-Accept it!.... Loneliness is a great teacher in Patience. Don't force yourself into making friends. Just do the things you enjoy, and you will naturally meet your type of friend- no point living a lie. You are only 18, so chillout. Spend time looking after your health, get lots of sleep, exercise. Be sure to see to your immidiate needs before you consider meeting others. Travel, laugh. Go on, enjoy being selfish. You are young, and you can have it all, and you will: WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, so don't give yourself a hard time because life is abundant, and you won't "run out" of opportunites!

-Don't fret: Rest assured that life will provide you with what you want, when you NEED it. Look back and you will see this to be true, even when it seemed highly unlikey. Have faith in the universal intelligence, because it goes beyond thinking, but is always working for you. When you are ready, ask, and you shall recieve. All you have to do is act in accordance and it will be.

I can relate. Exercise, playing music (guitar/uke/mandolin), reading (a lot) and writing tremendously help. And of course, forums such as the nexus

What I noticed over the years is that the more you go "off the edge" (experiences that are not "normal" in our society) the less you have in common with other people. This can make you feel lonely, because mostly no one else shares your interests or is able/willing to talk with you about what interests you.

The strategy I've developed to cope with this is to try and find people who share ONE interest, and hang out with them mostly for that; for example, hang with other musicians and jam, but not necessarily discuss psychedelics (not the best example as these two topics often seem to go hand in hand, but you get the point..).

You gotta be able to hide certain parts of yourself depending on who you're with; That said, there are some people who will discuss anything and try to really grok what you're on about. These I call true friends. I feel like I can be who I "actually" am with them; they don't necessarily agree with what's being discussed, but they listen and debate (and vice versa).


As for specific advice, you have to go out and do the work; Where will people who like to read naturally congregate, at what time of the day? Maybe you like cycling, strike up a conversation with another cyclist one day. I guess it could happen that someone strikes a conversation with you about something that you like, but if my personal experience can be extrapolated, this is highly unlikely. So you gotta get out there and take the first step.

Ok, so back at a time before time, the you that is everything got tired of being alone, and created myriad personalities through which to express itself. Works pretty well, except that at one level or another, I think we are always sort of aware of the self-reflective nature of conversation. The truly great conversations are rare and reach much deeper, even can leave one with a sense of hope... But ultimately, if you can't find peace in being with yourself, you may spend a lot of effort running from that sense of creeping desperation.

There is a lot of great wisdom in this thread: yes, get out there and mingle. Yes, Shpongle concerts. Yes, be patient and expect nothing. Accept the timing of your evolving social life as being a part of your life path.

And in the meantime, don't despair.

Have you read the "I (generally) don't fit in at college" thread? Very parallel to this topic... Lots of great words of wisdom.