How do people learn to be happy single and alone, possibly forever?

I've never had a real relationship in my entire life. And I haven't had sex in like 2 years. As more and more time passes by the more miserable I am. I just don't really see myself ever being happy being alone and single, without an honest romantic connection for the rest of my life. I work on myself, I spend time with friends, I try to focus on my job and my future educational and career opportunities, focus on health and fitness and keeping myself attractive but in all honesty it all just feels empty. It's as if nothing can distract me from the loneliness and emptiness I feel at the idea of being single.

How can I teach myself to just not care about finding someone anymore? What do I have to do to get to that point where I'm just totally happy by myself and the social contact I have with friends and family? I really think after this many years of not finding anyone I will be alone for the rest of my life and I have to learn to cope with that somehow.

I'm a lesbian so the reality of being alone for the rest of my life is extremely likely, since there's not really that many lesbian women in my area and the chances of meeting one I'm attracted to that' attracted back are slim to none. And believe me I've tried. and I don't have the option of moving somewhere else.

I think some people (like me) don't have this "tremendous" need to be in a relationship but for the rest i guess it's like accepting a job you don't like and compromise with the reality unfortunately . But you are fairly young so why do you have this notion of being alone forever. ?

I don't have the option of moving somewhere else.

I come from a very conservative Mexican-American neighborhood. I've got two uncles who happen to be gay. One hasn't left my hometown. The other moved to Boystown (Lake View) in Chicago. You can probably guess between the two who's found a guy and who hasn't.

I know it's easier said than done, but expecting to find love as a lesbian in some place like Mobile, Alabama is like hoping for rain in Tuscon.

Meditate and really focus on the love your friends and family provide for you. You feel lonely now, but imagine just how lonely you would be if you absolutely had no one in your life who told you how much they appreciated you or admired you. Imagine what life would be like without friends who didn't care about making you smile or laugh and imagine not having anybody in your life who you could lean on or cry to. Your friends and family may not love you in a romantic sense, but their love runs just as deeply if not deeper than the love a boyfriend/ girlfriend could ever hold for you. After going through an emotionally devastating break up I can totally relate to how you feel, but thank God for the friends I can turn to who genuinely care about my well being. I feel guilty at times too because sometimes I feel like I let the pain of the rejection get to me more than the love and protection of my friends. My ex is nothing compared to my friends. His purpose in my life just seemed to remind me of how precious other people in my life compared to him are. To say I'm alone would be an insult to every person that ever mattered to me. That's all I got. I'm sorry for how you feel. I find how you feel relatable. Online dating sites tend to get a bad rep, but I've met some good people that way. I'm currently dating an extremely sweet guy I met off of there. I hope this helps.

Isn't there online dating sites for lesbians?

I really think after this many years of not finding anyone I will be alone for the rest of my life and I have to learn to cope with that somehow.

Step 1, I would drop this idea. I can't think of anyone who could impose a life sentence on themselves and then expect to be content with that. I'd rather trust that my 'readiness' for finding the right person for me will reveal itself when I'm actually ready, rather than according to a calendar that I impose.

Then, when you're ready, consider this:

Isn't there online dating sites for lesbians?

Instead of deciding that the right person couldn't possibly exist in your location (another bummer that blocks contentment,) you can use dating apps to screen potential dates with quick coffee meets. Don't hover around the text or phone zone, meet right away for 15 or 20 minutes to check one another out. Neither can ask the other for a real date on the spot, but afterward, either can send an invite. If the answer is yes, the other responds, if the answer is no, then no response is necessary. this takes the squirmy rejection this off the table.

Set up as many quick meets as possible, and don't be discouraged by meeting a lot of wrong matches. Most people are NOT our match. When you can grasp this, it's liberating because it's true for ALL of us rather than some signal that you're somehow deficient. Rejection is nothing more than someone who doesn't own the right lens through which to view us, and it just means we need resilience to allow wrong matches to pass early rather than latching on to try to 'convert' a wrong match into a right one. Keep setting up meets and dates until you stumble across the needle in the haystack--the person who holds the right puzzle piece that matches your own.

You can't presume to know who might exist in your area. If you attempt quick meets (in cycles, give yourself rest periods) and find that the lesbian population is too sparse, then work two jobs and save the money to pursue a career in a more populated area in the future. This will give you a goal to strive for, and having goals removes mental barriers to happiness.

Head high.

I think some people (like me) don't have this "tremendous" need to be in a relationship but for the rest i guess it's like accepting a job you don't like and compromise with the reality unfortunately . But you are fairly young so why do you have this notion of being alone forever. ?

Wow that's awful. Honestly, I'd be more unhappy forcing myself to be in a relationship with someone that I'm not in love with and not attracted to then being alone. I mean both options suck but the former one that involves settling sucks even more.

I just don't form romantic attractions and connections easily. Like, if you put 400 women in a room I might be attracted to one of them, if I'm lucky. And I missed all the dating and romantic and relationship social skills growing up. I wouldn't know how to behave or act romantically with another person. But mostly it's just numbers that lead me to believe I will spend my life alone. Lesbians make up less then 1% of the population and out of that 1% the majority are too old too young, or coupled already, or just people I wouldn't be attracted to. That combined with my bad life choices that have led me to work a low-income job that doesn't allow a lot of time for personal growth and interesting hobbies just means I have to accept a certain fate. But I still don't know how to cope with it.

Work toward making that an option, then.

 

I come from a very conservative Mexican-American neighborhood. I've got two uncles who happen to be gay. One hasn't left my hometown. The other moved to Boystown (Lake View) in Chicago. You can probably guess between the two who's found a guy and who hasn't.

 

I know it's easier said than done, but expecting to find love as a lesbian in some place like Mobile, Alabama is like hoping for rain in Tuscon.

I hear what you're saying. The thing is- I live near one of the gayest cities in the country. And yet I still feel like there's no available gay women here. I joined the most popular dating sites and after a few days I'm already cycling through the same girls, being shown profiles of girls hundreds of miles away from me because it really doesn't matter where you are, there's just not that many single lesbians. And I'm not a person who can compromise on attraction. If I don't find a girl attractive and have no desire to sleep with her, I can't be happy and content in a relationship with her. There are theoretically girls i could date, but it would do nothing to solve my problem.

Meditate and really focus on the love your friends and family provide for you. You feel lonely now, but imagine just how lonely you would be if you absolutely had no one in your life who told you how much they appreciated you or admired you. Imagine what life would be like without friends who didn't care about making you smile or laugh and imagine not having anybody in your life who you could lean on or cry to. Your friends and family may not love you in a romantic sense, but their love runs just as deeply if not deeper than the love a boyfriend/ girlfriend could ever hold for you. After going through an emotionally devastating break up I can totally relate to how you feel, but thank God for the friends I can turn to who genuinely care about my well being. I feel guilty at times too because sometimes I feel like I let the pain of the rejection get to me more than the love and protection of my friends. My ex is nothing compared to my friends. His purpose in my life just seemed to remind me of how precious other people in my life compared to him are. To say I'm alone would be an insult to every person that ever mattered to me. That's all I got. I'm sorry for how you feel. I find how you feel relatable. Online dating sites tend to get a bad rep, but I've met some good people that way. I'm currently dating an extremely sweet guy I met off of there. I hope this helps.

thank you. I try to be grateful for what I have but I'm still unhappy. Saying to myself, hey, at least I'm not friendless, just doesn't really change the fact that I feel really sad.

Step 1, I would drop this idea. I can't think of anyone who could impose a life sentence on themselves and then expect to be content with that. I'd rather trust that my 'readiness' for finding the right person for me will reveal itself when I'm actually ready, rather than according to a calendar that I impose.

 

Then, when you're ready, consider this:

 

 

 

Instead of deciding that the right person couldn't possibly exist in your location (another bummer that blocks contentment,) you can use dating apps to screen potential dates with quick coffee meets. Don't hover around the text or phone zone, meet right away for 15 or 20 minutes to check one another out. Neither can ask the other for a real date on the spot, but afterward, either can send an invite. If the answer is yes, the other responds, if the answer is no, then no response is necessary. this takes the squirmy rejection this off the table.

 

Set up as many quick meets as possible, and don't be discouraged by meeting a lot of wrong matches. Most people are NOT our match. When you can grasp this, it's liberating because it's true for ALL of us rather than some signal that you're somehow deficient. Rejection is nothing more than someone who doesn't own the right lens through which to view us, and it just means we need resilience to allow wrong matches to pass early rather than latching on to try to 'convert' a wrong match into a right one. Keep setting up meets and dates until you stumble across the needle in the haystack--the person who holds the right puzzle piece that matches your own.

 

You can't presume to know who might exist in your area. If you attempt quick meets (in cycles, give yourself rest periods) and find that the lesbian population is too sparse, then work two jobs and save the money to pursue a career in a more populated area in the future. This will give you a goal to strive for, and having goals removes mental barriers to happiness.

 

Head high.

thank you for you're advice. I will try to do online dating more. I just haven't really had any luck with it and when I look at those girls' pictures and profiles I just feel nothing. nada. no desire to sleep with them or hangout with them or meet them at all. is that normal?

Find meaningful changes to yourself. Exercise and be proud of your progress. Take up indoor skydiving. Go some where and come home really late. Do all of this BECAUSE YOU CAN! Right now you are living the dream of those who can't do these things. Do something random at least once a week, which takes you out of your routine. Foster a rescue dog. Live life as if you only have 3 weeks left. Sell what you have, and start again. The more you challenge your life with positive change, the more you will find a new path forward and the more you will discover where you really want to go!

I just avoided a relationship because I like it better alone now. And I was once where you are emotionally.

thank you for you're advice. I will try to do online dating more. I just haven't really had any luck with it and when I look at those girls' pictures and profiles I just feel nothing. nada. no desire to sleep with them or hangout with them or meet them at all. is that normal?

Yes, that's normal. Those are profiles, not people, and most don't photograph well, and most have not been schooled in powerful marketing techniques. So people do lousy profiles. You're not trying to date a profile. Set up quick meets, and make it less about lightning-bolt attraction and more about curiosity and getting to know people as human beings FIRST, potential lovers only after you've given someone enough of a chance to break past the barriers of new-meeting nerves to see if there's any simpatico.

Most of the people I've loved or formed crushes on are those whose profiles I'd have likely passed up without a second glance having never interacted with them. There's no animation in a profile. There's little personality unless someone is 'good at this,' and do you really want someone who's a pro at profiles? Think of an otherwise not-so-beautiful teacher or boss or someone else who you ended up enjoying for their talent or humor or knowledge or generosity. I have fallen 'in love' with more teachers and professors than I can count--and it wasn't about their looks. Those just became beautiful to me over time because my most powerful organ is my mind.

So skip the judgement--and skip the assumptions. Stop creating a self fulfilling prophecy by reinforcing your lock-in to lousy predictions. Those WILL make so exactly what you fear, and then you'll get to be 'right' at your own expense.

Don't worry about how to be in a relationship unless and until you meet someone with whom you feel able and encouraged to share your concerns and even laugh at yourself. Humor is the best bonding device I can think of, and when we can make light fun of ourselves without putting ourselves down to the degree that it comes off as self pity rather than self amusement, then we invite another to join us in a world of self respect that doesn't hide or take ourselves too seriously.

When we learn to be unashamed of who we are, then we don't need to figure out how to navigate 'around' fears and secrets. It's not that we can't have secrets and fears, it's just that we can recognize that everyone else has them, too. That's why bonding as humans rather than putting seduction first can make sexy what would otherwise remain hidden beneath the mundane and uninteresting.

It's a powerful thing to learn that our barriers to happiness and attractions are rarely ever about what we're not getting--they're about what we're not giving.

Head high.