There’s the difference. With me, it’s true. Oh sure, when the wife is, say, in Thailand for a month or two, I miss her. But that’s not the same as being lonely.
There’s the difference. You have someone in your life. How could you possibly ever be lonely?
Bah! I didn’t meet her until I was 33. Had plenty of alone time before that including out in the boonies in the Third World. Company is often vastly overrated.
Most emphatically not. I was solitary for the past 12 years, and perfectly contented in my solitude. Now I am married, and Island Girl is also not very sociable, and we spend virtually all out time alone together, very un-lonely. She has a few acquaintances, new-found neighbors, that we chat with a few minutes if we meet in the street, that’s about it.
When your loved one spends as little time as possible with you, and his mind is clearly elsewhere. He says it’s all in your head, but you know.
I noped out of that a long time ago. But ever since then, solitude has felt like freedom.
I’ve never been lonely. I blame my upbringing, which was in a house with multiple generations that were very social; peace and quiet were hard to come by and decades later I still love coming home to an empty house wherein nothing has been moved, borrowed without asking, broken without explanation, or gone missing (my burgeoning coin collection disappeared when a cousin wanted a soda and needed change, for instance).
Ironically, I think I got the best of both worlds - thanks to my upbringing, I’m pretty well socialized and have no problem with groups of people or gatherings. But I enjoy being alone, and friends have long said getting me to attend a random gathering is a chore.
I don’t think loneliness can be defined as easily as we like to define it. I have always had an active social and family life and even an active on line life yet one aspect of me as felt intense loneliness for as long as I can remember. For a long time I thought it had something to do with validation but in recent years I have had more than my share of validation and it frankly bores me. Looking back over the years I can easily identify behaviors that I was repeating trying to relive chance encounters that I had experienced over the years that were very rewarding emotionally. I have had almost zero success trying to recreate situations yet I find them familiar and I experience the slight rush that goes with the anticipation of good things to come. I don’t do this on a totally conscious level. The one thing that all of these experiences had in common was that they were simply an enthusiastic exchange of ideas and thoughts. For me they were more powerful than sexual experiences or experiences where I may have briefly been a hero or extra popular.
The one thing these great experiences have had in common was that in all but one case they involved total strangers. The one exception was a little old Irish man I used to meet for scrabble most every evening for nearly a decade with breaks here and there that lasted for a few months at a time. Now at the age of 70 years old I still find myself looking for these chance meeting of strangers. I stop in to old coffee shops, or buy some peanuts and wander through a park feeding squirrels, sometimes I will take a break on my walks and just sit at a bus bench, donut shops are regular stops of mine also. None of these activities consume much time out of my life but they do occur with some regularity and if I were to get honest it would be that I am looking for like minded people which are very rare.
Have I stumbled into an alternate reality where loneliness is now a permanent state of being?? I’m baffled that such a question can be posed and confidently answered by so many people!! Sometimes I feel surrounded by love and support, and other times I feel lonely. I don’t feel lonely at this exact moment, but in the past week I have certainly felt loneliness, and also in the past week I have had moments where I feel warm and fuzzy at all the people I have around me to listen to and support me when I needed it.
I think this is a useful point. The question posed in the thread is “Are you lonely?” presupposes that it is a permanent state, a baseline. Whereas I think that people who find that they are mostly lonely also have periods or moments when they are not. IMHO a more reasonable question might be “How often do you feel lonely?” with a sliding scale.
That said - For me the answer would be that I am lonely much of the time. My life has arranged itself so that socially, relationship-wise, and work, do not provide me with companionship and interaction that I desire. When I was younger, my interests and my work provided me with a lot more companionship and interaction, and it was good. It seems that when it comes to relationships, I am not lucky or skilled at pairing up with someone who provides well for this need. My work life is temporary teams on projects and travel, so there is not a chance to form long term social friendships and a lot of time alone in a hotel room. That was fine for a number of years, but the novelty has long LONG since worn off, and I’m kinda stuck.
Well, anyway, that’s the start of my story.
As for social media, I am of the opinion that it fosters shallower relationships, and promotes loneliness because it allows for dividing up into microscopic cohorts based on interest. Rather and engaging in the wider society of diverse experiences and viewpoints.
A widower after 23 years of marriage, damn right I’m lonely. The first six months were horrible.
One of the hallmarks of western culture is that you can be surrounded by a million people but still be emotionally isolated. With more single adult Americans than ever before, that phenomenon is only going to increase.
Definitely not.
Married with children at home, and fairly social.
I sometimes wish I could be alone more often than I am.
The wind of my soul,
Like many poll and survey questions this one is, by intent, reducing the complex to the simple. It forces those who respond to choose an overall state as predominant. You want we should do something like the UCLA Loneliness Scale? This is good enough for a non-scientific sense of things. But if you want here is a three point scale with “hardly ever”, “sometimes”, and “often” options. Feel free to complete it and report your score.
Understood that real world experiences are complicated. One person’s need for connection can be satisfied by what feels very superficial to another, for example. Some have more alone time needs.
In terms of the real world complexity … cochrane, there are many married people who feel lonely. Marriage is a protective factor but that protection is not absolute. Partners may have different needs. What one finds too much connection may be too little for another, or not the sort of connection that satisfies.
Reading these responses has made me realize what might be a problem I never knew I had. My baby left home to go to university in another state. She’s not that far (2hrs). She’s home twice a month or so. Of course, I have had a time getting used to an empty nest. What I have realized is this: She is a touchy-feely type. She needed hugs and kisses and petting, alot. She would still try to sit on my lap in her teen years. That is exactly what I miss. Human contact. That’s an eyeopener. Mr.Wrekker and I have never been demonstrative in that way. We are quiet in the house, we have sort of a sign language and eye contact. During this long relationship we pretty much have said it all. I know him, he knows me. So much talky-talky isn’t needed. But I am now certain I need more human touch in my life.
Hmmm, I am gonna do an experiment. I will let you know how it works out.
Yup. This fits me as well.
Plus I have two brothers (each with a family) who always want to talk, though they live in different countries; some friends; my wife’s extended family is always around - plus I work long hours … sometimes I wish I could become a hermit for a month or so, and just be by myself for once!
All right, I netted a negative score here, which I guess would equate to not lonely. I have companionship and close friendships and people who know me well and support me. I feel lonely at times, but I don’t think it’s because there’s no one I can turn to, I think it’s because sometimes I just feel like it takes effort to reach out and establish a connection with someone and I just don’t want to make the effort.
Not really. I was very lonely in my marriage (which sucks). Now, I have pockets of loneliness, but overall no (and really, I get invited to hang out and go places, I often turn it down). When I am lonely, it’s usually when having another person to help, or decompress to would be really helpful, and there is simply no one.
Me too. Especially Geezer’s bass line. 
I would be lonely if it weren’t for my children. They keep me hanging on.
For the first time in a long time I have no idea how to answer that. I’ve been lonely for a few years but now I may be at the start of a long term relationship.
I am not lonely.
I do enjoy solitude and I even like darkness. I can spend hours on the porch at night gazing at the stars wondering about all the people that have lived on Earth so far. When in an apartment building I stay up long after everyone has turned in and gaze out the window at the dark city, dark roads and dark buildings wondering about the people behind the dark windows.
I’ve always been self employed and I do not work well in a team because I hate delegating.
I was young when I realized I needed a family to balance my propensity toward solitude that I knew could eventually harm me.
I gradually abandoned my career so that my offspring could always be in the company of a parent.
My family members are active on social media too, but I stay away from it because I find it a stupid distraction.
We go out a lot, meet friends and play all kind of games. We read together too.