Dear LPG

I have just found a website that informed me that I am a part of a really depressing national statistic.  I am a man living on my own who is just over 75 which makes me a part of the biggest group of people who live alone.    The saddest part of this fact is that until about a year ago I really felt not only alone, but truly lonely as well.

It was about a year ago when I realised that I spent far too much time at home and the result was that when opportunities presented themselves, I could not find the wherewithal to get ready and go out.  I never married and none of my family live close to me, so on retiring from work there has been a void in my life which grew into a comfortable rift.  I started to go out less and less, get up later and later, eat less meals and more fast food and drink a little more than was good for me.  I knew that I was letting myself go downhill a bit and I, unlike a lot of people my age, didn’t have any physical excuse for being so lethargic.  I got out of bed later and later each day and did not even make the effort to meet the few friends I have left for the once all important twice-weekly drink at my local.  When I went shopping I felt as if there was a bubble around me that no one could penetrate in order to get close enough to me to even say hello.

Then one day I decided that I could not continue like that.  I was not looking for a partner; just a reason to get out of my house more often and enjoy my day to day life.  Logic dictated that I needed to find out how to strike up a decent conversation with a perfect stranger, because it felt as if this was a skill that I had forgotten, and I worked out that no one was going to do that with me.  Another interesting statistic is that there are more ladies of my age than men but, being a man of a certain age I worried that it would appear as if I were propositioning her if I were to try to approach a lady of any age, so I thought about attending a social club or day centre for elders in my area. 

I found a lot of information on line and hope that LPG will be able to share some page references with you.  I read about eye contact, open questions (ones where the answer is not just yes or no), I read about showing empathy and looking interested and a lots more but I was still really worried about my first visit.

 The big day arrived, and I was really worried about how I would fit in, but it was a lot less daunting than I thought.  I have made a new friend who was as much in need of a friend as I was.  I remember reading somewhere that the test of a true friend is that you would feel able to phone them at two in the morning just because you need someone to talk to for a bit, and he qualifies, and the ladies in our little group were never in any doubt that I was not looking to make a new partner out of one of them. 

So, I can report that I am still a statistic, but I am no longer lonely even though I still live alone and the hardest thing of all was actually summoning up the courage to cross the threshold that was also the entrance of that club.

VN, Brockley.

While LPG recognises that every friend that was ever made was once a stranger, and that as we get older and lose the friends around us replacing some of them is vital.  We would remind readers about making new ones cautiously.

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