Dealing with loneliness, boredom & lots of free time as a single 30-something male? (few friends, few family)
How do you guys do it? Looking for some advice from brothers or sisters walking my path!
I recently ended a long relationship of around 4-5 years. That’s another story in itself, but we mutually ended it for reasons. ‘Twas only after breaking up did I realize how small my social circle is or how little I had bothered to maintain my friendships. My long-term relationship was a panacea which basically papered over how few folks I had to talk to. Or even just hang out with.
It’s not that I don’t have friends, but I find myself either losing contact with them, or meeting them far less frequently now. My ‘closest’ friends are mostly old schoolmates from university and earlier. I’ve a few acquaintances here and there from working life, but they’re mostly situational and we’ve slowly lost contact as we changed jobs, moved around. I say ‘close’ because even for my closest buddies, we really only meet up a couple of times a year nowadays. (Is that odd for normal, well socialized people?). Although I know I can reach out to them anytime at a phone call’s notice for help, which is a blessing indeed. Personally, I’m a very ‘low-maintenance’ friend and that probably accounts for why my social circle is so small.
The pandemic really accelerated a lack of contact with friends and people in general, apart from my then-partner whom I spent the most time with. When I worked from home even after the pandemic eased, I didn’t go out or join people to hang out after work for drinks like I did in my mid to late 20s.
Now, I’m on hybrid working but I mostly just go home after work. It seems that my social life and social opportunities have settled into some kind of norm, a low baseline level. Like the Colorado River that has hit a 20-year low waterline and has never recovered since LOL. It doesn’t help that most of my friends are married, married with kids, going to get married or going to have kids, and so it’s increasingly more difficult to catch up.
I stay with my parents so I’m very thankful that financially I’m not stretched. Which is a blessing I recognize. My job is not cushy but decent and definitely comfortable enough for a singleton with no financial commitments, so I’m really quite comfortable at the moment. And more importantly, I have a lot of free time. I mostly spend it on solo activities like reading, other homebody stuff, and exercising. Typical boring, non-exciting pursuits.
I’ve little motivation to use dating apps because it just feels so tiring to get a match, sustain a texting conversation with people, going through the whole ritual-and-shebang of online dating. I feel like dating apps are something that early or mid-20 somethings can get behind easily, but draining for someone of my age. Every time I find myself reaching for my phone and scrolling through the apps, its because I feel acutely bored or lonely. And that is a problem in itself, because I don’t want a relationship just because I’m bored or lonely?
Any tips or advice on how you’d handle all this, in my position? BTW, I’m not really looking for romantic relationship advice. I’m more interested to hear how does a 30-something guy who’s very bored, comfortable (no pressing financial commitments), with few-ish friends and lots of free time, occupy themselves with pursuits or make themselves feel better? Whilst my life is by no means terrible, I can’t help but feel like I’m ‘standing on the spot’ (hentak kaki for those who know) and not moving forwards in life by normal Singapore social standards.