day in a life

It's tempting to look back in lots of ways, but things change, and, as you have pointed out, so do our relationships to people. My answers, and those of my former friends, were to be found in future relationships. The past is a foreign country - i forget who said it - and all we can do is look forward.

Sometimes loners can be lonely. I'm not sure I understand why you glorify this quality, and I hope you don't force it on your son. I think you might find being completely without human connections to be quite difficult.

Helga,

Being a "loner by choice" implies that when you do not choose to be lonely, you will have company immediately around you. Even though, it feels wonderful to be alone at times, I think we all need human contact and interaction and it is good to be able to make friends.

It is possible that, as you have experienced with your ex-boyfriend, you have grown apart with your friend from your teenage years and it is time to move on and make new friends... Someone from your class or work or where you hang out or another parent from your son's school... It is impossible that there are no people with whom you can connect with... Especially for someone as intelligent and nice as you are. You just need to give it a try

I don't mean one should get out of their way to increase the number of people listed in their phone book but one can still make friends while being choosy about it

And Qimi makes an excellent point that your son needs to see you making friends and socialising with other people to be able to develop certain social skills.

I know probably this is just post-relationship blues but...

it's kinda funny when you mention my son, my mom had only one or two friends I can think of and they weren't very close. She kept saying she wanted me to have more friends than she did but I guess I ended up doing the same thing...

I can relate. I'm a lot like my dad. He did have friends he played golf with, but mostly, I think, he had my mohter.

I didn't mean to be unkind, but you do seem proud of your loner status sometimes, which is fine. I think what Scher said sums it up best: you (and I) can still make friends while being choosy about it.

Your son will be who he is, introvert or extrovert. I wouldn't have believed it, but I have known some introverted people who have tons of friends and are rarely home. Again, Scher is right on the money: your son does need to see you model social skills. School would be a perfect place to start that process.

Take care.

To be honest, Helga, you sound a lot like me. I wouldn't necessarily say I was a loner, but more that I'd rather have a small circle of very intimate friends rather than lots of friends (or acquaintances), so like your mother my best friend is my husband and outside of that I have one good friend and then not much else. And it's not that I don't like people, or I necessarily avoid them but I do avoid developing a friendship with people because I know that, to me, friendship is a big commitment and I don't want to commit to something I can't sustain because I would feel guilty befriending someone and not being able to deliver what I think friendship entails to that person. So that means that if anything ever happens and my husband isn't my best friend any more, it'll take a while for me to find someone else who I can feel that intimate with, and during that time I would be lonely. And perhaps that's what you're feeling right now. I wouldn't worry too much; it's very early days and you're still not completely free of your ex, but probably you'll find a friendship will come along when you've had time to breathe and recapture yourself and decided how you want to move on with your life. In the meantime, if you ever need to chat you know where I am.

I wouldn't worry about your son, either. He will learn social skills from his interaction with you, which I know is extremely positive and loving, and he will also learn from seeing what people do around him and from making friends, and un-making friends in school. He won't necessarily be a loner because you feel you're a loner. My Mum knew everyone in our town, she was really outgoing and friendly with so many people and I'm completely the opposite. So I guess what I learned from her is that I didn't want to be a social butterfly. People deal with friendship in different ways, and your son will learn that from being conscientious and observing the world around him, which is something he will learn from you. It is better to be yourself, and to believe in yourself as the person that you are. You're a nice person, you can make friends and when you're ready you will.

We all need some friendships Helga. It doesn't have to be very many, but at least a few. There's a huge in between from a loner to gregarious. It's nice to have someone to talk to, invite over for your son's birthday party, to help in a moment of crisis, or to share a common interest. I'm the opposite; I'm gregarious. I can't fathom having no one to relate to. The more you know and relate to someone outside of yourself, the more one feels human, the more one understands what humanity means. I'm not quite sure i know how to fully explain that. Friendship is a good thing, for one's self and even beyond that, if I can intimate it. (Yikes, I just realized a pun on intimate. I meant in the "suggest" meaning of the word.)