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From: jay@npois.UUCP (Anton Winteroak)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: re loneliness
Message-ID: <260@npois.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Apr-85 13:52:04 EST
Article-I.D.: npois.260
Posted: Tue Apr  2 13:52:04 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Apr-85 15:44:46 EST
Organization: ATTIS, Neptune, NJ
Lines: 38


	I propose a number of solutions, though none are that new.
	First, follow Rich Ganns suggestion and go for a long thoughtful
walk. Make some goals. I suggest that your ultimate goal might be to
be as happy as you can be, as much of the time as possible.
	This leads to a preliminary goal of determining what makes you
happy. I think if you are generally secure, and happy, you won't tend
to feel that lonely, and there is nothing like being happy to make you
feel secure.
	When trying to figure out what makes you happy, try lots of things
that seem like they will work, and pay attention to whether you are happy.
If you are, keep doing it. If you aren't, don't. Don't spend too much time
trying to figure out why until you have lots of good data.
	One possible wrong step is to try to catalog all the things that
make you unhappy, and avoid them. This is like trying to make a list of all
non-working computer programs. You could spend your whole life miserable
that way.
	Eastern philosophy suggests that we are happiest when we are
busy. Which leads me to my next suggestion...
	Join a group of people who do something tangible. A theatre group,
A sports club, some historical recreation group, anything.
	If you have already done these things, and are still chronicly
lonely, try to trust other people to like you, just by being yourself,
and learn to like people who are just being themselves. All the while
sticking to this program of identifying what makes you happy.
	I found that this worked for me, giving visible results in less
than three months, and greatly improving my life and outlook over the course
of about two years.
	If none of this does anything for your loneliness problem, try
seeing a psychiatrist once in a while. He/she will probably help a lot
in giving you confidence that you are basically ok, and don't need to pay
a psychiatrist 80 dollars a week.
	Naturally, any program to do this sort of thing has to be of your
own design. A major lack of self-reliance will result in much slower
developement.

			Anton Winteroak   ...ihnp4!houxm!ahuta!npois!jay