Loneliness Is a Warning Sign to Be Social
As I&#x27;ve gotten older I&#x27;ve become more and more picky about who I want to spend time with.<p>It used to be, when I was a lot younger, that I would be pretty indiscriminate: as long as someone wanted to spend time with me, and they were nice enough, and we could find something to do together that we enjoyed, like watching a movie, playing a game, or just hang out and talk about something (usually meaningless), that would be enough.<p>But as I got older, I started to see that as a waste of time, and started to notice how little I had in common with the people I spent time with, and how rarely we talked about or did anything that was really meaningful for me, and it started to bother me.<p>So, over the years I&#x27;ve lost touch with most of my old friends.. and, as I&#x27;m not very social, and I&#x27;m usually quite content with my own companionship, I really haven&#x27;t gone to the great trouble of finding new friends, especially now as my standards have gotten so much higher.<p>The result?  I&#x27;ve pretty much no friends left.  Occasionally, someone at work reaches out to me, but, really, I recognize that we have little in common, and I usually don&#x27;t respond in kind.  So I&#x27;m pretty much alone, and probably will remain so for the rest of my life.  Usually I&#x27;m ok with that, but sometimes I notice some couples or groups of friends around me, having fun, laughing together, and it bothers me.  But not enough for me to make a big change in my life.