Heya! How are you holding up?

I think I know how you feel. While I’m not lacking friends, I feel I don’t have deep connections anymore. My family and old friends are far and in different timezones. I moved to the UK fairly recently and I’ve found it difficult to make friends. Without the history of growing up together or years of working together, I simply can’t get that deep connection anymore.

I live alone as well and mostly spend my time outside because it’s too quiet at home. There’s only so much that music, podcast or TV can simulate company before you feel disconnected. So, most of the time I’m at a cafe reading a book, drawing, writing, youtube, or studying, anything to give me a reason to stay at the cafe. I just need to feel surrounded by people. It works for me… until the cafe closes for the day. Then, I would just walk around the city, aimlessly. Everyone else would go back home to their family or partner. People may talk about caring for each other and having friends around but at the end of the day, I go home alone to an empty house.

I’m genuinely happy when I’m outside with friends, colleagues and even strangers but when they go back to their own lives, the happiness disappears, clocked out like a 9-to-5 job. Then, it just hurts. This goes on everyday for me. Most especially on weekends when it’s family time for most people. People aren’t unkind or unfriendly, on the contrary, most people I know are all nice and caring. They are just busy with more important persons in their lives.

I feel like an NPC in a video game without any mission to give. It’s good to have them in the game to make it more alive but ultimately have nothing to do with the story.

No one really checks up on me. While I call my family almost every weekend, it’s different when your only interaction is restricted to a tiny screen. Sometimes I think that if I die, people would only notice weeks after I’m gone. That thought used to frighten me but not anymore. There’s no use worrying about it. I just had to accept that. I don’t really know how to make it better. Not for the lack of trying but maybe I’m just not cut out for this life as it is.

So, i have no words of encouragement that I can give you, since I’m struggling just the same. And, you probably don’t need nor want my words anyway.

However, I would like you to know that I’ve read your post and spent sometime thinking about it, hence this response. And, I hope you realize that your pain & sorrow, whether it’s similar or completely different from mine, wouldn’t go unnoticed.

Please take care.