Anxious about friendships and Wanna be Hermit instead

Dear Lindsay,
I desire closer human connection, friendships and such. Sure I have friends, but not friends I see on a semi-regular basis, more so 2-3 times a year. It's exhausting not feeling needed/desired coupled with my anxiety, I feel depressed and anxious. How can I shift this desire for human connection and be more content being alone and more of a hermit. I've tried different things but still struggle to be content not having closer friendships. It's been pretty much my entire life, so, enough is enough.

Sincerely,
Wanna be Hermit

Dear Wanna Be Hermit,
I feel sad reading your description.  I feel for you.  Part of me wants to meet up with you (more than three times a year) and become your friend.  As if I could solve it that way, but I can’t.  Because there’s more to it than that and though maybe we could be friends it’s not up to me solo to rescue you.

There’s a lot going on here.  Anxiety, depression, loneliness. That’s a hard bag and I feel for you.  You say enough is enough.  That’s a big deal.  It’s a big deal to finally feel like you’re done with a pattern you’ve been in.  I commend that.
What I disagree with is your conclusion that the way out of this exhausting pattern of deprivation must be becoming a hermit.  I think the desire for close and meaningful connections is one of the most human and beautiful longings we have.  You might not like my response, but I hope you hear me out.

Ironically, think your dissatisfaction with your current situation is one of the healthiest things you’ve got going at the moment.  This discomfort, we could probably even call it pain, to me is a strong indicator that your soul is alive and desires more connection.  I’d dare say if you were ok with being friend-less I’d be more concerned.  Maybe this sounds depressing and unhelpful, but what I’m saying is that your discontent is a sign of life.  Befriending this discontent, being grateful that you feel unhappy with how things are for you right now, to me would be the beginning of the real change. I think there’s more to be acknowledged and discovered for you about your situation.

You’re having trouble connecting with others people because you’re having trouble connecting with yourself.  From this angle your desire to be a hermit makes sense in that it’s a harbinger of this deep desire to connect with yourself.  It’s from having a deep connection to ourselves that we can truly connect with another in healthy ways.

So; in so far as time alone will help you connect to yourself, great.   For example; if you have an artistic or creative process, that might be a way to connect more with your deep self.   Therapy and a physical and meditative practice are also pretty standard go-tos for this.  Having more of a whole and aware self gives you more self from which to connect with other people.  In connecting with others you will also find your own self mirrored back to you, and that will connect you more to yourself which will connect you more to others.  It’s a big old feedback loop that could make sense once you’ve ridden it many times with awareness.  It’s taken me years of pretty intentional self-discovery work and therapy to feel like this loop has gone from often painful to mostly delicious.  What ever you’re working with here is a long-standing pattern, so it’s not going to shift over night. Actually, anything that promises to fix it quickly is dangerous.  You’re looking for a therapeutic and personal practice that will TAKE A LONG TIME.  So you’re also looking for patience.  Anything reasonably healthy that brings you delight along the way is also good.  And could be shared with potential friends!

You’ll need a big dose of self-compassion to look at yourself kindly, fondly, with a hug for exactly where you are now.  That feels to me like an important part of the process.  Why is it that you have struggled your whole life to have full friends? What is going on? Getting deeply curious about this is the only way to get through to eventual contentment.

It’s interesting that you say you want to feel needed and desired.  I agree, these can be powerful and seemingly lovely things to feel.  But there’s something dangerous about needing to feel needed.
It’s tricky here to say what I’m trying to explain, so bear with me.

Contrary to what you might expect a motivational speaker to say; we don’t need you.  Apparently no one really needs to be your friend. The world is doing fine without you.  It’s hard on your ego, sure, but it’s also great.  You can kind of relax.  You could even celebrate this.

Your potential friends are doing fine enough without you. They’re happy enough seeing you 2-3 times a year.  Sure, they might be better off with you in their life more, but so far they aren’t really feeling that way. If they really wanted to see you more they could reach out more.  But they aren’t; so I guess they don’t really need or want you as a more frequent friend.
But the thing is YOU’RE NOT OK WITHOUT FRIENDS.  You’re not enjoying it, you want more.
What you need to do is BE MORE COURAGEOUS ABOUT WHAT YOU DO DESIRE.
Mature adults are in charge of meeting their own needs.  Getting clear on your own needs and finding healthy ways to meet them is your job.  It’s ok, and very natural to have the need to matter.  But expecting this from a certain person in a certain way doesn’t work.  You get to make an invitation and then they get to respond.  For example; you could say to an almost friend: I’m noticing that I need more human connection in my life.  I’m wondering if you would be open to going for a walk with me once a month or so? Then they get to say yes or no.  No coercion, just invitation.  Just clear communication and an invitation.

I wonder if your almost-friends (the people you see a few times a year) know this desire of yours.  I wonder if you’ve said outloud to them “I would like to see you more.  I struggle with human connection and you’re someone I enjoy and I’m wondering if you would be up for helping me by hanging out more often with me”. Have you spelled it out like that or have you waited by your proverbial phone hoping it will ring? You want other people to need you but you’re not willing to admit you need other people.  That does hold some irony, doesn’t it?

Most people are quite busy (in fact way too busy) in their own lives (which is a whole other problem I could rant about!). Even for people who enjoy us it can take some ingenuity and intention and actual planning to insert ourselves into their lives.  I don’t mean push your way in, I mean make it known that you want to be connected and do something about it. Making friends as adults can be tricky.
Have you ever talked with one of your sort-of-friends what friendship means and if they’d be up for doing it with you?
If you want to be connected, make it known.
Call them up.  Text them. Make a plan.
Again, this is not hermit like behaviour, because I think you missed an important step in your logic.  I think you have been doing too much assuming that people could read your mind and not enough vulnerable sharing how you’re feeling.  But be careful with that too. Don’t overshare your sob story of how lonely you are. That will feel clingy and gross.  I’m just saying ARE YOU BEING THE FRIEND TO ANYONE ELSE THAT YOU WISH YOU HAD?

Cause here’s the trick: There is some ideal of friendship and connection that you can imagine.  There is some standard that you’re experiencing disappointment compared to.  Something inside you that feels “this isn’t true friendship” is there precisely because you already have within you some sort of felt idea of what true friendship would be like.  You already have the roadmap for how to be a good friend based on what you’re disappointed about.
What I’m asking is ARE YOU PLAYING YOUR HALF OF THIS?  Forget what the other person should or should’t do.  Are you being a good friend to anyone else?
Have you asked anyone you’re connected to lately: Is there a way I could make your life better? Like looked into their eyes and really asked?

Yes, sustainable, mature, peer friendship has a back and forth to it.  But it also often has an initiator.  It’s ok to spell out what you want.  You spell it out and then, also key, you have to let the other person be an adult and either accept or decline.  You don’t get to control their response.  You just get to do your side of the dance and wait to see what they do.  And if they don’t want to dance with you, go find someone else.  There are lots of other lonely people in the world.

It sounds like you’e sitting around hoping other people will just magically need you.  It’s sounds like you’re hoping for this from people who are quite fine so far without you as their friend.  Which is great.  Non-needy people make better friends.  So good choice there.

But if you do decide you need to feel needed (which I think is bypassing some of the more interesting and deep work you could be up to) then go find some of the many people who need help. For example: people in hospital need people to massage their feet.  People in prison need people to write them letters and send them interesting books.  Single parents need people to play with their toddlers while they have a shower.  People living on the streets need people to give them dignity.  If you really want to feel needed there are ways to do so.   I don’t think you’ll find them ultimately satisfying, but they might tide you over, or get you curious in a different way.

A friend of mine recently had a big breakup that was quite devastating.  He turned all that energy and grief into diving into an exploration of his social skills and what he was lacking in ability to connect well with others.  He found a new therapist to join and support his process.  He traveled to two different cities to take improv workshops and practice talking with strangers.   I’m so proud of him for making such an intentional effort towards his own growth and ability to connect.  And I notice a difference in our friendship already.  When we talk he listens more, he asked beautiful questions. I’ve always felt like he was on my team, but lately I feel a deeper energy of love and support towards me coming from him.  He’s been practicing his skills of being a friend and I can feel it.  It makes me want to spend more time with him, drive far to see him, send him stuff in the mail.

My friend figured out that connection is a skill like any other and that with practice we can get better at it.  Some of us either came into the world more gifted at it, or were blessed with early circumstances that fostered it.  But many of us need lots of skill building and all of us could benefit from more.  Connecting well with other humans is a skill that can be learned and practice and improved.  Things like Non-Violent Communication, improv theatre, partner dance, and a myriad a books are just some of the options for skill building.

When I read your quandary, it made me think of my friend, and made me wonder what it is about him that gave him the resources to alchemize his hurt that way.  He didn’t take the break-up and ask me for advice about how to be content never dating again.  He did something else with the difficult pain.  He didn’t give up on connection, he got curious about himself and why it was that he’d ended up with a precious relationship ending.  I admire his curiosity deeply.  I wish I could make some of his curiosity and bravery rub off on you.

It makes me wonder what it would take for you to do the same with your despair.  What would it take for you to turn your giving up into curiosity.  Is it a deep childhood wound (likely, isn’t it always?)? Would it take a recommendation of a great therapist? Would it take a life-altering event like an accident or a break-up or a sickness? Would it take more money for you to feel like you could get the support you need to develop more skills?
I’m sorry that you currently don’t seem to feel resourced enough to be curious about your condition.  This is likely a failing of the systems around you.  A culture that doesn’t encourage emotional intelligence, city designs that don’t encourage humans to find each other.  A capitalistic system that doesn’t support life-giving exchanges.  You’re not alone in your aloneness.  It’s all around you.  I bet where you live, on your street or in your apartment building or dorm floor, there are a bunch of other people like you.  What would it take for you to get curious about those other people? That’s what I hope you find; whatever potion you need to turn your despair into curiosity.

If you decide to try the hermit route, I suggest you get curious about other people who have lived that way.  Go to the library and read some biographies of ancient mystics, or life-in-the-wilderness tales.  Some people have lived remarkable lives mostly alone.  Funny thing is the ones we can read about must have impacted a few people’s lives profoundly.  They must have had some human connections after all or else we would never know about them.

I think the successful hermits (by this I mean the ones who remain reasonably sane and healthy for long periods of time) are those who find deep connection with something else, like with nature, or their own creative process, or their own spirituality.  I don’t think humans can be happy and healthy without connection and I think the most natural and fulfilling version of that definitely includes human connection.

If you truly do want to, for now, give up on seeking ore human connection, I think you will need to find another deeply engaging relationship.  Something where you feel a communion, a back and forth.  This could be with your own creative process, with a really engaging idea, invention or project, or with an animal or landscape.  Maybe you dive deep into a spiritual practice. I think the people who are truly content without human connection haven’t ended up there because they gave up on humans, but because whatever else they were connected to they actually found MORE compelling than human connections.  It’s very different to be shunned to the woods and be lonely than to be seduced by the wilderness.
I think if you were going to be a happy hermit you would feel the pull of some other kind of connection, with your artistry or landscape or gods that was more compelling than human connection to you.  But because I don’t hear any of that in your questions, I think your soul is still interested in human connection and that you have much more to discover there.   

In my experience, human connection (including with ourselves) is one of the most baffling, beautiful, difficult, amazing, worthwhile things a person could get up to.  I wish you enough drops of curiosity to whet your appetite.

I hope this helps.

Lindsay
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