YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I am single and have no friends. That has always been the case and it always will be. I would rather be alone and I'm not good around people anyway. I don't have a disorder or anything. I figure I'm just missing that chip in my brain that everyone else has that lets them know what to do to make other people like them. I have never been unhappy with that. I always knew that I could be happier but I have always been OK with what my existence is like. I love that my time is my time and I don't have to lose any of it in order to maintain a friendship or relationship. But lately it has been harder to tell whether I am happy or just comfortable with the familiar situation. I fear it is the latter, but it is too late to change anything and I couldn't anyway. I'm 31. That would be too old to make a new friend even I knew how to do that.

Please take care, Jessicake. Use this forum as a resource if you decide a change might be interesting to you. All the best.

It's absolutely never too late. I'm not one to have a ton of close friends outside of my family but since my family fell apart I made one of the best friends I've ever had and I'm older than you are.

Don't give up. Sometimes all it takes is a smile to strike up a conversation with someone. Visualize yourself opening up to the possibilities out there. They will come to you.

Take care hon.