A lot of advice of what you should do, putting the burden on action which is likely to worsen your depression and self-worth image.
So let me offer an alternative, healthier way of dealing with discomfort, especially of the soul: the first step is accepting the situation and making the best of it. Issues of loneliness aren't easily solved by joining the church or the cricket club, despite many comments along those lines; it's good to realise that loneliness sticks with us and gets more painful when around people. You won't ever feel so lonely as in a crowd.
There is a difference between loneliness and solitude. Learn solitude. Learn to be comfortable with yourself. Know yourself, and chances are, you don't have a clue about yourself at 19, and you probably won't be for a few more decades of self-reflection, so get started. Then, when you'll find comfort in yourself, comfort in being by yourself, joy even, you'll be ready to face that door that is the cause of your great sadness today. And you'll come from a place where companionship is no more a matter of life-and-death, but from a more mature position that understand that people come and go, might love you and might hurt you, but the only constant source of joy, respite and calm lies within you, and it's been there all along.
I'm not sure any of this would've made any sense to my 19 years old self, but no one sat down to explain this to me either, so I hope it strikes a chord. Just don't blame yourself for an ill society where connection is ever harder.
-- a fellow lonely person that found joy in solitude, appreciating those heartfelt, fleeting moments with worthy humans.
My main advice would be to make NONE of this about you. Be genuinely curious about others. Really listen to them. Look in their eyes when they are talking to you and when you are talking to them. Completely put the notion of you needing or lacking friends in the backseat and put an interest and genuine caring about the lives of random people you meet in the front.
You can't go into this with the goal of gaining something. Go in with the goal of giving of yourself -- your time, attention and interest.
Do the reps on this and you will become a person people want to be around.
And you need to be genuine.
Find whatever works for you to be genuinely interested.
People know if you're faking attention, or if you're unnaturally giving.
It's a tricky balance.
We slowly learn by practicing...
I've learnt over time to be more generous (tried to stop keeping a mental record of debts, and try to avoid giving obligations to anyone), and to be less judgemental (acceptance is mostly good).
Start with the low hanging fruit: your family.
There was a period when I put space between myself and my main friends which resulted in loneliness, but I found this created a new space to connect with my siblings who were really interesting and had grown in ways I hadn't noticed.
Also, as Charlie Munger always said: "Invert! Invert! Invert!". Try doing the opposite of what you normally do. This requires of course paying attention to what you normally do (or don't do). Instead of waiting for others to reach out to you, for example, you might instead approach them.
Be okay with the fear of rejection. When we are kids we make friends so easily because we haven’t yet learned to protect ourselves from rejection.
An interesting exercise I had to do recently as part of a teambuilding exercise: offer a hug to 5 random strangers. I promise this will teach you something about yourself, and about others.
> Start with the low hanging fruit: your family.
Not always a good recommendation. A huge reason I was isolated before university was because of excessive control from my family. I'd personally say sports or other common outdoor activities like hiking are a great way to meet people. No strings attached and much more natural than randomly hugging strangers.
Im interested to learn more about this team building exercise. What do you mean by hug random strangers? Like on the street? I've never heard of such an exercise before.
This exercise was part of a 3-day weekend team-building workshop which was part of a voluntary work thing.
This particular exercise was assigned as "homework" by the coaching staff: "You will give a hug to a minimum of 5 people who you don't know before returning to tomorrow's session (no children)".
I think the goal was to 1) Step outside your comfort zone 2) Learn to take rejection less personally 3) Learn something about trust
I did my "homework" by going to Chipotle (some people put up a sign at the hotel lobby with the text "free hugs") and asking the cash register attendant and people inside. I remember going to this older lady who seemed like she had just gotten off a looong shift. She looked up and gave me the warmest smile and said "oh this is excellent! Is this part of church or something?" I got the biggest hug ever and it felt amazing. I had a similar experience with the other four hugs.
You need to learn to enjoy small talk, it's the bridge to "large" talk, which is how you connect with people. Meeting people you can connect with is a numbers game! So if you can learn to enjoy small talk (and get better at it), this would probably help a lot.
Regardless of who you are, the world is a big place and there are millions of people who are very similar to you, who you would get along great with and could form meaningful relationships with. I think it's very important that you fight the urge to attribute your loneliness to anything intrinsic to who you are as a person. You don't need to be pretty, funny, or smart to make friends and have meaningful, deep relationships. Like seriously, it's extremely important to understand that it really doesn't have anything to do with you.
One mistake I made when I was in university was have a baseline assumption that I was unlikable or similarly flawed, hence I would always find reasons why someone disliked me and pushed them away as a defence mechanism. Regardless of if it's true it's a horribly unproductive mindset to have and I encourage you to fight it.
Also you won't make friends by reading books. It's tempting to overanalyse but human connection isn't something you learn by reading, you learn it by doing it. A bunch. Go travel and see the world.
Not exhaustive by any means but here some ideas:
> To make friends, be one -- figure out what this means
> Be vulnerable -- the quickest way to connection I have found is to be ok with sharing your vulnerability first
> Be ok with rejection -- the danger of being vulnerable is getting rejected, be ok with that. Plenty of fish in the sea
> Love yourself -- learn to give yourself grace
> Practice gratitude
> Serve/Volunteer/Teach -- you have unique valuable skills, figure out what they are and help others
> Join clubs that excite you -- if none exist create one. (derek sivers: how to start a movement, consider being the second person)
> Find your tribe online -- if none exist create one (see above)
Focus on physical and mental well being, life is long and one never knows the turns, the ups and downs that will come about -- learn to be resilient and don't lose your sense of humor
You focus on others talking to you, why don't you talk to them? I don't mean just one conversation but making plans for hanging out next time too, or joining hobbies you'd like to do.
One thing I've learned is that you yourself must make an effort first, even if you think it's unfair or if it's a lot of work, otherwise you'll be lonely forever.
Do you know if you have any sort of neurodivergence? That may be a part of it too. You say small talk tends to bore you yet that is how people start mingling at first. Maybe people are put off by you being put off on small talk.
Thank you for responding! I do talk to people, in fact Im always the first to bring up events that are happening at school, around town or just in general asking to hang out and chill. It works for a bit, but then I either stop getting responses, or getting told they are free at X time but when X arrives they don’t show up or couldn’t show up, and then at the same time it’s depressing to always know you aren’t ever important enough to someone else for them to just reach out ONE time and ask you if you’d like to hang out, and yes I have ADHD.
Most people are not the ones initiating a hangout with others who they aren't yet friends with, they usually join in when invited if it fits their schedule/they are bored, etc. I'd recommend trying to brush off a bit the feeling of rejection since you don't have these connections yet. It sucks a bit but knowing it's completely normal might help you not feel it's something personal against you.
My recommendation is to keep trying with the ones you felt you could potentially click, I also have ADHD but never had much of an issue to make friends, and never made it a "goal", I just kept getting interested in people and would try to meet them again, most times it fizzles out even though you can have a nice time together but eventually some people stick around and become friends over time :)
Also try to have a well defined event, and be genuine, do things you like and try to invite people you met with these shared interests, in a casual and friendly way, people are more prone to join in when they don't feel there's pressure to do it.
I think the 3 first points of this comment [0] touch very much on the core of it, if you can strengthen against the feeling of rejection, and learn to be open and vulnerable (while balancing it to not become oversharing) it can go a long way to make people see and connect with you. Almost everyone is "in the closet" somehow, putting up a mask, when people meet someone that shows less of a mask and more themselves they usually will find those interesting.
What are some social activities you like to do?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417195
Your comments are showing up dead by the way, probably because yours is a new account.
How are you asking, do you have a specific time or event? If you're just saying it generally, that "we should hang out sometime", it's just them being nice rather than having concrete plans.
People will only ask you if you're actually good friends with them, until then you must keep asking if you want to keep the friendship alive.
There is also a possibility that you might be coming off weird but I doubt it as many have ADHD and have friends fine.
The standard way to form a friendship is to be around someone regularly with whom you share a common goal.
This happens in some school environments (eg: long-term group projects), many work environments, team sports, certain vacation environments, etc.
Join a language class, or a sports club, or find employment somewhere, or go on a hostel vacation.
Make sure it's something you want to do for its own sake - enough so that you're not obsessing over befriending people.
+1e9, should be the top answer IMO. Activities create a group of people with a common interest, meeting regularly. You have a ready supply of people with something in common, you meet them regularly enough to create a bond, and easy ways to engage with them outside of class ("hey people who attend activity X, shall we do some activity X outside of classes?").
If you're not very sporty, less sporty things include:
- photography
- dancing classes (esp if you're a man, IME they are usually in short supply for classes)
- hiking / walking groups
- book clubs / chess / bridge
- quirky sports like roller skating
Otherwise, what other say. Other people like being listened to (and their interlocutor remembering what you said to them), that's an accessible trick to bond with people. And finally, it sounds like you don't struggle to build acquaintances - so maybe the tricky bit is "converting" them into friendships.
I'd say, in case it makes you feel better, that this is very much the common experience, to varying degrees, and the cult of people having lots and lots of friends is, for most, commercial propaganda.
Some of these ideas are possibly terrible, but just a brain dump:
I'd pop your head into random events in college, even if it's groups you don't feel align with you.
Try some courses that tend to require higher levels of interaction (like theatre)
I wouldn't join a fraternity, but that's a way some connect with others.
Turn yourself into a billboard, wearing T-shirts for things you like (bands, geeky things, etc). A "cool shirt" comment can start a conversation.
Start smoking. Ok, don't do that. But when I was in school it gave me a reason to congregate in the smoking section of campus. Terrible idea, but it did help me meet some people that almost 30 years later I still consider friends.
> What am I supposed to do? Be lonely and without any kind of company and human connection my entire life?
You won't be. I'm 48 now, and while I'm somewhat well adjusted, when I was your age, and even a bit older, I was such an introverted outcast. Still am, I just learned how to communicate better over time and more or less relate to people where they are, even if we are different. We all grow at different rates. That doesn't help your sense of loneliness today, but as you discover yourself and who your "tribe" is, those connections will form and grow, even if it seems impossible today.
"Turn yourself into a billboard, wearing T-shirts for things you like (bands, geeky things, etc). A "cool shirt" comment can start a conversation" .
I met my best friend of 30 years by wearing a Rush tee-shirt. It started a conversation.
No sh*t about smoking. You have whole social circles that you can easily join just for afternoon or morning smoke breaks. My head misses it but also remembers the nicotine headaches I used to get as well so I guess I’ve somehow overcome that after more than a decade after quitting. The social aspect is undeniable though, and I’m glad there is social pressure against it now, as well as limiting places where people can smoke to far off isolating places.
You need to lead, talk, make friends and be outside your comfort zone. You need to make an effort.
This 1000%! Two of the most important relationships I've made (my wife, and a boss who hired me, and later became one of my dearest friends) arose when I decided to act completely differently in the moment than I habitually would. In my wife's case, this meant immediately introducing myself to a woman I found attractive, in the other when I faced a financial crunch and resolved to apply for better-paying work even if I wasn't totally qualified instead of losing hope and going on a bender.
I’d like to think I do make an effort in a way, I try to go to the events that are being held at school, I’ve joined a few clubs and I talk to some of the people there. But it doesn’t go anywhere from there. But I will admit I’m socially anxious and keep to myself, but when I see an opportunity to crack a joke I do. But still it leads no where, I’m just that funny quirky kid who made a joke at the holiday festival. I’m still an irrelevant person nobody cares about, and even if I get a few numbers, I end up having ti hold the entire “friendship” on my back until I’m tired and then it ends.
You need to push it, you can not stop, you need to make it a simple repeat loop otherwise there is no escape. Once you establish friends, act out of your comfort zone, it can become stable and your new daily routine. It's literally exposure therapy, the exposure here is to be secure in yourself and go out.
Everyone has this issue, some people have it worse. I would give anything to be normal in this regard, I've succeeded but I have a stutter which is horrible-- so imagine being able to just talk normally and go out in the world!
That last line, thats just negtative self talk. Stop that.
This isn’t what you asked but I would remove all social media from your phone. Nothing makes you lonelier than social media. Facebook and instagram should be the first to go. TikTok as well. Delete them and watch if you start to feel better.
As for the other. Most friends I’ve ever met went like this: meet at an event relating to a shared interest (first you have to go to things, next you have to talk to people): find a person I genuinely like and respect, talk to them, do something together (study, eat, coffee), listen more than you talk, try to be as good a friend to them as possible.
And I’m easy. Anyone wants to be my friend and I’ll be theirs. (So long as they treat me as a friend —don’t get me started about people who claim to be friends but who don’t treat me like a friend). This leads me to having some really weird friends. This also leads me to having friends who always treat me right.
I’m an introvert so I tend to prioritize small numbers of deep connections over many shallow friendships. Everyplace I go I find the person I like best and I try to get to know them. I talk to them, listen, hear what they’re about, engage with things they find interesting.
At 19 you’ve never had a friend? I honestly don’t believe it. I suspect you’re experiencing a depressive episode that is clouding your memory. Every child has had a friend. In grade school or middle school. Call your mother and ask her (I’m serious). I honestly think you’re not remembering clearly. It happens, I don’t know how to fix it, but looking for it might’ve a start. (If you haven’t I’d start looking for something you’re doing that drives people away. But I honestly don’t think you could be doing something without knowing it)
Join clubs for things you find interesting. Get a job doing things you find interesting. Do favors for people, ask favors of people. Look for friendships in unlikely places. I once became friends with a professor who I did computer work for. We just got along. He invited me over for dinner with him and his wife. I was on his Christmas list (he made mix cds for people, I still have two he made me)
> At 19 you’ve never had a friend? I honestly don’t believe it. I suspect you’re experiencing a depressive episode that is clouding your memory.
Gaslighting people is not a good way to help them.
I was very lonely my first two years of college. I moved across the country to California for school and I don’t think 10 people knew my name by the end of my 2nd year. It was borderline debilitating and honestly reading your comment brings back a lot of those memories. The two things that helped me were getting off my phone/internet and going to therapy. Your things will most likely be different. A lot of people will tell you to join clubs etc. This is more or less the right answer with the caveat being that you most likely will not make “real” friends from these if you’re not open to connection. I was in jazz ensemble my first two years of college and made 0 friends. It wasn’t until after therapy/getting into a relationship with someone from a dating app that I started making friends. Probably from the increased confidence? Not sure. I’m now a senior and I’m just starting to actually develop “real” friendships.
Feel free to reach me at alexbwell12 at gmail dot com. Don’t have any crazy wisdom to pass down — just know how much it sucked for me.
Join a club or professional fraternity (highly recommend). You'll make lifelong friends. You have to get out there and make it happen and don't bail if it seems daunting or makes you nervous.
If you live on campus (you definitely should if possible), make friends with the people who live in your dorm. Keep your door open at all times and be friendly to everyone around. People will just drop in. If your uni has college basketball or football, become a fan of the team and go to the games or watch em in the dorm.
In college you have tons of people around you with all sorts of different backgrounds. Rest assured, someone will have common interests with you and will find you fascinating. You don't need a lot of friends in this life, just a few good ones. Not everyone will like you, that's okay.
I'd also recommend talking to a professional, you might need to practice your social interactions. They have groups for this sorta thing if they deem you ready, but there's something more going on that has put you in this situation I'd wager.
Good luck!
I’m sorry you’re feeling so isolated. It’s really hard to be in a situation where you feel like your attempts don’t go anywhere. But the good news is things can get better really fast. Finding your people in college is one of the best things. I’m not really good at faking a lot of social stuff so I relate a to your frustration. The good news is people respond really well to people who have a genuine interest in them. So it sounds like you need to go find some people you find interesting and interact with them. I was trying to make friends in Seattle recently and I thought that one of the most experienced scuba divers in Seattle wouldn’t want to be my dive partner because they had so much more experience, but my interest in what they were doing closed the gap and now they’re a close friend of mine and I’ve learned so much about scuba diving.
People will suggest what works for them, sometimes it will apply, often it will not. You have to find what works for you, and maybe multiple times because once you graduate, you will find yourself back in the same situation.
The best suggestion I received was to imagine where I wanted to be long term, and to go on working on that. Somehow it took me out of the loop of trying to find an answer outside of my own self.
The other thing that helped was to stop trying to do the same as what others around are (saying they are) doing and be honest with myself and others about what I wanted.
Making friends is a lot of work, can be uncomfortable, and it takes time.
One cool thing about university is that there are lots of clubs you can join. I'd suggest you go find a club you're interested in and participate every week. Talk to people when you get the opportunity. I've read it takes around five times attending a group before people start taking your attendance seriously enough start investing time in getting to know you. Give it a few months and I'll bet you have some acquaintances that could become friends.
Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of school? If you're passionate about something, you'll be more interesting to people. It'll give you personality. Even if they don't have the same interest, they will ask you about it. And obviously, you'll also meet people who have the same interests.
I'll give you an extreme example: there was a Claude AI chatbot that was obsessed with the Golden Gate Bridge. This bot (a computer... a machine) had personality and was considered quirky, funny, endearing, and people loved it.
I like programming, electronics, reading, maths and am getting a bike this week so I can spend more time outside! I love talking about these things with other people, and from what I can gather from their body language and facial expressions they also enjoy hearing what I have to say about my interest. But I also enjoy letting them talk about what they like to do so I can get to know them!
Maybe also try hiking as more people are into it, plus more opportunity to chat compared to biking. Look for hiking groups in your college. There will be bikers in that group too.
Also, any activity where you see the same people on a regular basis so they get to know you is great.
Group rides, coffee outside, bike packing are all amazing ways to make friends.
Shared adventures however small make long lasting bonds.
Go to Reddit with this kind of thing, seriously
Talk to a specialist like a therapist. Have them give you an honest assessment of how you present yourself. Maybe there's something you're doing or saying, or even the way you look, that you're not aware of and has caused people to keep their distance from you.
Given how long you've claimed you've been like this, it's very likely behavioral; you're giving off some characteristic that is telling most people you meet that you're not worth spending time with. It might be something as simple as avoiding eye contact, or strange body language, or not knowing how to hold even a rudimentary, surface-level conversation. These are all skills that can be learned, especially when you're still young.
I was in a similar situation when I was younger; grew up relatively isolated, barely had any friends, etc. I was socially deprived and abused as a child, and have a speech impediment that has made socializing difficult at times, but I learned how to listen and ask questions and get to know people, and I actually became quite the social butterfly for a good chunk of my 20s and 30s.
Now that I'm older, I'm back to being more isolated for personal reasons, but my life is different now and I don't care as much about it, nor am I as reliant on social connections as I used to be. Frankly, I never felt I fit in anywhere, nor have I ever truly liked anyone beyond whatever immediate social gratification I needed filling in the moment. Friendships and connections have always been fleeting, overhyped, and overblown to me, especially when I look back at my life so far and struggle to think of anyone I still care about.
Social connections are important when you're younger, but I've found the older you get, the less important they become, especially if you're smart about how you live your life.
Wish I knew. I was at the same place at you at that age and it's basically destroyed me, 32 now and no better off
This may not make you feel better, but I was lonely until maybe age 25. That was the year I graduated and started my first job and made my first two real friends. Before that I sat alone in the back of the lecture hall in University and hated on all the fun-having classmates.
Age 25 was also when I met my first girlfriend that lasted less than a year. Age 34 was when I met my second girlfriend, who became my wife, and how we are separated. Long story short, I'm pretty content with my life now. You can say I'm a bit of a late bloomer.
I thought I would be alone forever too, so much so that in college I aspired to be a Buddhist monk.
What helped me was learning how to be less socially awkward through work interactions. When I was 32 I solo backpacked Europe which made me seem like a more interesting person. Also I'm a bit of a people pleaser and I was helpful to some key people in my life and they are now my good friends. Also I saved and invested a good chunk of my income which kind of helps overall with confidence.
> People find me funny and when I do talk to people we have decent conversations (though small talk tends to bore me). However that doesn’t lead anywhere and doesn’t bring me any kind of comfort or fulfillment. I’ve attributed my lack of friends to something that places all the blame on me. Maybe I’m ugly, maybe I’m not funny enough, maybe I’m dumb.
I've felt all those things at some point. You don't have to be attractive or funny or a genius. I've always walked around with these recurring fantasies of being some secretly impressive superhero that saved the day publicly or had all these amazing talents and everyone would realize my worth. I realize now that everyone is too into their own lives to care, and even if they seem to admire something about you, they see it from the perspective of how it benefits themselves. This is absolutely fine, and human.
I guess what I'm saying is that you'll grow out of this phase. Right now I have all the friends I could ever want, ironically at a phase I'm my life I want to be more solitary.
I haven't tried this myself and this might be absurd, but attending PhD defences might be an interesting way to meet new people
Go find any ministry and volunteer, it will help a lot with loneliness and depression.
One option is to find a good doctor/psychiatrist/therapist and try to get diagnosed. (You can also try to self-diagnose via the Interne, your favorite LLM, or just skimming the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5, but that's a risker option due to false positives and noise.)
If you do have a well-studied issue such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder that interferes with socialization, you can find support groups and people who have been able to succeed even with those issues.
Some of these social problems (e.g, ones caused by missing childhood socialization experiences) are curable through practice, but others will require you to learn enough about human social behavior to mask until someone figures out a cure. It can be exhausting, (just like physical exercise can be exhausting) but it's a useful skill to have in order to do well in life.
Good luck.
Maybe you can ask for phone numbers and call people who you like to converse with?
I do! But it’s exhausting always having to text them to hang out, if I don’t then we never talk again. I had a “friend” I consistently texted for 2 - 3 months and it seemed like everything was alright, I then had some personal things I had to take care of and wasn’t able to talk to them. I never heard from them again. Ouch.
> People find me funny and when I do talk to people we have decent conversations (though small talk tends to bore me).
> However that doesn’t lead anywhere and doesn’t bring me any kind of comfort or fulfillment
You have two good things going for you here:
- you're able to hold a conversation with people, even if it might not be as deep a conversation as you'd like it to be.
- you're funny and can joke around with people.
It sounds like you might have some surface level relationships and want deeper connections with people, which is totally understandable. Small talk can be boring at first, but it often opens the possibility of deeper relationships. I'd recommend low-stakes/activity based social interactions and seeing where they take you.
Some ideas:
- If you're on your way to the dining hall to get a meal, ask your dorm mates if they wanna join
- Colleges have a movie night on weekends to see a movie for free, ask class mates, dorm mates to go.
- Does your campus have like a rec/game center (think pool, air hockey, games etc). Another thing to ask people to.
You might have to suffer through a lot of rejection before you get takers. After that you might have to suffer through small talk about the weather, where someone is from, what their major is, etc before you get to the deeper connections.
> What am I supposed to do? Be lonely and without any kind of company and human connection my entire life?
This is called catastrophizing. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/catastrophizing
If you take nothing else away from my comment, I would suggest finding out why you do that, and try to change that mental behavior. It might not directly help with loneliness, but it might make your life more satisfactory.
That said, while other folks on HN will have some advice you'll find useful, I'm not sure how applicable my experiences are to anyone else. My advice would be to examine the things you're interested in, especially if they're weird or "cringe", and find people who share those interests. Be shamelessly authentic.
If you don't have any such interests, I dunno.
I have a ridiculous amount of interest I could share. I will take your advice and see if I can find people who share those interest! I will also try and change my thoughts. It’s just hard to not feel like the world is closing in when it feels like nobody acknowledges your existence.
I think there's some good advice on this thread. Your issue definitely resonates with me, college was very lonely for me as well. HN itself doesn't lend itself to continued conversation (long threads lose their [reply] button and repeated postings from new accounts can turn automatically comments [dead], as in your case). You don't have an email posted, but you can –if you want– message mine. Just say "From HN", or whatever! I (internet rando) would like to talk to you.
Drop me a line if you would like to talk. Email is in the profile.
I had the same issue after college. I joined a meetup group and made lots of friends over the course of a few years. It's been over a decade now, and I'm still friends with many of them.
You're asking the wrong crowd bub. We're mostly tech nerds driven to computers by loneliness (or lack of social skills).
Join an interest group on Meetup maybe.
I've had some success with Meetup (tech meetups specifically). The app/site is terrible though and I think the fees on organizers can be hefty nowadays, so look on the Meetup alternatives, since there might be groups posted to those too.