Ian Haines
Well-known member
Everything is silent. Everything is so still.
All over the UK, there are other lonelies, just like me, sitting in front of their computers, shuddering at such "aloneness" or just plain, old-fashioned "loneliness".
I feel very calm about what I am about to say...not suicidal. Just...calm. And, I'm not exaggerating or dramatising as much as it might seem that I am. Nothing I'm about to write is fiction, or lying.
I'm always the one who phones everybody else. Nobody ever gives enough of a toss to pick up a phone and phone me, to see how I am.
Almost none of them even asks me how I am, when I do phone them, anyway, so they obviously don't give a ****, either way!
What's the point in it all?
Why am I allowing myself to even remain around, in this life, if everything is so isolating and there's close to nobody to care whether or not I'm even here. When the world has run out of uses for me, why am I not already dying some natural death so as to be out of everybody's way?
The most important person in my life died a horrible death only around 6 weeks ago. From diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer, to flatline...7 weeks - BANG!
She was the last friend that I had. She was the last of them, and even she had shown clear signs of no longer caring like she used to.
Penpals? What's the use? I wrote to THIRTEEN of them, with carefully measured jollity in among the serious "what I like and dislike" bits. One of them writes back to me, just the one time and then never again. Not even one of the others bothered to even write back to say that they weren't after any more penfriends. After the 10th day after my friend died, my own sister, half a mile away, told me that I was phoning her too often - my own sister. I was just cruising through an adjustment period, because my friend who died was the only one left to whom I felt I could speak and know that she would listen. Ten days...before my sister folded and gave it up! Best friend dead. Own sister doesn't want to know.
What is the point in it all?
Friends? No...there is none left. There are people that I know, by name and to speak to, but...I only speak to those if I phone them. One I've known for 40 years...hasn't phoned me even once in all that time, to see how I am. I'm looking out of my window at their rooftop, now! Another I've known for 30 years and they have not even once ever bothered to phone to see how I am, even during my many breakdowns or injuries.
But, when THEY have a problem, oh yeah...on the phone they get until their problem is all talked out or their computer is working, again. Back to never phoning we go, then.
This living thing? What's the point in it all?
My BT phone package makes all UK calls (short distance and long distance) free, as long as I redial at the 59 mns and 59 seconds mark and I would really love to be speaking to similarly overnighter lonelies, just like me. About a decade ago, I would've called that BT package (I don't even know its real name) "The Package From Paradise", but it's helped me very little in this troubled time.
But, how could that be any different, anyway, when they don't know me or my life or phone number and I don't know them, or their lives or numbers? All that connection potential is wasted. British people are so inventive, too, so it's surprising that something vaster, by far, than the Samaritans, and not pretending to be any form of replacement for it, isn't already organised and up and running to bring lonelies, everywhere, closer together.
At times, I feel that I am the only person even awake, in the UK...it feels so odd. I'm a person who naturally is usually awake at night and asleep during the day. There may be many of me, out there, but I know not even one of them, if there are. OH, HEY! LET'S FORM "THE OVERNIGHTERS CLUB" and we'll all keep each other company, on the phone, during those wretchedly quiet times!
I don't think so, somehow!
A small version of it would work, but there's a lot of serious danger and trust trouble with such an idea: bringing near-total strangers into your phone number confidence can lead to getting you killed, in modern Britain.
I just feel that overnighter lonelies are not organised in a way in which they might be, but I'm useless at putting such groups together. I wouldn't even know where to begin.
But, otherwise, what's the point in any of this trauma called living? If there's a point, I've yet to catch a glimpse of it.
IH.
All over the UK, there are other lonelies, just like me, sitting in front of their computers, shuddering at such "aloneness" or just plain, old-fashioned "loneliness".
I feel very calm about what I am about to say...not suicidal. Just...calm. And, I'm not exaggerating or dramatising as much as it might seem that I am. Nothing I'm about to write is fiction, or lying.
I'm always the one who phones everybody else. Nobody ever gives enough of a toss to pick up a phone and phone me, to see how I am.
Almost none of them even asks me how I am, when I do phone them, anyway, so they obviously don't give a ****, either way!
What's the point in it all?
Why am I allowing myself to even remain around, in this life, if everything is so isolating and there's close to nobody to care whether or not I'm even here. When the world has run out of uses for me, why am I not already dying some natural death so as to be out of everybody's way?
The most important person in my life died a horrible death only around 6 weeks ago. From diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer, to flatline...7 weeks - BANG!
She was the last friend that I had. She was the last of them, and even she had shown clear signs of no longer caring like she used to.
Penpals? What's the use? I wrote to THIRTEEN of them, with carefully measured jollity in among the serious "what I like and dislike" bits. One of them writes back to me, just the one time and then never again. Not even one of the others bothered to even write back to say that they weren't after any more penfriends. After the 10th day after my friend died, my own sister, half a mile away, told me that I was phoning her too often - my own sister. I was just cruising through an adjustment period, because my friend who died was the only one left to whom I felt I could speak and know that she would listen. Ten days...before my sister folded and gave it up! Best friend dead. Own sister doesn't want to know.
What is the point in it all?
Friends? No...there is none left. There are people that I know, by name and to speak to, but...I only speak to those if I phone them. One I've known for 40 years...hasn't phoned me even once in all that time, to see how I am. I'm looking out of my window at their rooftop, now! Another I've known for 30 years and they have not even once ever bothered to phone to see how I am, even during my many breakdowns or injuries.
But, when THEY have a problem, oh yeah...on the phone they get until their problem is all talked out or their computer is working, again. Back to never phoning we go, then.
This living thing? What's the point in it all?
My BT phone package makes all UK calls (short distance and long distance) free, as long as I redial at the 59 mns and 59 seconds mark and I would really love to be speaking to similarly overnighter lonelies, just like me. About a decade ago, I would've called that BT package (I don't even know its real name) "The Package From Paradise", but it's helped me very little in this troubled time.
But, how could that be any different, anyway, when they don't know me or my life or phone number and I don't know them, or their lives or numbers? All that connection potential is wasted. British people are so inventive, too, so it's surprising that something vaster, by far, than the Samaritans, and not pretending to be any form of replacement for it, isn't already organised and up and running to bring lonelies, everywhere, closer together.
At times, I feel that I am the only person even awake, in the UK...it feels so odd. I'm a person who naturally is usually awake at night and asleep during the day. There may be many of me, out there, but I know not even one of them, if there are. OH, HEY! LET'S FORM "THE OVERNIGHTERS CLUB" and we'll all keep each other company, on the phone, during those wretchedly quiet times!
I don't think so, somehow!
A small version of it would work, but there's a lot of serious danger and trust trouble with such an idea: bringing near-total strangers into your phone number confidence can lead to getting you killed, in modern Britain.
I just feel that overnighter lonelies are not organised in a way in which they might be, but I'm useless at putting such groups together. I wouldn't even know where to begin.
But, otherwise, what's the point in any of this trauma called living? If there's a point, I've yet to catch a glimpse of it.
IH.
