Your Social Network Collapsing?

[Logo]

What do you do when you feel like your entire social network from failed romantic dates to friends fading out on you is crumbling and imploding and your 1001 hobbies are just not interesting you anymore because you feel loneliness eating you up, one bite at a time? 

[Datingdisabled]

32 minutes ago, Logo said:

What do you do when you feel like your entire social network from failed romantic dates to friends fading out on you is crumbling and imploding and your 1001 hobbies are just not interesting you anymore because you feel loneliness eating you up, one bite at a time? 

Well @Logo, I think a lot of people experience this at one point and for many reasons. People grow and change. It's very normal for friends and romantic partners to fade out and move along. There is Facebook and social media but they are more of a time killer then anything. In real life, those are the connections that matter and people do end up getting involved in their own lives. What helps me is to use social medial to pass time and develop other hobbies. If you ask anyone, dating is depressing at times. We all want that spark and connection but that's why people are dating, to find it. I would say positive thinking and patience help. If you are depressed then you have to walk yourself out of the depression and when you do, you will get more and more into your hobbies again. 

Edited September 11, 2020 by Datingdisabled

[Logo]

Yeah I need to get back into one or two of my hobbies. That’ll give me something to enjoy working on. 
 

Sorry for the late reply. 

[d0nnivain]

Throughout Covid I have been talking to certain friends more on the phone.  Groups of us have done Zoom together.  I have arranged socially distant things with people but I have been missing the in person events & feel disconnected there.  My lack of connection has caused me to miss 2 people's deaths.  I only found out later.  

Staying active & being mindful help.  I read a magazine article on line yesterday about somebody who created her own Eat, Pray, Love (like from the book & movie) routine to keep some balance & joy in her life though all of this.  

[scooby-philly]

Hey @Logo,

Sorry for the pain, the joylessness, the anguish you're feeling. I can relate A LOT to what you said. I suffered a devastating heartbreak 13 months ago. First 2 months I was a wreck. It me harder than any past breakup, including one 4 days before I was going to get married. Over the course of my life I've had to endure merciless teasing & bullying as a child/teen, having no emotional support/direction from my parents, staying with the wrong group of friends who didn't value or understand me, and in many cases, making major life decisions for the wrong reasons/motivations (w/o realizing it at the time). So I've had to rebuild my life piece by piece. Even as I've emerged from the heartbreak and started rediscovering things I either stopped doing or didn't do enough of, or just dreaming again for myself....and even though my life, on paper, looks pretty decent, the past month, maybe three weeks, I've sunk back into depression and have anxiety for the first time in my life. I agree with @Datingdisabled's point - people change, grow, suffer defeats/setbacks, stop growing, start growing again, get stagnant, stay immature, grow out of immaturity, etc., etc., etc., We pretend like we're masters of our own destiny, but even the most balanced, healthy, happy, and "successful" (by the person's definition, not society's) person could, in the course of a few bad turns, end up severely depressed if too many things, or a few of the wrong things, all happened in short order. As they also said, you have to "walk" yourself out of the depression. DO NOT FEAR the darkness. The darkness can show you things if you let it talk to you. But....after a while...you have to learn the art of positive, ACTIVE, self-talk and fight back. Examine every thing your subconscious throws at you under the microscope, fight back against the falsities or false narrative, counter-punch with truth, and if what it says is true or mostly true...forgive yourself, accept yourself and move on. I've slowly learned that you can fight against yourself by reframing things. Like me, I've wanted/needed to drop like 20-25 lbs for a few years. While I've been on/off again with working towards that goal the past 6 months...I'm learning to reframe things. Instead of forcing myself to "walk" on the nights' I want cardio, I think about the areas I'll walk by, or the podcast I'll listen to. I'll reframe the "exercise" from exercise to exploration or learning and boom - all of a sudden I can overcome the urge to be a sloth or to bask in depression. I was doing good for a while and then the past 2-3 weeks hit...so yeah - I need to take my own advice. BUT that's how you do it. ANd there will be misteps and failures GALORE. Just remember, anyone can learn anything at any age and just because something WAS a passion of yours (or a hobby) it doesn't mean it always has to be. You can learn new ones. Even with COVID, even in 2020.

[Datingdisabled]

9 hours ago, scooby-philly said:

Hey @Logo,

Sorry for the pain, the joylessness, the anguish you're feeling. I can relate A LOT to what you said. I suffered a devastating heartbreak 13 months ago. First 2 months I was a wreck. It me harder than any past breakup, including one 4 days before I was going to get married. Over the course of my life I've had to endure merciless teasing & bullying as a child/teen, having no emotional support/direction from my parents, staying with the wrong group of friends who didn't value or understand me, and in many cases, making major life decisions for the wrong reasons/motivations (w/o realizing it at the time). So I've had to rebuild my life piece by piece. Even as I've emerged from the heartbreak and started rediscovering things I either stopped doing or didn't do enough of, or just dreaming again for myself....and even though my life, on paper, looks pretty decent, the past month, maybe three weeks, I've sunk back into depression and have anxiety for the first time in my life. I agree with @Datingdisabled's point - people change, grow, suffer defeats/setbacks, stop growing, start growing again, get stagnant, stay immature, grow out of immaturity, etc., etc., etc., We pretend like we're masters of our own destiny, but even the most balanced, healthy, happy, and "successful" (by the person's definition, not society's) person could, in the course of a few bad turns, end up severely depressed if too many things, or a few of the wrong things, all happened in short order. As they also said, you have to "walk" yourself out of the depression. DO NOT FEAR the darkness. The darkness can show you things if you let it talk to you. But....after a while...you have to learn the art of positive, ACTIVE, self-talk and fight back. Examine every thing your subconscious throws at you under the microscope, fight back against the falsities or false narrative, counter-punch with truth, and if what it says is true or mostly true...forgive yourself, accept yourself and move on. I've slowly learned that you can fight against yourself by reframing things. Like me, I've wanted/needed to drop like 20-25 lbs for a few years. While I've been on/off again with working towards that goal the past 6 months...I'm learning to reframe things. Instead of forcing myself to "walk" on the nights' I want cardio, I think about the areas I'll walk by, or the podcast I'll listen to. I'll reframe the "exercise" from exercise to exploration or learning and boom - all of a sudden I can overcome the urge to be a sloth or to bask in depression. I was doing good for a while and then the past 2-3 weeks hit...so yeah - I need to take my own advice. BUT that's how you do it. ANd there will be misteps and failures GALORE. Just remember, anyone can learn anything at any age and just because something WAS a passion of yours (or a hobby) it doesn't mean it always has to be. You can learn new ones. Even with COVID, even in 2020.

Well said!

[Logo]

Thank you for all the thoughtful responses. 
 

Of the people who posted, have you experienced a prolonged period of overall happiness or at least a sense of content that lasted longer than a year since you became a teenager, for example, until your adulthood today? 
 

Some things in life become part of our identity whether we like it or not. And the one thing I have always wanted to feel was a sense of belonging. Yet despite all my experiences and trials and errors, I feel like I don’t belong, wherever I go, whatever I go. 

[Ellener]

4 hours ago, Logo said:

the one thing I have always wanted to feel was a sense of belonging. Yet despite all my experiences and trials and errors, I feel like I don’t belong, wherever I go, whatever I go. 

Yes, I had that when I was younger, but I found belonging via my marriage, parenting and work; then was devastated when my ex-husband abruptly ended our decades-long friendship so he could move on with his life. I think it comes from my difficult childhood leaving emotional vulnerabilities. Loss and change triggers deep painful memories.

It's been an interesting year for me @Logo in that I went from a very intense living situation and busy work life to solitude overnight. At first I was walking @5 miles a day and having distance-conversations along the way, then my feet collapsed ( Charcot ) and I've had to give that up, probably for good. I was sick with pneumonia for a month, I lost a friend then a colleague to Covid, and my business has proved difficult to rebuild as the pandemic came back in waves. Dating was reduced to texting and calling, and I discovered I don't enjoy Zoom!

It all felt like a heap of losses and I spent much of the summer mourning. But as with all the other losses in my life it's like something new always rises from the scorched earth and starts to grow! 

I could write loads about me and hijack your topic, but what I am trying to say is give it time, keep thinking and doing positive things and reaching out in small ways, then life has a way of knitting together naturally 💕