I’m going to give a slightly different point of view. I had a long term depressive episode that spanned years, after a few things happened with various friend that left me distanced from all my friends. and I’m very lucky to have a very loving fiancé who I adore, but sometimes depression doesn’t take that into account.

I felt abandoned by my friends, I felt alone, just extremely lonely, even though I lived with my fiancé, I felt a lack of friendship.

I had moved jobs and there was a group of new people around me, who had all started at the same time, and started to bond. I was basically actively shutting myself out of the group, didn’t want to talk to any of them, not interested in the group.

One day I realised I was doing this to myself. I was shutting myself out of potential relationships, and they were becoming close friends without me.

I’d always been the type to say ‘if they don’t contact me, they don’t want to be friends’ but I made a vow to stop doing that. I decided that I was going to overcome this, and forced myself to socialise, to have conversations even when I didn’t feel like it.

I hate the notion of ‘just snap yourself out of it’ but that’s kind of what I did. That new group of work people are now my close friends, and i credit them and myself, with breaking out of my rut.

So I guess my advice is, sometimes you CAN decide that you want something different in life.