It’s not that I don’t have anyone to talk to, it’s that I don’t have anything to talk about with others, and sometimes it happens that it’s impossible to endure that loneliness and I want to socialize so badly, and I don’t want to drink alcohol or watch shows on Netflix to drown out that feeling, because lately it hasn’t helped. I wonder how you deal with it?
I went through a rough breakup between June and August last year. At first, I drank and slept around. Then, I got sober. I’m sort of over it by now, genuinely, but the spark is gone. I don’t really want to see people, despite how badly I want to see people. I don’t know what to say. I feel sort of nonplussed about everything.
I work my ass off all day, come home, work out, eat right, work my ass off all evening, then when I’m done I play bass or guitar, paint miniatures, take photos, do little bits of graphic design practice, and fall into bed around midnight.
I’m lonely. I think I’m starting to accept that this is just how it’s gonna be for me, at least for now.
All that to say; it may be helpful to practice some genuine acceptance. When I’m feeling real beat up about being sad and lonely, I get my shoes on and go for a walk. No destination in mind, no matter the time of day. I put my earphones in, put on some sad music, and walk until I get sick of myself moping and just accept that yes, this is how it is. Then I’ll put on a podcast I enjoy, or something I can learn from, or I’ll just take the earphones out and enjoy nature as I walk back towards home.
Focus on yourself. Being lonely isn’t rare these days, but being completely alone gives you complete freedom. I’m fairly new to working out, but I’ve stuck to a relatively consistent schedule for four months or so and my body looks and feels so much better. I’m working on my pull-up and dead hang form at the moment, and I’m finding it really tough but really rewarding. I’m on week 2 of 100 push-ups per day, and seeing my body go from barely being able to do 15 in a set, to almost doing 30 in a set, has been really fun! You don’t get the opportunity to be selfish with your time without guilt very often in life, and if you’re gonna be alone anyway you may as well make the most of it.
Those are proactive things that take effort, but for an easier suggestion: avoid YouTube. Avoid Netflix. Avoid TV or streaming. Don’t sit there and wallow. If you’re gonna wallow, get up and move while you’re wallowing. No point letting your body and mind feel shitty at the same time. I sold my TV and my PS5. I sold my sofa. My lounge is now a desk, my hobby stuff, and a radio. I feel productive. I feel great. I feel so fucking earth-shatteringly bored that I have to do something, rather than just sitting on my ass watching shit I don’t even care about.
I wish you the best my friend ✌️
Oh! Also! Get a bit weird with it. I grew my hair out for seven years, but I trimmed it earlier this year, then shaved it all off after getting sober. Just recently, I shaved it into a mohawk, and a couple of weeks ago I shaved designs into the sides of my head. Whether it looks good or not isn’t the point; the point is about reclaiming your self expression, and enjoying your selfish experience. Be self centered. Be protective of your time. Be expressive. Do what you want. Say what you want. Spend how you want. Sell your sofa. Paint your walls. Do something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because you’ve felt self-conscious. If you’re feeling invisible at the moment, make the most of it. I started baking recently, too. Totally blew my calorie budget for the day but I ate a whole loaf of chocolate chip banana bread and honestly it was worth it.
I constantly have problems with this because I always forget to exercise, or find it extremely difficult to force myself to do so. Recently, however, I realized that the reason for this is that my brain doesn’t see the point in wasting the body’s limited resources on exercise and is lazy, preferring to save energy for creative projects…
I agree with you on that.
With exercise I’d like to say that you shouldn’t treat it as a daily quest in an MMO. You know “I have to do this today”, if you forget you forget. Group activities with a fixed time slot are a bit better, because they create a greater incentive for a person to go out and do them. Sometimes there’s also an after hour hanging out at the nearest pub, provided people can take the time.
Not to go too much into psycho analytics, yes, there is a trade off with time and energy for it… if you’re starting out and always dropping out it’s a sign that you’re unwilling to go through that exchange of time and energy (or perhaps unable). But if the goal here is to simply a bit healthier you don’t need to do much. Take it step by step, day by day.
I will echo on the self expression, that’s an area I always low key suppressed thinking it’s foolish but it’s not. Frame that 80’s Japaneses poster, buy that DAP player or vinyls, because the ambient of the room and aesthetics of cloths and accessories we use do matter. It can be a simple thing of simply getting a key chain for your phone or a sticker for your laptop. It requires come curation but I can honestly say that it feels nice. Perhaps it asserts a certain agency, as opposed to 1001 of soulless apps on a big screen all overseen by the big AI.
This is by far the most consistent I’ve been with strenuous exercise ever. I’ve tried before, but it never clicked for me; I always felt embarrassed, awkward, gangly, unfit, and just awful. I always walked a lot, so that kept me somewhat in shape, but I was deffo weak and my cardio was dogshit.
What changed for me was buying a small, cheap, simple set of dumbbells, and trying to do a routine I found on YouTube. I failed about halfway through, and the comments were full of people being like “I’m a 70 year old woman and these workouts keep me nice and spry” and I just thought, like… I’m a 28 year old man what the fuck am I doing if I can’t physically outwork a 70 year old woman (not to be sexist about it but just physically yknow). So I kept pushing until I could do that routine, and completing it felt really positive. So I kept going for that feeling, and eventually learnt to enjoy even how it feels to exercise, regardless of completing. I’m up to a five-minute plank now, aiming for fifteen one day, and working on other goals too.
You’ve got to find your own way into it. Or, just brute force it if you can do that. I am reticent to say just don’t do it, because we know what happens to people who never exercise.