\n I\u2019m 38 and single. I have a good job, a lovely family, and good health, but I\u2019m so lonely.\n <\/p>\n
\n I worked hard through my 20s, and at that time, there was a great social aspect to the job. Colleagues would often have lunch together, go out after work on a Friday, and there always seemed to be some party, wedding, or event I was going to.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n But, when the pandemic came, that changed \u2014 a lot of people work remotely, and there isn\u2019t really that kind of social culture at my workplace anymore.\n <\/p>\n
\n Many of my friends at work and outside of work have gotten married, and had kids, and, understandably, spend a lot of their free time with their families. They invite me to the big events, of course, but I feel a bit like an outsider. There haven\u2019t been any falling-outs or anything. It just seems everyone is really busy and tied up with juggling work and family commitments.\n <\/p>\n
\n I don\u2019t blame anyone for that. But I have to say, I feel like I\u2019ve been left behind.\n <\/p>\n
\n I don\u2019t know where people my age go to make new connections. I feel like if I was older, there would be men\u2019s sheds and the like that I could join. I feel too young for that.\n <\/p>\n
\n How do I go about making friends?\n <\/p>\n
You seem to be concentrating on the past a lot and maybe for good reason. It sounds like you all had a great time until covid changed things. I\u2019ll get to covid soon, but regardless of covid, things would have moved on anyway, so we only blame covid for a little of this. It\u2019s just life moving on, it\u2019s like a river, it just keeps moving, if it didn\u2019t, we would all be in trouble.<\/p>\n
\n What covid did do is break that rhythm of life we had, and some people never got back into it, and that\u2019s what has happened to you, it seems.\n <\/p>\n
You are not alone in this. I know lots who found it hard to go back to the way it was and for different reasons, a lot of them quite personal. You don\u2019t seem to be in that group though, more like the group that went back to work and normality and all of a sudden, six years have gone by.<\/p>\n
So, you now are in a different rhythm, and we need to break that cycle, and you do that by looking at what you\u2019ve been doing socially in the last few years, for example, and changing what you don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n
You have friends of old and that is great. They have moved on, but they are still your friends. You say you feel like an outsider\u00a0\u2014 you have put yourself in that \u2018outsider\u2019 category, they haven\u2019t. You need to rethink that\u00a0\u2014 there has been no fall-out. It\u2019s only you that has fallen out with yourself in that regard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yes, their situation has changed but nothing else has happened. So come in from that lonely rock you have put yourself on!<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time now to start making new friends, and you do that by going out and meeting new people in new places. You can try things like online dating for the laugh; this might be something totally new to you and how exciting it would be to see what that is like.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The good thing here again is that it is not your first rodeo. You have done all this before, you know how to go out and enjoy yourself\u00a0\u2014 you just need to get moving.<\/p>\n
I did sense a little bit of self-pity from your letter and if that\u2019s the case, it needs to stop. You are the only person that can do anything about all of this and the real question that you have to ask yourself, and you need to be very honest, is what exactly do you want? Are you looking for a few new buddies to go for a few drinks with after work or at the weekends, or are you looking for love and someone to settle down with.<\/p>\n
Maybe you are looking at your old friends thinking it\u2019s time to make that move and it might be only, I\u2019ve found, that you need to meet the right person first. Don\u2019t put the cart before the horse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n I know too many people who loved the idea of being married only to find that they married the wrong person, so if this is what you want, don\u2019t rush in!\n <\/p>\n
Now, I love men\u2019s sheds and what they do for older men\u00a0 across the country, actually we would be in the ha’penny place without them. You may feel you are too young for them at the moment, but if you want to go down and check it out, you might have a great time, but if you do that, you also need to meet people of your own age.<\/p>\n
I mentioned you should ask what you really want, and while you\u2019re thinking, ask yourself what you\u2019re interested in these days. Your interests might have changed without you even knowing over the last while.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before, you might have loved to go into packed pubs and now you might want something quieter. I know my interests definitely changed from my 20s to my 30s and again in my 40s, so this is an important one to work out\u00a0\u2014 it cuts out a lot of the crap!<\/p>\n
The ball is really in your court and it\u2019s up to you how you want to play it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m 38 and single. I have a good job, a lovely family, and good health, but I\u2019m so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[65402,752,61,60,42443,80],"class_list":["post-441384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-dear-daithi","tag-advice","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-life-advice","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}