I’m taking some time off from work and have a lot of time on my hands. I have no friends in the area either and so that makes this even worse.
I’m bored and lonesome.
Keep in mind, I’m a 61 year old female.
So help me out here. Give me some ideas to fill my time, please.
Sitting around the house? Imgur, youtube, SDMB. I’m not much of a reader, so TV fills in the gaps.
Beyond that, find a hobby. Not even like a ‘I got a hobby to meet people’, just a hobby to have an interest in something. Go on youtube and cruise around, find something other people are doing and give it a shot. Learn to weld, make quilts, horseback riding, electronics, photography etc.
The internet helps to fill in the gaps. As do long walks.
I have my dogs to keep me company but that’s probably not something you can do in your situation. But you can volunteer to walk dogs or cuddle cats at your local shelter.
Also I watch a ton of tv. And get projects done around the house. This week I fixed some lamps and started cleaning my garage.
Spruce up your living quarters: toss old books, clean off that kitchen counter, re-arrange the furniture; I’ll bet you have a hundred little repairs that need doing because, Land O’Goshen, I’ve got 200 waiting for my attention. Do you know how good you feel when you polish off a huge mess of chores in one swell foop (as opposed to one, big chore)? Adopt a critter; a pocket pet, say.
I’ve had good luck with getting into an exercise routine in your situation; joining a gym to get you out of the house helps, and exercise definitely helps with the bored/lonesome thing. Other than that, books, videogames, etc are my thing.
Also, have you looked into meetups in your area? Maybe there’s a group doing something you’re interested in. Not only does it cure the boredom, but you might meet some folks with similar interests as well.
Go see movies. Some places have a cheap theatre that shows old movies. I would love that if we had one. Go to a library. Haunt flea markets and junk stores.
Read. Take a lomg walk. Study wildlife. Design a board game. Or watch people play board games. Create a flowchart of all Sherlock Holmes stories and interconnections and use it to try to make a consistent timeline, or alternatively, develop a theory anout how Holmes and Watson were actually serial killers who,used their investigations to throw off Scotland Yard. Build an elaborate architectural scuplture. Fly a kite. Volunteer at an animal shelter. Enact all of Shakespeare with marrianettes. Learn to cook a new cuisine. Rebuild and attempt to maintain a British sports car. Or, keep posting on a message board and waiting for inspiration to happen. It hasn’t worked yet, but hey, you never know what dreams may come.
Stranger
The same way I’ve always passed my time alone - developing a cunning plan to take over the world!
Reading. Long walks. Day trips to places of interest. Projects around the house, to fix or improve things.
Or get a Moviepass and watch a movie a day for $10/month. Man, I’d totally do that if I had time to see movies.
surf the dope! 
Bored:
-Look around your home and yard. Anything there that you wish were different? Start bit by bit, and chip away at your home projects.
-Consider a pet. I don’t know your circumstances, but another being about the place helps a lot. A cat doesn’t need too much, but will return a lot. A dog gives you the opportunity to go out and just see the world. You don’t have to actually talk to anyone if you don’t want to, but you can exchange hellos.
-Gardening: do you have the option to start to cultivate a small patch of land? I’m using the kids this year to do a few tomatoes, and a pollinators section. Hopefully not too much work if I keep after the kids.
Community:
-Walk - is walking in your neighborhood something that you feel comfortable doing? Just get out of the house a few times a day. Start with a short walk in the morning, and short walk at night. Work your way up to looking for different walks in different parts of town.
-Consider a course at a local community college in a topic that interests you. Ours does everything from movies, to art classes, to computers.
-Volunteering has been mentioned. Animals are great (IMO) but there may be a number of different things that interest you instead, like the library.
-Politics - it may seem like time to run screaming, but if you’re inclined, it may also be time to offer to man the phone banks, or attend some community meetings.
-Church - I don’t know what your inclinations are here either, but a church can be a great place to build a social network. My parents moved after they retired. Their new church really helped them integrate into the new community.
Reading is my go-to for private time, same as when I was a child. It’s even the anchor activity to my motorcycle riding, as I typically ride somewhere new, wander around a bit, find a coffee shop and read. Now that everything’s an 500-page epic and part of a series, you can pass a ton of time reading. And there are always chores, as my grandmother used to say.
I have spent most of my life alone. I have many sibs, a husband, kids and grandkids. Plus pets. But my personality core is alone and in my head. It is just how I am. So don’t assume you’ll have a hard time, make it fun.
If you are sitting and staring out of a window your not trying hard enough. Get up and take a walk and listen for birds or admire flowering trees.
Take a day trip. If there’s nothing of interest near you, make it a bicycle trip. Failing that…
Take drugs. The time will likely pass rather quickly.
Find Jimmy Hoffa.
Complete Einstein’s efforts at devising a unified field theory.
DO NOT entreat of the stones, call out to the hills or eat too much.
A whole lot of doing stuff on the Internet, mostly. I do work for Wikipedia, watch videos–sometimes for fun, sometimes educational. I talk with people online, sometimes just for fun, other times shooting the breeze. I’ll just read up on stuff that I wish to know about, or go through webcomics and online books. I go to Facebook and look at what people are doing and have conversations.
Outside the Internet, I may color or work on cleaning the house or think about the big questions in life. I play with my two cute doggies. I try out interesting foods. And, of course, I sleep.
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? If the latter, you’ll want to find ways of getting out of the house and being around lots of other people and external stimulation. If the former, you’ll want to find things you can do by yourself.
I’m a 57yo guy. I am fortunate that I always have plenty to do.
But - when I have free time, I am teaching myself to play guitar. I have zero musical experience but it’s keeping me on my toes, makes me think. And while a little frustrating at times, I find that once I start ‘playing’ I can’t put it down.
The other thing I will do is play chess online. It’s fascinating to play people from all over the world. Chess.com is free, has training lessons, and matches you up with people of the same skill level. Or you can just play against the computer. That’s a good way to learn. Also keeps your mind sharp.
Movies and TV series from the US and from other countries. Novels, comics, and manga. Web surfing. There are orders of magnitude more things capable of holding my attention than there is time for me to consume them.
