Dear Dáithí: 'I feel so lonely... how do I make friends as a 38-year-old man?'

It seems everyone is really busy and tied up with juggling work and family commitments. I don't blame anyone for that. But I feel like I've been left behind

'I don't know where people my age go to make new connections. I feel like if I was older, there would be Men's Sheds and the like that I could join. I feel too young for that.'

Dear Dáithí,

I’m 38 and single. I have a good job, a lovely family, and good health, but I’m so lonely.

I worked hard through my 20s, and at that time, there was a great social aspect to the job. Colleagues would often have lunch together, go out after work on a Friday, and there always seemed to be some party, wedding, or event I was going to. 

But, when the pandemic came, that changed — a lot of people work remotely, and there isn’t really that kind of social culture at my workplace anymore.

Many of my friends at work and outside of work have gotten married, and had kids, and, understandably, spend a lot of their free time with their families. They invite me to the big events, of course, but I feel a bit like an outsider. There haven’t been any falling-outs or anything. It just seems everyone is really busy and tied up with juggling work and family commitments.

I don’t blame anyone for that. But I have to say, I feel like I’ve been left behind.

I don’t know where people my age go to make new connections. I feel like if I was older, there would be men’s sheds and the like that I could join. I feel too young for that.

How do I go about making friends?

There is a lot of good in your letter and, to be honest you’ve done a lot and have a lot to offer. Even in your first line, you’ve a good job, a lovely family, and, most importantly, you have good health. The vast majority of people I know would be happy with all of that alone. 

You have worked hard since your 20s and when you do that, you have a good bit of the heavy lifting done in life, I think, and it would suggest you would be in a good position now. So, we have a great starting point.

You seem to be concentrating on the past a lot and maybe for good reason. It sounds like you all had a great time until covid changed things. I’ll get to covid soon, but regardless of covid, things would have moved on anyway, so we only blame covid for a little of this. It’s just life moving on, it’s like a river, it just keeps moving, if it didn’t, we would all be in trouble.

What covid did do is break that rhythm of life we had, and some people never got back into it, and that’s what has happened to you, it seems.

You are not alone in this. I know lots who found it hard to go back to the way it was and for different reasons, a lot of them quite personal. You don’t seem to be in that group though, more like the group that went back to work and normality and all of a sudden, six years have gone by.

So, you now are in a different rhythm, and we need to break that cycle, and you do that by looking at what you’ve been doing socially in the last few years, for example, and changing what you don’t like.

You have friends of old and that is great. They have moved on, but they are still your friends. You say you feel like an outsider — you have put yourself in that ‘outsider’ category, they haven’t. You need to rethink that — there has been no fall-out. It’s only you that has fallen out with yourself in that regard. 

Yes, their situation has changed but nothing else has happened. So come in from that lonely rock you have put yourself on!

It’s time now to start making new friends, and you do that by going out and meeting new people in new places. You can try things like online dating for the laugh; this might be something totally new to you and how exciting it would be to see what that is like. 

The good thing here again is that it is not your first rodeo. You have done all this before, you know how to go out and enjoy yourself — you just need to get moving.

I did sense a little bit of self-pity from your letter and if that’s the case, it needs to stop. You are the only person that can do anything about all of this and the real question that you have to ask yourself, and you need to be very honest, is what exactly do you want? Are you looking for a few new buddies to go for a few drinks with after work or at the weekends, or are you looking for love and someone to settle down with.

Maybe you are looking at your old friends thinking it’s time to make that move and it might be only, I’ve found, that you need to meet the right person first. Don’t put the cart before the horse. 

I know too many people who loved the idea of being married only to find that they married the wrong person, so if this is what you want, don’t rush in!

Now, I love men’s sheds and what they do for older men  across the country, actually we would be in the ha'penny place without them. You may feel you are too young for them at the moment, but if you want to go down and check it out, you might have a great time, but if you do that, you also need to meet people of your own age.

I mentioned you should ask what you really want, and while you’re thinking, ask yourself what you’re interested in these days. Your interests might have changed without you even knowing over the last while. 

Before, you might have loved to go into packed pubs and now you might want something quieter. I know my interests definitely changed from my 20s to my 30s and again in my 40s, so this is an important one to work out — it cuts out a lot of the crap!

The ball is really in your court and it’s up to you how you want to play it!