# Are you lonely?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-lonely/508240
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 30, 2009, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-lonely/508240 "2009-08-30T06:48:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-lonely/508240/81 "2009-09-07T21:16:15Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#):
>
> People say that blood is thicker than water, and it usually is. I will venture a guess that if your mother weren’t your mother—say she was someone you work with, instead—that you would have figured her out, then blown her off, years ago.
Well that’s the problem, isn’t it? You can’t pick your family so people feel obligated to allow family to abuse or mistreat them simply because they are family. Anyone else in the world you would just cut out of your life.
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### Author:  [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-lonely/508240/82 "2009-09-07T22:49:02Z")
{{{{{ **purple haze** }}}}}
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2009, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-lonely/508240/83 "2009-09-08T14:02:45Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#):
>
> What it took for me was proving to myself I could live without their love–not saying that will be your solution, but once I found a way to be happy on my own, only then could I welcome them back into my life with clearly inscribed boundaries. I’m not saying you have to get all Drama Queen about it, but if you give yourself some space from them you will find perhaps a new way of relating to yourself and understand more keenly that you are fully capable of meeting the emotional needs you heretofore believed you could obtain only from your Mom and Sister.
Quoted for extreme truthiness.
I think a huge problem comes when people rely on others too much for happiness. People have an amazing capacity to let others down, even inadvertently. But when you set up the rules of your own game and become emotionally self-sufficient, people will sometimes go out of their way to include you. **purple haze** , I agree – take a break from mom and sis for a while. You really don’t need their approval.
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