Job Discussion Forums

[sweeney66]

Yes, I like being alone,too. Always have. And I'm not like, suffering, or anything, it's just, kind of, a color...if that makes sense, a presence of absence? Sometimes I kind of like it. But I do think I need to get out more! MO, I thank you for your kind offer to get together. From what you post I think you must be an interesting person. I'll try to send you a pm...not sure I can? Anyway, I look forward to meeting you.
LOZ, wow, thats got to be rough, all that surgery. I bet Bogata...right? is interesting. Man, it hasn"t got so bad I wanted my ex back! Thank you for that hilarious note! You know the saying in Spanish, "Better alone than in bad company"?
Best wishes to all of you!

[MO39]

[Looking for my place]

Yes, I agree that being alone can be great and also a growing experience but there is a difference between having the option or not. Also, I think that the length of time you must be alone is a great factor and being locked into a two year contract in a lonely place and be more than challenging.

[lozwich]

Looking for my place, how long have you been in your current location? I know this isn't very helpful, but after the last little while, I've really learned that loneliness comes from within. Sure, its nice to spend time with people and have someone around, but like MO39 and Sweeny 66 have reminded me, it is better to be alone than with bad company. That's the distinction between loneliness and aloneness I think. I feel lonely here, yet I have lots of people around me, just not many of them are what I would term true friends. It is a part of this job that sometimes we have to make friends based on circumstance, rather than really liking a person for who they are.

But how about finding things you like to do, and inviting people along? Or studying something? Are there expat clubs? Or do you speak the local language and can join some other type of club? Where you are might be the type of place where you have to be a bit more proactive than usual, but once you are it might all pay off! Bogota is a tricky place to meet people, and I was doing all kinds of things before I got sidewinded by my operations. It was hard work, but I was having a nice time!

Sweeny, yeah, surgery in a foreign country/foreign language kind of bites. Especially when you live alone. But thank whoever, I think they were both successful, and I'm starting to be able to live my life like normal again, including being able to do things I hadn't been able to do for years! Whoo hoo! I put it down to being blessed (cursed??) with such tenacity (stubbornness??) that I wouldn't let myself give up.

MO, dating hey? Thanks to my situation, I haven't been able to do much more than think about dating for the past 3 years. I'm looking forward to doing a bit more of that when I move on in August, but I'm scared! Sharing my life with someone is a bit daunting after all this time on my own and very little compromise... Good luck to you though!

[Trebek]

I live in a beautiful town in Northern Utah surrounded by mountains, streams, and very nice people (Mormons). I've never felt lonelier in my life.


I agree with many of the 40ish unmarried crowd. People our age generally don't just hang out with buddies we just met. I left all my old
friends in Texas and with the brutal winters here, I just spend 5 months watching tv and surfing the net. I love the locals but I don't have enough in common with them to make any friends.

Going to try Thailand as soon as this semester is over.

[MO39]

[lozwich]

[MO39]

[Jetgirly]

I am pretty lonely here in (the boring suburbs of) Guadalajara, Mexico. I have only one English-speaking colleague, who is my housemate and the teacher who came on the teaching exchange with me. The teachers at the school are downright hostile (for a good reason- we were basically sent here as "volunteers" and took their paying jobs from them... not that we knew this before we arrived!) and usually don't even acknowledge us. I have two other English-speaking friends in the city (the one who likes to do stuff is going home at the end of the month, though), and I'm friendly with some of my neighbours... but it's just been REALLY hard to meet people. I asked my employer (well, the international exchange coordinator who works for my employer) to put me in touch with some of the other international students at the university (I'm teaching at the attached high school) and they said they don't have the manpower to help me. Everywhere else I've taught has been really social and I've made a lot of friends (both foreigners and locals), so this is kind of a disappointment. It makes me long for the days of teaching adults!

[Looking for my place]

Hey Jetgirly,

I spent a year in Guadalajara and while it did seem to be a little more conservative than I was used to, I ended up loving it in the end. How long have you been there? I say hang in and things will get better soon.... I have also gone from adult ESL teaching into being a middle school teacher and find it equally challenging. Imagine that I am in a city 50 times more closed than Guadalajara. This is my third country I have lived in and know the usual ways to integrate and make firiends, usually without any problems, but after almost a year here, I can't say that I am more than an acquaintance with any of locals.

[MO39]

[Marcoregano]

Dare I say it, a much more interesting thread than usual. Seems that most posters are in or around Latin America. I once spent a year travelling around South America (90-91) and much of that was alone, and sometimes lonely, though I don't remember (at least not often) wishing for more company.

Perhaps as, like many of you, I like having time to myself. And company, when it's not wanted, can be stressful! I'm now in Hong Kong, and probably endured some of my loneliest moments in my first year here when I was unemployed but everyone I knew was working. Being lost in a busy city can be a bitterly lonely experience.

Among Asians, as I have been for 11 years now, I often get the impression that a desire to be alone is seen as a bit unusual. Perhaps it's because so many places here are crowded that people become addicted to company. In China they certainly have a very different way of seeing things. While in the UK we like to "escape" to the countryside (where it's quiet - and maybe 'lonely'), the Chinese seek "the freedom to flock together" - a popular expression. In HK too, the locals like nothing better than to go shopping in ridiculously crowded malls and streets, bouncing off one another as they go about it.

[Will.]

Some of the more isolated places, and times, in my history were the least loneliest. I guess it depends on what you are doing and at what stage of your life you are.
Being outgoing or extrovert is not always an advantage but the opposite helps little too.
Getting involved in local life in any way is a method of integration, even shopping at the local market brings you into contact and creates a familiarity with routine purchases from the same source and you meet your neighbours...or they get to see you, and from there...sports centres baths etc

[SueH]