Holiday Loneliness: 3 Steps to Find Friends & Cure Loneliness

There are certain days each year that show us in painful detail the problems, which we need to work on in our lives. For many people, these are the holidays. You can fill up your life with a career, hobbies, volunteerism, social engagements, school, etc., but eventually there comes a day – not a figurative day, a real day - where you find yourself sitting alone realizing you don’t have the meaningful connections you want in life. Once you find yourself there, the magnitude of the difficulty of getting out of loneliness starts to sink it. It will be hard. Loneliness is a vicious cycle. Like the expression it takes money to make money, it often takes healthy connections with family and friends to make more connections with family and friends. If you are starting from ground zero, with few if any family or friends, it can be extremely difficult to develop a support network. When you meet new people, and they find out you have no one, it suddenly changes the dynamic. Many people can sense when you are emotionally needy, and that’s a hard place from which to start a healthy relationship. The reasons are many, but as you can imagine, some people probably worry that you will be too needy of a relationship with them. Perhaps they think there’s something wrong with you, if you are alone. And in today’s busy world, many people either don’t have the time or the motivation to take on the responsibility for the emotional well being of a needy acquaintance. But however hard, it’s never hopeless. The first thing to do is to help others. Give the love and support to someone that you wish someone were giving to you. Aside from being a virtuous activity, this will get you out of your head. It will help you stop ruminating about what is wrong and focus on doing good deeds. It will also transform the energy you project from neediness to generosity, so instead of frightening people away, you will start attracting people. The second thing to do is to seek out people who are similarly situated – people who also need to find friends, cure loneliness, build a support network, etc. To find a true, genuine, real, life-long friend, you need someone who wants to start a new friendship with the intention of creating a support system akin to an extended family. Do not waste your time looking for an activity partner, wing person at a bar, exercise buddy, or anyone else trying to use you to get somewhere else or someone else in life. You are looking for a friend who wants to take the time to see you for who you are, and for whom you want to do the same. You are looking for someone who is willing to show up at the hospital for you in an emergency. You are looking for someone who will, under no circumstances, tolerate you being alone on a holiday. You are looking, in short, to create an extended family. The third thing to do is persevere. You can do this, but be committed to it. Make the time for this new person or persons in your life. Get together regularly and reliably. Do not cancel, reschedule, or flake on plans. Show up. Show up consistently over time and suddenly you will realize that you and this new friend have witnessed so much of each other’s lives, that you have naturally formed a bond, and nothing extraordinary or beyond your control was even necessary. A kind and loving heart, consistency and reliability, and a little bit of time, and you can heal loneliness, find true friends and build a support system by creating an extended family.