Thoughts on loneliness and how to expand your social circle?

[AleXandeR]

Could you please share some practical advice on this issue.

[Plato]

ok I dealt with this for very long time . go to meetup group's and bite the bullet, keep going don't just give up on first bad group,think of thing's you like and stuff .

find a sport your into . boradgames group are all ways about .

make your own discord group saying looking for friend's in your area. lonely is cause of lack of social and meaning to one self . because human are social creatures and in a world were we are divided loneliness is our dystonia .

Everyone is sad everyone is alone no body has any need for other's any relationship can be replaced, all knowledge is click away to nothing .

write the list down and tick them off if it does not work, this is so you don't get overwhelmed.

[lemmings]

Like Plato, I have struggled with these for a long time and continue to, but here's some suggestions I have:

Loneliness:

1) Force yourself to get out of the house.
Go out to do activities/hobbies instead of staying at home. For example: if you usually study at home, study at the library instead; if you usually work out at home, work out at the gym; if you read at home, read at a coffee shop; etc. Simply getting out into society will make you feel more connected, even if you're not interacting with other people.

2) Get in touch with contacts
Do you have contact information for family, old friends from school, work, etc? Get in touch with them. Ideally you would arrange to meet them in person, but even giving them a phone call can help. (Don't just text them; it's too artificial and nowhere near as powerful as a phone call at helping with loneliness).

3) Expanding your social circle will help alleviate your feelings of loneliness; having a wider pool of contacts reduces the chance of spending too much time alone.

How to expand your social circle:

This depends slightly on where your social life stands at the moment; it will be easier to expand your social circle if you already have friends, or at least potential friends, that you can arrange to meet. That said, you can still expand your social circle even if you have 0 friends, it will just be harder. Here's a guide for expanding your social circle:

1) Go somewhere you can meet potential friends.
The best way to do this is through a group hobby/activity, e.g. team sports, music, drama, etc. Essentially you want to participate in a hobby in a social setting. If you don't have any hobbies, pick something.

2) Talk to potential friends and get their contact information.
This is pretty self-explanatory. Talk to people and, if you hit it off, get their number or social media. This will be useful for the next step.

3) Keep talking to potential friends and invite them out.
This is where contact info is useful, as you can contact them to schedule a meet up. Meet them in a different setting to where you met them; that way they'll start to see you as a friend, and not just 'some guy I play basketball with', or just a 'gym friend', or something.

4) Continue inviting your new friends out, and continue getting to know them.
You won't reach this step with everyone; maybe they don't want new friends, maybe your personalities don't 'click' very well, whatever. Don't get discouraged. If you get rejected, just try again with other people.

5) Repeat steps 1-4 until you're happy with your social life.

6) If you have potential friends (e.g. from school, work) in your contacts, then you can try from step 3) with them.

The hardest thing is to get started; it's easy to read social advice but it's much harder to actually act on it. It may not be your fault, but there is a reason why your social life is not where you want it to be. To make real changes, you have to force yourself out of your comfort zone and put in a lot of effort with people. Don't expect any miracles; it's unlikely you'll turn into Mr. Popular overnight if you have very few/no friends to begin with. Set your expectations lower; even if you make only one or two new friends it can make a world of difference to how you feel.

Succeedsocially.com is a website that provides lots of advice regarding common social issues. Some of the advice I've given comes from there, and has worked for me.

Lastly, there's nothing wrong with you for feeling lonely or down about your social life. Society tries to make you believe you should be Mr. Sociable, who goes out 7 nights a week and has a million friends. The truth is most people don't have amazing social lives. You don't have to be perfect, and having unrealistic expectations for yourself will only hurt you and crush your self-esteem. Ultimately, you are good enough, even if you have no friends.

I hope these suggestions help. You're not the only one who feels like this.