Dear LPG readers,

I recently found myself coming across a pretty depressing statistic on the internet.    An Age Concern article stated that 4.5 million older people claim to have felt lonely during later life.  It is a very general fact, and not one that we have not heard before, but it left me with a question and one that all my fellow readers might need to address, particularly those who live alone.  Is anyone you know part of that statistic? 

The question can be looked at from a complex point of view or kept simple.  

It is easy to have an opinion on the level of positivity that the people you know leave in their wake as they interact with you.  We retired folk often have way too much time on our hands. It is easy to spend it locked away within your four walls with only the television, and the odd telephone conversation with selected friends for company, to punctuate the day. 

Here’s a ‘for instance’; imagine that on one of those typically English overcast mornings, you come across a neighbour who you have always observed as being pretty negative, and who is doing precisely the same thing as you are; shutting their front door in preparation for a trip out into the vast unknown beyond your front gardens.  You know that, at best, they will remind you that it is likely to rain, and that comment will do nothing but take your already middling outlook on the day to a slightly new all-time low.  What is your reaction? 

You do have choices. 

As you glance over the garden fence separating your houses, do you try to pop back inside until they have gone? You know that their negative comment about the weather will take your positivity down a notch or two.  

Do you get in first with the upbeat version of that comment such as, ‘Hello, they say that the weather is going to be better today, let’s hope so?’

That will be the end of the conversation if you are going in opposite directions when leaving the front gate, or one of you is going by car, but if you turn the same way, it would seem rude to walk faster or slower than they do.    Even if you have the presence of mind to soften the action with a comment about your aching legs and how slowly you are forced to walk, or expressing how much of a hurry you are in, before telling them that it would be better if you each carry on at separate speeds, would you use that as an excuse to let them leave you behind and walk away or vice versa, and would they anyway?   No matter how positive or negative either of us feels about the other, there would have to be some actual argument between us for most neighbours to try that trick without a conscience clicking in.

 So, there you both are, walking down the road, what’s next?

There are more than two ways of looking at the answer to the above question.  You could wait and see what your neighbour will add to the conversation or, if neither of you have any more to say, you could go with that awkward silence partnered with the odd exchange of uncomfortable grins.  If you are already on the cusp of feeling pretty negative, your neighbour’s negativity will likely bring you down a little more. Still, you might be able to reverse the situation and drag them up the positivity scale with a bit of positive chat. 

Change the subject to something upbeat but straightforward that has happened to a member of your family.  If you have lived there for a while, you will know each other’s grown-up children.  Then again, they might not have any children.  There is always the one thing you will likely have in common: your homes.   You might mention some point of decorating that you are planning or in the middle of. You might remark on a day centre you frequent and gradually extend an invitation for them to join you, or perhaps fate will provide a loud motorcycle, a person behaving a bit oddly, or an unconventional looking or sounding vehicle that you can comment on.

It might not work the first time, but if, instead of avoiding such a neighbour, you catch their eye over the garden fence occasionally, your positivity might have the effect of bringing their negativity up a notch or two, and such a neighbourly chat will only add to your positive sense of achievement.

Well that is my theory anyway… 

VH, Merton

VH shares the website that inspired her words, while LPG found this potential internet wisdom that might help…

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