Loneliness and how to cope with it.

furryfeaturesFri 09/09/11 21:36

I moved to Kettering out of necessity. I could not afford my rent in Trowbridge and Kettering was the nearest place to people and places I know where I could find somewhere I could just about afford. The problem has been that I've struggled and I've found it very hard to make friends or to have enough money to visit people I know.

Things are now getting a little better. First, I won my appeal for ESA and secondly, my mother's death means that I will have more income eventually. She left everything in Trust and it's likely that I'll get a lump sum in early November and then a regular income thereafter. That gives rise to two options.

In the meantime, from January I intend to study for the CELTA course and, assuming that I pass, I hope to get a part-time job teaching English as a foreign language to adults. Therefore, I'll stay in Kettering until I finish the course in about early May.

Now to the two options. The first is to continue renting and enjoy the extra income from my mother's estate, which I think will be about £8,000pa, including about £1750pa that I already receive from my grandmother's estate. The second option is that my mother's will specifically states that the Trust may purchase a property for my use rent free. This seems to be the obvious option.

I have worked it out that if the Trust spends less than £130,000 on a property, I would have exactly the same income or more income than if the Trust paid me income and I continued to rent my current home. I've been looking to see where suitable property costs £130,000 or less in areas that I know or that are near where I know. Bristol seems obvious but I'm not 100% certain that I want to go back to the West. The thing is that I really miss my home area, around Woking, Camberley and Guildford. However, there I'd be lucky to get a plot of land for £130,000 but I also know Kent and I've noticed that there's a reasonable selection of properties in south-east London, places like Dartford, Gravesend, Orpington and Penge. Are any of these places OK for living in? I seem to remember people referring to Penge as Mange. Is it really that bad? How close are they to central London because it's proximity to London that really appeals?

What this has to do with loneliness is that I see a move from Kettering as a part of the solution. I like the town but it is rather the back of beyond. It's difficult for me to get to places that I know and to visit people that I know, except for my aunt in Lincoln.

Part of the reason why I'm lonely is that I really do not understand how to make friends. I don't really understand who likes me and who does not. I really don't understand how strangers meet and become friends. I have made one sort of friend in Kettering but she's so weird that she drives me mad. I need to know where I can meet people who will talk intelligently about things that interest me, like medicine, SETI, cookery and politics. And with SETI, I don't want to talk to cranks who believe all the zillions of conspiracy theories - I want to talk to people who believe that the search for aliens is looking for tell-tale signs in planetary atmospheres, listening for possible radio signals and other realistic methods of detecting beings that might not even know that we're looking for them.

In a way I think that I feel intensely lonely because I feel unfulfilled intellectually and physically.

ramjammanFri 09/09/11 21:55

Charles you have the big questions to answer and all I will say is ask everyone you can about things listen to what they say then try and make up your own mind about what to do where to go.

I do not know how long you have been in Kettering but after being away from a home area for a good while it is never the same moving back or should I say may not be up to your expectations.

There are lots of ways to make new friends if you need to and I can suggest those if new friends is the answer.

However I think the death of your mother is making you review many things in your life as this is what has happened to me over the last few months with the death of my father.