Types of loneliness

Mar 7, 2026

You don’t have any friends - Obvious, you’ve been alive but you don’t talk to anyone, even if you do nobody you can lay out your heart to

You have friends but they don’t understand you - I have felt the loneliest in groups I couldn’t be myself in. I couldn’t talk

You have friends, you can talk to them but you can’t - I have the unique type of brain that needs excitement with everything it does. Including drinking water, eating food and just getting up to pee. But at times I find myself going through stuff where life happens, I have people that I know would help me feel less alone and even go as far as to help me solve it but something about reaching out to friends I already have seems off. Either because I’ve had a conversation with them recently that made me feel something that I need to think about, or I know how they will respond and I want something else; here’s the newest addition to these reasons - I have some new friends I am really anxious about what will happen, that reaching out to old friends gets infected with the anxiety and blocks me on both ends. What the fuck even?

You want to do something and you can’t do it - This is the type of loneliness, that can only be broken by reaching flow state, you know there’s something exciting to do, you like it, you want to it but can’t. So you reach out to friends, chit-chat, catchup, sometimes go out of your way to reach out to people that aren’t good for you and then inevitably the conversation or hangout will end and suddenly you’re left with that hit of loneliness again.
This is a unique type of loneliness. Because the more you don’t do the thing you want to do, you become less present around other people, spending your time in blanks or lulls in the conversation, thinking about the thing you’re supposed to be doing, making mental progress on the idea. But you can only make progress when you’re already doing something with someone else, you need the stimulation of someone being there, engaged with you on something else to make progress. Then, when the hangout is over you feel even lonelier, because you weren’t present enough during the hangout to feel like you socialised and the thing that you really want to do is even more exciting but you can’t do it because of not getting the socialization requirements filled. And the cycle repeats until one night you can’t sleep anymore and you have finished working on the thing that you should’ve been working on. And then you can’t stop telling your friends about, oops sorry you don’t have friends anymore because you were not there for them.

I think this blog was supposed to be the 4th point only and nothing else. But it’s ok, we try. Let’s hope there isn’t a 5th type I discover. If you want tips - start a song when you want to start something - do the setup for the thing you’re supposed to be doing. Set it all up, the pen, the paper, the post it notes, all the tabs that you need to read, a place to take notes, imagine yourself locking in (imagine Darragh Hand watch you lock-in thinking damn, this girl smart af) And then when you’re so excited you feel like you’re being held back by iron clutches before you start running, turn off the music (that’s the iron clutches) and go off. Nothing and no one matters. It’s you and this thing and; this thing and you. Run off into the sunset and get married (or like you get the thing done, you know what I mean). It has helped me a lot. You’re welcome.