Looking for advice

OK I'm really bad at writing anything at all. If my posts or questions seem to ramble on or just seem scattered from one thing to another you've been warned.

First time posting here but I've been looking and reading off and on for years about depression. I'll give some background of my life leading up to now and then ask for advice.

So I'm almost forty and moved around 18 times(10 times before I was 18), so making and keeping friends was a hard thing to do. I only had one or two real friends at a time and anybody else I talked to was just someone I talked to nothing else. I did social things like baseball and football but never felt like I fit in with everyone else. When I was 10 or 11 I just quit going to school for about a month. I wasn't picked on or anything I just decided I wasn't going anymore. I think this is where it started. As I got through middle school and high school I had in school and out of school friends. Only one or two were both. In that time I talked to or hung out with almost everybody but never really finding my place. Always feeling better off by myself.

Once I turned 18 and got a job something changed. I talked to people(not a lot of them) and socialized but only at work. I have no problem helping someone or getting in your face to stand up for what I believe. After work I want nothing to do with them. I just want to go home, be alone and wait for the next day. I've been at my current job for over 12 years and turned down many invites to hang out with people I work with.

about 5 or 6 years ago I decided to talk to a psychiatrist to see what might be my problem. After five or so visits he said I have depression. I do not take any medication(don't want to) and stopped going after that since I felt it was not helping me with the problem and costing me a lot of money. I've only told one person I worked with about this and she seemed to think it was a BS story to hang out with her.

Here's where I need help/advice on what to do since I feel everything gets really complicated from here.

about six months ago I started trying to talking to this girl I work with(different one from the one I mentioned above) with no real success(something told me to keep trying). After a couple months she finally started talking to me(oh yeah, shes a lesbian half my age and I'm a straight guy). So I've hung out with her and her girlfriends twice(never felt so scared in my life) but I feel things are turning bad between us. I got her in trouble for talking to me at work and any time she invites me to hang out she always cancels later. She has no desire to be with a guy(past friendship I'm fine with that) and I'm just happy to have someone I really feel comfortable to be around. At times it reminds me of King Of The Hill were they stand at the curb drinking and saying YEP all the time. She's the first person to get me to hang out with anybody in ten years. Since those two times I've hung out with other people, sometimes alcohol was involved, but I was out doing something I would never do before which is probably the most important part. Anybody who knows me knows I don't hang out with anybody regardless of the situation. My mom even knows I'm not a people person. I feel somethings in life are supposed to happen regardless of what you do(destiny?). Do I look at her as this unchangeable piece of my life and deal with the good or bad that happens?

So do I try to tell her about my depression(without anybody around) and how much she has helped me get back to dealing with people or should I just back off and give her her space and hope she wants to do things. I don't want to make my problem hers, but I feel if I lose her as a friend I go back to having nothing again. I know I made little steps in the right direction but are they enough to keep me going?

Thanks for any advice or help with this. I won't say I'll post or check in everyday but I'll check back sometime to see if anybody has advice for me. Maybe just telling some of my story was enough push me in the right direction to change my life around.

Hello and welcome.

You say that generally, you just go home after work and wait for the next day. How do you wait? Do you feel lonely? Do you feel like there should be something 'more'?

The reason I ask this is that I am a 'lone wolf'. While my growing up years were nothing like yours, I'm the youngest of 5 and we never moved, I always felt more content in solitude. I would have a 'best friend' for a year or two but then circumstances would change and I would be solo again, until the next 'best friend'. This pattern repeated for most of my life. I doubt it would have lead to a diagnosis of depression, in and of itself.

I'm not a 'people person'. I get along with people...neighbors, coworkers, etc. I did the 'usual' out to nightclubs things in my younger years but without the feeling that I 'needed' to. Some of us just prefer books or pets to people. I'm not a 'traveller' but with a book, I can go places and 'do things' that in reality would never be a first person experience.

What are your interests? How do you occupy your time? Is there something you would like to learn how to do? Finding other like minded people is a good place to start as it gives a common basis for conversations to start. Reading? Book club. Flowers? Garden club. Drones or model planes? There's a club for that too. Adult classes are offered on quite a variety of subjects at colleges and vocational schools. Auto mechanics, pottery, languages, etc. Continuing to learn helps the brain function at optimal levels.

I found these types of 'social situations' much easier than 'meeting people cold'. Having a common interest lends itself to 'ice breaking'. "What brings you to want to learn this?" "Who is your favorite author?" "Can you teach me about peonies?" etc.

I've become more involved with my town by joining the Tenants Rights Committee. Perhaps there is a committee in your town that could use another volunteer.

These are just suggestions on ways you might be brought into contact with people that you already have a bit in common with that can serve as 'practice' for other situations or fill that void all together.

You sound a lot like me.

A guy trying to make it with a lesbian? Not going to happen.

I've had a somewhat similar situation. I'm a senior citizen living alone, I see this woman up the street living alone.

Having had problems living by myself for the past almost 8 years, I wanted to let her know that if she ever needed help, that I lived down the street, and that she could call, and left my number.

She basically never comes out of her house. Pretty close to my situation. I went back by there a second time, but that was going to be it.

I told a friend of mine, "I should be glad she doesn't want to have anything to do with me, for what if she needed some help? I don't know that I could help her."

When I was 40, I would probably be all upset that I was not able to make a connection with another 40-year-old. But as a senior citizen, I realize that part of the reason she doesn't want anything to do with me is that I'm not real sociable, either.

But as a senior citizen, it doesn't just crush me, like it would have when I was 40. I now just think, I don't really need her, I've
got home health care workers that come by once or twice a week, I've got some hobbies, I watch TV at night, I walk my dog.

I've been married, I know what that's like. I know I have problems, but I also know I have strong points. Why do I want to hang around somebody who hates my guts, when I have some people I get along with?

So, I have an idea of what you're going through. I would not put a lot of investment into a lesbian. It sounds like you're both offbeat, which is probably what you need, but that sounds like it's not going to work.

If you want to improve your chances of meeting someone who is offbeat, meet some people by doing some volunteer work, like at a hospital or dog pound by walking a dog. Put yourself into the work, and as a side situation, you might meet somebody.

You're not going to meet anybody in your living room.

We can't all have a great personality, but we can all be positive. Have a positive attitude that you can solve this problem, as well as others, of aloneness.

I say to myself, "One problem at a time, and be positive about that problem."

Do you have a negative attitude? Was that the kind of household you grew up in?

its best thing you someone in your life to share your thoughts, its good to have atleast one person who can stood behind us to support us. In my opinion you just stay close to her keep her realize that how important she is for you, truly grateful to her. dont think too much, keep it simple as possible.

So I've been taking it easy and trying to get back to things that make me feel normal. I've been talking to a friend I've known for almost twenty years. I used to talk to him every week or two them his work schedule changed to a lot of on call stuff. He's a nice guy who cares about people but he also has a way of irritating the crap out of you at the same time. I think this why I chose to be friends with him. It reminds me of me. If you can get past the bad parts(of me) then being friends is no problem.

million 1- I agree with what you say and I thought more people here would have told me the same thing. I've always been one of those people who tries to look at whats best overall. Do I say something and lose her as a friend or say nothing and keep her around a little longer? I talked to her on Friday about our friendship but nothing more than "I don't feel like were friends anymore". She said we are friends but she's getting a little irritated with her girlfriend being controlling of her. So right now she has her own problems and I don't want mine to be hers and make things worse. I'll wait and see how things go and go from there. I think something like this is better to wait for the right time then to push it at the wrong time.

Tim Tam- I agree about helping others and feeling good about it. I go out of my way at times to help others at work with something and I do feel good for doing it. I don't have problems with people I know so maybe it's like a fear of people I don't know. I've been like that since I was a kid. Never approaching others unless I felt some connection with them. I've known many people that I've had common interests or hobbies with and just don't feel a connection.