Loneliness - Are We Frightened To Confess?

I have suffered from loneliness for many many years, and hid it. When I read many blogs, I read about acceptance, getting out in the world and friendships within our community. But I believe many of us and including these lucky people are lonely. Before I transitioned and came out, I still suffered from loneliness, but I had a huge circle of friends, was out most nights, and had good work colleagues. To me I was hiding through jokes and a beer glass, and showing the world a great happy person. In reality, I was in pain and had only a couple of true friends, the rest, they where a crutch to get through life with. Part of this was caused by not being honest with myself regarding my true gender, and the unwillingness to come out.

A few years in my process of coming out, it took almost 2 years, I had friendships within the LGBT "scene" in Edinburgh, I had a good time and thought, I got true friends here, similar thinking, non-conformist and happy people. I was still drinking at the time, and I think this clouded my brain. What was happening I was friends with people with as many hang-ups as myself, but instead of facing them they used drugs to dampen them. As an addictive person, I have stayed well away from drugs, and never tried anything, but I saw the effects and mind changing effects, if one was so friendly and lovely at weekends. During the week, they where just miserable, and more screwed up than me, I think due to drugs. Once I stopped drinking, and spent time with my new LGBT friends, I still felt lonely, as I could see they where false, due to the drugs. It's now about 3 years since I split from this group of friends, and to be honest, I don't miss it, but I have a different loneliness in away.

The new loneliness is a much more positive form, as my friends and family are the only people I need or actually want, it might not be a huge circle. Although at times it is lonely living on your own, spending long periods of time with no other inter-personal connections. But there isn't the need for any "crutch" friends to cloud your view of true friendships. Also doing things I'm passionate about beats loneliness, in my life my love of music takes up alot of time, even doing this blog, all gets loneliness under control. My view is if you keep your mind active, you will not be lonely, it can be hard to activate your mind, if you have lived in a social merry go round, of drink and partying, as looking back these are quite mind numbing. How many times have we read that people have over 500 people on facebook, in reality, it's a very small amount we actually like, but the thought of deleting the ones we have no time for is frightening. My view deleting makes life easier, this maybe strange to many, but works for me.