we are all connected, and that we lose awareness of that connection because of a change in brain chemistry. It’s enormously frustrating because it makes me feel like I could change it if I wanted to, badly enough. I want it as badly as I can, and it doesn’t change, and then I’m worse off than before. Tricky beast: loneliness.

I have a tendency to feel very alone at times. I have no reason to, I have a wonderful husband who does everything he can to keep bad things away from me, I love him for that (and for so many other reasons too) but he can’t keep away whats in my head.

Depression is a truly horrible companion to share your life with. Some days are worse than others and I even have a few good days now and then too, but it is possible to be horribly, sickeningly lonely even when you have the security of having a partner who loves you and has wrapped his world around you. I can’t explain it really, I miss people I’ve lost, and because I love them so much I haven’t been able to cope with losing them. That’s not it though, I have always had a part of my character that feels this way, even in my late teens, looking back I can see the pattern that depression has followed. It’s true, you can be in a huge crowd of people and feel very very lonely. When I do feel myself starting to feel this way I try to count my blessings, sometimes that helps, other times I have to just wait it out till whatever it is passes and I start to feel a little better again.
huggles xx

@mammal

Yes, unfortunately, that is true. At the time I was trying to recover from a prostatectomy, I had been diagnosed with metastasized cancer, I had undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, and my wife had just divorced me to marry a guy from her church. The VA was not paying me correctly, and I was living in one room of a run-down trailer with my cat and dog, just waiting to die.

@CaptainHarley i am so glad you don’t feel that way any more!

Following two divorces I lead a fairly solitary life and I don’t socialise a lot. I feel a little lonely at times but I find as I get older I am more and more comfortable with my own company. Today for example I took to the hills and spent the day walking on my own. I didn’t feel lonely until I sat down in a cafeteria for a bowl of soup. Everyone one else was with someone apart from a beautiful girl sitting on her own by the window. I just knew she was with someone and sure enough her boyfriend appeared after a few minutes and sat beside her.

Losing most of my family and close friends within the past 5 years didn’t help too much. I’m very introverted and it’s not easy for me to connect with most people so when I lost those few friends I did know since childhood on top of losing my dad, uncle, brother (we were very close) and grandmother (who I was also very close with) it was and still is very devastating. I’ve never recovered, but maybe with time. My few attempts trying to socialize with new people hasn’t quite worked out too well either. Most people where I live don’t share my interests. Maybe things will work out again but I do know one thing (at least for me): I would rather spend time alone than with people I don’t get along with.

I’ve also learned you can be just as lonely being around other people especially when there is no connection with them. I’m one of the few people out there who can be happy spending 90% of my time alone because it has always been that way with me but I still do miss spending some of my time with people I was once so close with.

I only feel lonely if my partner and I are having some kind of issue and I have this urge to return to him, but can’t for some time.

I’m so Ronery

I was very lonely this time last year, when I had just moved down south and knew practically no-one. It was also the first time I had truly lived alone. The feeling eventually subsided through connections online and making new friends down there, but even then, they all had busy lives of their own so I couldn’t just ring up and make ad hoc arrangements… Now I’m back up north, I’m still living alone, but I have so many different friends in this area that there’s always one I could link up with at any given time… I think that’s what sums up the difference for my feeling lonely – it’s the knowledge that I could have company if I choose to (and notably, I’m not suddenly choosing to all the time, just able to).

In the past, the times when I’ve felt most alone (despite being married or living with someone) has been those times when I’ve felt trapped in a situation that I can’t get out of and that no one can help me with. In those instances, I could actually get out of the situation and plenty of people would have been willing to help me, if only I’d realised it and had the strength. Needless to say, I did eventually find the strength in those situations, as here I am now!

Many things cause loneliness.

1. We live in an individualistic society. however traditionally human beings are social animals that moved around in communities. In alot of eastern cultures loneliness is not an issue as the family and community is very important.

2. I think often coming to a realisation that life does not go on for ever and that strictly speaking we die alone makes us lonely. cuz it makes us wonder what will become of us.. what happens to us as individuals when we die. fear of the unknown makes us lonely.

3. Not socializing enough makes you lonely too.

4. Having high standards and values.. Face it,most people follow the mainstream. They don’t like to think for themselves because they have a fear of being considered to be weird.
Society often doesn’t respect independent thinkers. You are seen as weird if you are not following the majority.

5. Not having a life of your own. Many people cut back on socializing when they have a partner/ get married. You should still continue to have a couple friends you see from time to time without your partner. Never be 100 % dependant on 1 person in life for you happiness. No human being is perfect. Human beings will always do things to dissapointed. Always be in a position to stand on your own two feet emotionally and psychologically.

6. Sorry to say this , but also having no God in your life can make you lonely. It is a fact of life that we r hugely dependanant on God for our existence. He made us and put us here and will take us away when he sees fit. Not accepting this as a reality and not having a personal relationship with God can make you lonely. Not everyone will agree with this though. If u believe that when you die you just die then don’t read this. I personally think it is important to talk to God everyday and pray to him.. It really helps me .

@suzie271

I would say that there is only ONE person responsible for our own happiness and that is the person. I am responsible for my own happiness and there is no one ever that can make me happy. Not trying to argue with you but one has to realize this to actually find happiness. Loneliness is another matter and I explained that above.

I agree with @suzie271

While not religious I do and have expereinced deep ‘spiritual’ connectivity.

There is a saying that I like..” All problems are psychological and all soloutions are spiritual.”

The healthier one is in a psycho/spiritual sense the less lonliness they feel.

@deni

I am too. That is definitely NOT me! I was born a fighter and I intend to go out the same way. : )

What got to me more than anything else during that period of time in my life was that I was incredibly lonely, and felt that no woman would ever want anything to do with me again. Fortunately, I was wrong. : )

Never had a lonely day in my life. But when the need arises a quiet walk in the woods is all I need to check out for a while.

I feel lonely, and beyond evident reasons which mostly translate themselves to me just feeling for sorry for myself and not seeing the good which comes my way, I’ll never know what the cause is, if a real one exists. I’m either a coward, too selfish, or both.

Being alone from time to time is not the same as being lonely from time to time. The first can be a very good thing especially when we get older.

God created us all for relationship to one another and, most of all, relationship to Him.

Ultimately, we are lonely because we are meant to be in relationship with God in perfect union. Nothing in this world can totally fill us the way that He can. Our relationship with God was damaged when we first sinned (chose to distrust, rebell, and choose something apart from what God told us). Your relationship with Him can be restored by a relationship with Christ by faith, God’s only Son, who came as a man and died for us in order to bridge the gap those sinful choices had made between God and man. Jesus is the bridge between God and man.

We were made to worship and LOVE God, not be alone separated from Him spiritually, and caught up in chasing our own selfish desires. Sometimes I’ve been the most “unhappy” and lonely when I’ve been trying to make myself happy rather than looking for Someone else to be a friend to, or Someone else to make happy. Honestly, I think it’s because we’re made to worship/relate to God, and He will bless us abundantly in a way we could never do ourselves.

I’ve been feeling increasingly lonely as of late for a myriad of reasons. I’m just going with it as I know it’ll pass in time. It isn’t the most pleasant feeling, but they’re all transitory I suppose :-)