I'm 54 next week and I can't believe that I am so lonely and depressed. I really thought that by now, I'd have my life sorted. But I look around and, well, I am really very alone in this world
I am not shy, I can be very outgoing and sociable, but very, very few people seem to like me. I try my best to be liked. I am reliable, punctual, dependable. I try to be interesting and amusing company, I try not to offend. I don't fart or get drunk or tell dirty jokes. Yet the end result is, I have very very few friends, and those who I call "friends" are really just people I know, who want to see me now and again. To be honest, I think that some of them only see me out of some kind of "duty", or out of politeness. Many, many people have just "dropped" me, I suppose the ones that still see me are the ones who feel some kind of obligation, but I notice that even they are gradually reducing contact so that they only see me once in a while.
Same with my family. I have siblings, but only two of them are even on speaking terms with me, and they contact me about once a year and invite me on Boxing Day (never Xmas Day) with a whole bunch of other acquaintances, so, again, I know they only do this out of duty and that makes me not want to go.
My phone does not ring literally from one week to the next. If I take the initiative and actually phone a friend or acquaintance myself, they always give me the brush off, like say they will call me back (then they don't) or say they are really busy over the next few weeks and they'll ring me when they get some space in their diary (then they don't). So I feel embarassed to ring them, as it puts them on the spot and it embarasses me with hear them squirming and stuttering down the phone while they try to think of some excuse not to see me and to ring off. I have got some "friends" who live in the same town as me and they have not met up with me for over a year. When I make new acquaintances I invite them to come round for a cuppa but they just keep giving me the brush off till I give up asking.
Lately I have resorted to paying people to do odd jobs around the house, to give me a massage or do some cleaning, just to get some kind of interaction with "someone" (anyone). I have actually been toying with the idea of paying someone an hourly rate just to "be" with me - like an oldfashioned "companion" that Victorian ladies had. Not someone to wait on me, but to literally just act as a friend. The only thing that stopped me was being shy about and not knowing how to word the advert in such a way as to not look like a pathetic billy-no-mates who has to buy company (which I am). I also thought of paying someone to teach me conversational French, purely for someone to talk to.
It's funny, but some of my friends and former friends tell me horrendous tales of their other mates, who say and do really nasty horrible things to them, and yet in the next breath I hear they are going on holiday together or something! I never do anything horrible to anyone, but nobody wants to spend a holiday with me -- I have to always go on my own. I have not been a bridesmaid since I was 12 or to a wedding since I was 15. I have not been invited to a party for 10 years, and yet I have hundreds of acquaintances in my town (because I belong to many online local groups).
I did have a long term (10 yrs) boyfriend, so I didn't worry too much about not having heaps of friends, as I always had him for company and to phone and go out with and go on holiday with. But he dumped me last year. He said he was just bored of me, of us, and would rather be on his own than be with me. Losing him has been the most devastating blow. I went into a depression and cannot seem to get out of it. Because losing him has thrown me into looking at who else I have in my life, and there really is no one except a couple of pen pals. Sometimes I feel suicidal because if I haven't solved this problem by age 54, what is there in the future but a lonely old age?
Soon as my man dumped me I registered myself on eight internet dating sites. And in a year I have not found one man on any of them who wants me for anything other than casual sex.
I'm so desperately lonely that I sometimes phone the Samaritans just to talk to someone. As I said before, I cannot believe that I still have not sorted this out and I am nearly 54.
I am at home alone all day because I am not working. I have a couple of lodgers in my house but they don't want to spend any time with me, either. They stay in their rooms mostly and if I catch them in the kitchen or passing my door on their way in or out and try to engage them in conversation, they make excuses like they are in a hurry or busy.
What is wrong with me?
Helen