May | 2009 | Holes In The Sky

Here’s another letter from a lady called Lily to Bel Mooney, published in the Daily Mail on the 14th March 2009. This one is fom a younger woman in her 30s – but the problems are much the same!

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.

I think these problems often do go back to our earliest days. Because of my disability, my parents sent me to a private convent school up to the the age of nine and a half. If you don’t think that little children can be snobby at that age, then think again! I was also constantly pestered about my hand – and asked to show what was beneath my artificial arm. The girl who did it most had Down’s Syndrome so probably knew no different – it was just my bad luck that she happened to be there at the same time as me!

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.

My mum wasn’t good at understanding my problems either.

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 belong to Facebook – but sometimes end up upset as many my so called ‘friends’ on there aren’t really interested in me as a person!

I find this reply more realistic than that given to the previous letter. It is true that, if the person inside you does not does not know how to ‘be’, then no activities are going to help. I have had 57 years in which to prove that that is correct! At last, maybe, we might be starting to get somewhere now!

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.

The problem of the cost of getting therapy is a real one. Finding a good therapist can be hard too.

It can be done – really! But you do not get there by moping. Have you seen Psychologies magazine (see www.psychologies.co.uk)?

Looks like a helpful link.

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.

I am going to buy these books. I have to say though that I already have a whole library of self-help books upstairs, most of them bought in the 80s when I had a spell when I was really determined to deal with this problem. It never got me anywhere though!

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.

Yes, yes, yes! It has taken me some years, but I do now believe passionately that, despite all these years of failure, I definitely do deserve to have a good friend! I used to do voluntary work in a charity shop and often used to study some of the people who came who came in. Sometimes they were loud, full of swear words and screaming at their kids like mad women – but they nearly always came in with their friends and I used to think: “If they can do it, why not me?” But I never came up with a good answer!

My husband says I am different to other women; indeed, I think he loves me because of that. I am soft and feminine, yet not always into things that other women are. Although I like nice clothes and make-up, I do not want to talk about them for hours. I am not really all that domesticated, although I have not worked for many years. I was never a loud, giggly girl – always quiet and thoughtful.

I am really desperately hopeless at making small talk! Maybe I need to develop more exciting hobbies that I can talk about – I mainly like listening to music, reading, and crosswords and I really love swimming. I am learning Greek – but that is not something I can talk to other people about for long, as not many people my age learn Greek! I have belonged to a table tennis club for many years, but find it hard to talk to people there. They mostly all live in the village where it takes place (we are a mile or two away from there) and most of them know each other from doing other things. Many of them belong to an ordinary tennis club as well (I would love to play tennis, but am far from being good enough to join a club. Also, because of my disability I cannot serve properly).

Church can be a difficult area. I am a Catholic but, although my faith means a lot to me, I do not like to be with people who only talk about religion. I hate fanaticism of any kind. There is honestly not much potential for friendship at my church anyway, at least amongst the few who attend social gatherings outside the church. Although it is not good to be too critical of the people you mix with, you do need to have some basic rapport there. Of course you should always be friendly to everyone, but surely real friendship can only be achieved with those you really gel with?

The inevitable swine flu jokes are doing the rounds! I always feel slightly guilty laughing at such jokes, because if you actually get the affliction which is at the heart of the latest joke craze, I guess it isn’t a joking matter! Still, we Brits do seem to be good at cheering ourselves up making light of serious subjects!

Anyway, I have to say I did laugh a lot at this particular joke. It is followed by the cover of an arts centre programme that came through our door today. I am sure they knew nothing about the coming pig flu epidemic when they designed their cover! (It is in fact advertising a production called ‘Babe The Sheep Pig’!)

Some very prophetic person – long, long ago – was heard to say that if a black guy ever became president of the USA, then pigs would fly!

Of course, we all know that the USA does now indeed have a black president. And what happened 100 days after his inauguration? Why………. swine flu, of course!