SHYNESS AND LONELINESS: Why don’t I ever meet anybody?

SHYNESS AND LONELINESS

I can’t tell you how lonely I am. During the week, when I’m working, it’s not so bad. But most weekends I sit home alone and never speaks to anyone besides the grocer and the mailman. Why don’t I ever meet anybody?

There are a number of possibilities as to why you’re so alone. In the first place, you may not be letting people know that you want to meet them. Are you passively waiting for people to introduce themselves to you?

Do you then feel hurt or bitter when they are not as friendly as you would like them to be? If so, other people may be turning into your negative feelings. And this, of course, greatly reduces the changes that anyone is going to start to start up a conversation, or think of inviting you along when making plans to go out a movie or to dinner. As a result, you get caught in a vicious cycle of isolation. People who fall victim to this tend to rely on clichés such as “All the people I work with are very clichés” and “People aren’t friendly to me because they’re friendly towards me because they’re jealous.” If you repeatedly think this way, your attitude naturally tends to keep things just the way they are.

      A second possibility is that you have come to feel so uncomfortable around people that you have fallen into an unconscious pattern of avoiding situations where you might meet someone. When was the last time you went somewhere by yourself? People find excuses for this avoidances such as “Parties are always too noisy,” and they develop their own set routines. For example, I once treated an artist who worked all day and who spent his evenings and weekends engaged in his own outside interest – reading.

      Third, you may actually be having some preliminary social contact with people, but once you meet them, you do something that puts them off. For example, you may be self-conscious, or so concerned about whether they are going to like you or not, that you may not create a friendly, easygoing environment which you and other people can enjoy each other.

       Any one or any combination of these three possibilities can produce a situation in which you end up being very much by yourself.