You know your lonely when

You wake up feeling physically sick and miserable and your sure you are physically sick and then you get to work and talk with people and interact and... you feel better. Then you go home to your pathetic little house and you start to feel bad again.

You know you are lonely when no one ever knew you cried and why you cried.

Almost all of your interactions with others take place on a surface level only and they assume all is right in your world when in reality you are dying of loneliness inside.

You haven't had a single birthday or Christmas card/message in over 20 years.

Your only worry about death is who will find your body...and when.

When quiet nights become silent nights, and the norm.

When you no longer feel embarrassed about going to the cinema or eating out alone.

When you don't own a mobile phone because you have no one to call.

When even your dreams are about lonliness and isolation.

You visit 24 hour supermarkets just to be around other people at night.

When your employers expect you to work over every holiday because they know you don't have a family to go home to.

When you're sat alone in a dark and empty hospital lobby at 11pm, with all your worldly possessions stuffed inside a small bag, waiting for a volunteer driver to take you home because you have no money or anyone to call for a ride. (Sorry, I'm ranting).

Lost Drifter said:

When you no longer feel embarrassed about going to the cinema or eating out alone.

When you don't own a mobile phone because you have no one to call.

When your employers expect you to work over every holiday because they know you don't have a family to go home to.

When you're sat alone in a dark and empty hospital lobby at 11pm, with all your worldly possessions stuffed inside a small bag, waiting for a volunteer driver to take you home because you have no money or anyone to call for a ride. (Sorry, I'm ranting).

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All of these. I really don't know what I am going to do when or if I get sick. There is no one to call.. no one to visit me. But I have been eating alone or going to the movies since I was a teenager.

Yesterday was the memorial day weekend... who was working... me and this other manager who is single.

Ugh.

People you meet don't have to ask to know you're single.

Lost Drifter and LonelySutton, the three of us live in very similar worlds.

You have conversations with the voice on your phone.

Lost Drifter said:

Your only worry about death is who will find your body...and when.

When quiet nights become silent nights, and the norm.

When you no longer feel embarrassed about going to the cinema or eating out alone.
When even your dreams are about lonliness and isolation.

You visit 24 hour supermarkets just to be around other people at night.
When you're sat alone in a dark and empty hospital lobby at 11pm, with all your worldly possessions stuffed inside a small bag, waiting for a volunteer driver to take you home because you have no money or anyone to call for a ride. (Sorry, I'm ranting).

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These are all true of me as well.
Have often thought I could be dead for weeks or even months before anyone found me.
Quiet nights-also true, apart from the Tuesday French group.
Dreams of loneliness come to me a lot.
Going to places alone is the norm for me.
I don't go to supermarkets at night but sometimes in the day I go downtown to see random strangers and not feel so alone. Saying 'hello, nice weather we are having' to a neighbour or check out person might be the only conversation I have with someone for several days.
When my mum died there was no one I could call to come to pick me up at the hospital as I was the only one left in my family.
I am sorry that there are several of us who are equally as alone.

When you are desperate for someone to just take stuff off of you for just like 1 week. Just not have to do every single blasted thing. Being alone means that everything, no matter how unpleasant is yours to deal with... alone.

Tiina63 said:

I don't go to supermarkets at night but sometimes in the day I go downtown to see random strangers and not feel so alone. Saying 'hello, nice weather we are having' to a neighbour or check out person might be the only conversation I have with someone for several days.

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I can completly understand this and sometimes have to take a hold of myself when talking to check out staff or shop assistants. To them it's small chit chat with just a random customer but to me...well...sometimes I worry that I'm talking or enjoying it too much.

When you spend time talking to your pet snake....snakes don't have ears.....because you're tired of talking to yourself and there's no one else around besides the cats whom you've had every possible conceivable conversation with already.

When you join an online forum about loneliness

You know you're lonely when you come to debate on online forum specially on early morning

Okay, seriously. You're lonely when...

• When you have no one to talk to neither anyone to listen
• When you wake up after morning and there isn't anyone to greet you "good morning"
• When there isn't anyone to ask "How was your day?" when you come home all tired after day's work
• When you look at your phone and find no messages in your inbox
• When you sleep alone in the night and there is none to wish you goodnight sleep
• When you want to share few things about you but all you have is empty room with long walls

There are many but these I feel remind more of loneliness the most.

When people who know you only remember you when they need something

When you're so accustomed to talking to yourself that you do it in public too.

When you notice people in public giving you odd looks as you mutter to yourself and you don't really care because you feel so isolated anyway, even in a busy shopping mall, that it doesn't make any difference.......you're alone wherever you are.

When being around others only makes you feel lonelier.

LonelySutton said:

You wake up feeling physically sick and miserable and your sure you are physically sick and then you get to work and talk with people and interact and... you feel better. Then you go home to your pathetic little house and you start to feel bad again.

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Im the opposite, i go to work and start to feel sick. I sometimes feel sick just by thinking about it, BUT, i do really enjoy the social interaction with people not in my department.

You feel even though you've done all you can to prevent feeling it...you're still lonely as ever. The worst is dreams where you're lonely its like you cant escape even when you can do anything in your dreams.

LonelySutton said:

All of these. I really don't know what I am going to do when or if I get sick. There is no one to call.. no one to visit me.

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Happened to me.. had an cycling accident and broke a bone. Sat in A&E for 3 hours with no one to talk to. Cuts and bruises in a few places. Went back home after being discharged 6 hours after the crash. Thinking how absolutely honeysuckle a Saturday i was having I was on top of the world riding earlier on that day, then one bad driver ruined it.

Nobody to come home to and help in the night when the pain was bad moved back home with the family then back to my current place. Been a month now and i feel honeysuckle about it.

stork_error said:

Im the opposite, i go to work and start to feel sick. I sometimes feel sick just by thinking about it, BUT, i do really enjoy the social interaction with people not in my department.

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I used to be that way so I know the feeling but a few years ago I was having trouble with indigestion in the "anxiety" is the cause of everything era. And the doctor said, if you feel sick when you are home and not at work then you know the cause. I don't buy that totally because at work you get distracted.

But last week I woke up feeling nauseated at home and then I went to work and felt much better than then, when I came home... started feeling it again... and I thought ... what if people do actually make me feel better?