Loneliness is okay.

I am a lonely person by nature. I've been alone for the majority of my 21 years on this planet and you know what; it's okay. It's fine. I used to feel the immense pressure from my parents, friends and colleagues to "get out there", meet people and get a stable girlfriend. This pressure was very annoying and possibly slightly damaging to my developing brain. But, in the past few months, I've come to the conclusion that loneliness is not such a bad thing. Being inherently lonely means that YOU can decide who you want to let into your life. You don't have to succumb to the social pressure-cookers of nightclubs, house parties and gatherings of obnoxious, drunken "popular" people, all of them gliding around the place like coked up butterflies, telling awful jokes to unwitting guests and generally making themselves look ridiculous to anybody with a shred of a cynical brain cell.

If, like me, you're a lonely person by nature, don't feel afraid or depressed. I know it will be hard at first, but you need to embrace your loneliness(embrace is such a cliche word, but I can't think of a better one). Do things that you know you enjoy and do them often. Don't for one minute think that going out and talking to as many people as possible in order to temporarily cure your loneliness will make you feel any better. It won't. You'll feel good while you're talking to or meeting new people, but as soon as you go your separate ways, you'll feel lonelier than ever!

One thing that has helped me a great deal has been online video games. The sort of games where you can talk/chat to the other players. You don't have to meet them face to face, you don't have to undertake any sort of "commitment" with them, you just type messages to them. Because the sort of online games I play are mostly military/shooting games, a typical message I'd type to another player would be something along the lines of, "Kill that sniper to the South-East", or, "Don't shoot, I'm on YOUR team". You see, short little messages that allow you to communicate with people how YOU want to. Because of this online video game phenomenon, I've been able to meet three very nice people that I couldn't have possibly met anywhere else, an American hippie, a computing student from Singapore and a Serbian DJ. Obviously if video games aren't your thing, you could do the exact same thing on chat-rooms, I imagine.

So, next time you're feeling lonely and downtrodden, just remember that you are in control of your loneliness, it's not a disease or mental illness. If you feel like going out and meeting people, then go for it, but it won't change anything about your innate loneliness, it will only alleviate it for a very short time. The best thing to do is very simple; do whatever makes YOU happy, and not what others think you should be doing to deal with loneliness and boredom. Going out and getting drunk is probably the best, most enjoyable way of dealing with a lonely day, but you can't do that every single time you're feeling lonely/bored. You have to mix it up a bit. Go get drunk one night, play some video games the next night, go for a run the next night etc. Doing something BIG also helps. Maybe you have an idea for a movie or a book that you've never got round to writing? Start writing it! You won't feel lonely when you're in the writing-zone when your mind seems to flow endlessly with ideas.

Everybody has hobbies, whether they are lonely people or not. Your hobbies are incredibly important to dealing with lonely boredom. But on another note, very rarely in your life, maybe only once, you'll meet someone who is extraordinary, and you'll never feel lonely or bored if you're with that person. I've never met such a person, but if you have, then that's great. Start a comedy double act with that person, or start a lucrative business with them. Good luck! Ciao.