Feeling Alone vs Loneliness: How I Learned to Cope and Even Befriend It

I used to think loneliness was something you either had to endure or escape.
Then something shifted in the way I related to it — and it changed how I experience being alone entirely.

A shift I didn't expect

I’m doing better these days, but every now and then I look back at a period I went through not too long ago when things were difficult. At that time, I felt the need to talk to someone about what I was going through. But my friends quickly stopped being available. As a result, I felt very alone during that period.

I’m consciously not using the word lonely here. In my experience, feeling alone is something temporary. Feeling lonely is something much more structural.

 

A different kind of loneliness

There was a time in my life when I truly felt lonely. Back then, it was almost constant. It felt like I was drifting in an endless sea of emptiness. No land in sight, no hope, no anchor, no sense of stability.

One of the reasons for this was that I felt like a failure.
I was in my mid-thirties, had a daughter around eight years old, no partner, no job, and we were living in a very small, cold, rundown place of less than 40 square meters.

I also had very little money for a social life. Going out is expensive, I couldn’t afford a babysitter, and so I could hardly leave the house.

I had no one to share my experiences and feelings with. I used to think: other people come home and can tell their partner about their day. I would come home and immediately have to take care of responsibilities: cooking, laundry, and so on.
The fact that there was never anyone waiting for me at home — or me waiting for someone else to come home — felt incredibly cold.

 

Lena

At that time, I had a friend, Lena, a woman who was twice my age. We spoke often on the phone, almost daily, and I would visit her regularly. She played something of a motherly role in my life.
I’ll tell you more about her another time, because that’s a story in itself.

Because of something she once told me, I not only learned how to deal with loneliness — I actually started to grow fond of it.

 

Herman

One day, while I was visiting Lena — over a herring and a cup of green tea — she told me about Herman, who, at the time, was a well-known lawyer in Amsterdam. Herman was a Jewish man who, in the post-war years, worked extremely hard to catch up on the education he had missed. He always turned down invitations from friends to go out. He would say:

“I don’t have time, I need to study.”

Lena also explained how, as a result, he eventually ended up in social isolation. His disciplined studying gradually turned into equally disciplined working. As a result, Herman not only no longer had time to go out, but barely had time for his friends at all.

And then Lena said something that stayed with me.

She said: Herman had a certain strength. He drew strength from his loneliness. He became friends with his loneliness. It was almost as if he had married it. He had come to love it.

Blimey, I thought.
Exactly…
If you can’t beat them, join them.

It had never occurred to me that you might actually be able to befriend loneliness instead of fighting it. Because that's a battle you can’t really win.

 

The shift

And the next time loneliness came over me, I said: “Welcome, let’s be friends”.
At first, loneliness resisted a little. But the more I welcomed it, the softer and even friendlier it became. Until we became familiar with each other. And after that, it didn’t take long before I started to enjoy being together with my loneliness.
And now you might think I’m speaking metaphorically. But no — this is literally how it happened.

 

I'm curious

I’m curious whether any of this feels familiar.
Have you ever gone through periods where you felt truly lonely?
And if so, what helped you through it — or not?

 
And perhaps even more interesting:
have you ever tried to “befriend” your loneliness, like I did?
Or does that feel like a step too far?

 
If this story reminds you of someone you know, feel free to share it with them. This subject is still often surrounded by silence, and it can mean a lot to realise you’re not alone in it.

Featured in SATURDAYS with Diana "Am I Worthy of Love—Even Without Him?" Read the issue → Photo: Meg Jenson