The Daily Mail Bel Mooney

Actual online page:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1161851/BEL-MOONEY-I-hoped-Id-love--I-blown-it.html

14th March 2009

Help! Nobody seems to like me

Dear Bel

How do you make friends? I'm in my mid-30s and have no friends because no one likes me. I think this goes back to my last year in secondary school, when my so-called friends dropped me.

In the past I've done night classes, but never met anyone I clicked with.
To make matters worse, my mother couldn't care less. She tells me to go out and enjoy myself - but I do not have the courage to do so. My life is just pointless.

I long for friendships and the pain is really hurting me.

LILY

Loneliness affects so many people, and all the modern disease of frenetic 'communication' makes not a jot of difference. Is 'twittering' talking? No, it is not. Does Facebook make real friendship any easier? No, it does not.

Instead, I suspect that all the meaningless 'stuff' going on all around makes people like you feel worse.

You did the right thing to join evening classes, but if the person inside you doesn't know how to 'be', no activities are going to help.
I've had many letters like yours over the past few years. Loneliness among the elderly is a widespread - and very sad - problem, but it does us all good to realise that people of all ages are afflicted, too.
Your confidence suffered a severe knock at school and you have a parent who (I suspect) has never bothered to try to know the real you.

But you can step forward out of those two shadows over your life. I won't suggest therapy because I suspect it would be financially out of the question, as well as too daunting at this stage.

I think you have to help yourself by becoming far, far more self-aware than your little note indicates. You need to understand what makes people tick, starting with yourself.

You have to learn to develop the person you are inside and present a different face to the world.
It can be done - really! But you do not get there by moping. Have you seen Psychologies magazine (see www.psychologies.co.uk)?
Each month they feature issues similar to yours, with plenty of advice, quizzes, and so on. You should sign up to the website, and get involved with the Forums, and read the magazine from cover to cover each month.

Self-help books (which too many people dismiss) can be very useful, too: for example, How To Be A People Person by Marianna Csoti (Right Way Books); and Christine Webber's Get The Self-Esteem Habit (Help Yourself/ Hodder) are both written in a warm, accessible way.

I'm saying that you have to make a real effort, Lily. You have to stop listening to that sad, negative inner voice which tells you no one likes you because you don't actually deserve friends.
Let other voices drown it out. You do deserve friends. But you must learn how to reach out - and the first stage of that process is understanding more about people, including yourself. So start work today.