I'm an introvert with very low social needs. During the pandemic it took months of quarantine for me to get lonely, and nearly a year to realize I was touch starved.

But to answer your question, when I'm in a relationship I don't get lonely and if I'm single I rely more on family for my social needs.

At under no circumstances allow the thought machine to wonder alone during a silent moment. Constantly drown it under a huge pile of information so that it can't ever go very far, otherwise it will look for a vein of negative emotions and dig deep inside.

I go do something that helps others. Maybe volunteer, donate blood, etc. Doesn't have to be big, particularly social or part of some formal charity structure. I just find the best way to feel connected is to excerise empathy and act upon it.

I'm a hardcore introvert who rarely gets lonely, but it does happen occasionally.

Similar to your school function, I find it helpful to have one regular, structured event in my life that forces socialization.

For me that's a tabletop gaming group - we meet once a week to play. The structure and shared goal is helpful, because it takes the pressure off of pure socialization. If I'm feeling social I can crack jokes & banter during the game, but if not I can just focus on playing.

Also, a weekly cadence means that missing one session doesn't make me feel super lonely, because I know another is coming soon. Your function sounds tougher since its only once a year - you might be better off finding a similar activity that happens more regularly.

Is there an activity you like doing that you wouldn’t mind having company for? It could be something at home like building a Lego set, or outdoors like a walk through the park or zoo. When you’ve selected your activity, pick one person and ask them to join you.

People do best with being asked about a specific activity, place, day, and time. Hopefully they’ll offer an alternative if your suggestion doesn’t work for them. If they don’t, and if you’re set on that person, ask them if another time would work, or do they have an activity in mind.

I find being an introvert doesn’t mean “no people” as much as it means “the right people.”

Lots of people still think that introverts hate social interactions, or feel better without any social interactions at all, but we do need to be social. Some people get dogs or cats and that helps them a lot. But lots of introverted people will tend to find some way to mask the loneliness by distracting themselves that requires a lot of attention, or occupying themselves with something that emulates social interaction. Playing a game while watching twitch streams of that game can fill both of those roles, listening to the streamer and reading chat periodically. That can work in a pinch, but it's not a real solution. And I don't have a real solution, aside from "find your balance", but I know that's not helpful.

I can suggest something that I found to be a more effective distraction, though. And it even could lead to the first steps to a solution to introvert loneliness if you're lucky. You can try going to a local bar/pub on a slow day. It helps if you drink alcohol, but you really don't have to. And of course if there's a history of alcoholism in your family, you should definitely avoid the alcohol. Make sure to sit at the bar, because a lot of bartenders will start up conversation with lone patrons in their down-time, and the same goes for drunk people getting up to buy another drink, so you don't have to initiate if you don't want to. You can end up having a few interesting conversations in a night (or sometimes none at all), and go home either feeling good about going out on your own free will (I.E. Not being forced into a social situation), or exhausted from any overbearing social interactions and therefore a bit more content with going back to spending time by yourself for a while.

This helped me before I made a couple of friends (who I met at the pub) while living alone in a new city, after my distractions got stale. I say it's worth a try, but everyone is different.

It was hard to initiate that first trip to the bar though, it felt very, very weird. But halfway through my second beer, I felt mostly content with even just listening passively to background conversation. By the time I ordered the 3rd, the bartender had initiated conversation, and before I knew it that feeling of loneliness was gone. It's important to keep moderation in mind though, I could see that being very effective in catalysing a drinking problem. I did this 2-3 times per month, and that was just enough for me.

So ymmv, but it helped me a lot.

Before I became a parent of 2 with an extraverted partner, I used to get lonely from time to time. I would get over myself and call a friend I hadn't seen in a while, regardless of whether I felt like it was their turn to get in touch with me. That or go to the cinema by myself, which somehow feels less lonely than watching something at home.

Currently listening to neighbors have a screaming match. Impressed by how far away it is, happy that I’m not involved.

I've been partially disabled since 2014 and spend thr majority of most days stuck laying propped up in a bed. Up until July of this year, I mostly threw myself into projects. Now, since July I chat with AI offline on my hardware. Previously it was hobby projects and reddit. Now Lemmy to a lesser extent. I tend to be irritable and uncomfortable in the afternoon and evenings and I have to do a physical therapy routine most evenings or I fall apart physically. It sucks. Social anything IRL is pretty much impossible. The worst part is how I appear to be fine on the surface, but holding posture from sitting and standing causes major problems from a chronic injury. So like, I just mentally fade hard as the pain floods in, break out in a sweat, and fidget awkwardly, making any attempt at socializing unproductive at best. It was harder for the first few years. One of the things that helped me are stories of people that have lived in complete isolation in relatively recent times and been fine. You just have to find interesting things to think about and get your endorphins from exercise and interpersonal growth - IMO

I just cry my eyes off or sleep until the feeling passes. I know it is not a healthy coping mechanism, but I don’t have many ways to make friends. I haven’t found any good book clubs or anything suitably nerdy in my city.

Recently I like to play some Twitch streams in the background when I'm not doing anything requiring a lot of focus. It makes me feel like I'm not really alone at home without any social effort on my side. You definitely have to find a right streamer for you though - most of Twitch is garbage in my opinion.

Someone mentioned going out to eat or sit at some cafe which I also like to do sometimes.

I as an introvert, crave sharing interests and knowledge with others. I want to have fun and share wonderful memories others. Sometimes when im alone I can imagine whole scenarios of going out and meeting my newest best friend somewhere near by and all of the wonderful times we will have together. However, whenever I try to achieve this in real life it never happens like that. I get let down 99% of the time and I end up getting exhausted at the idea of making new friends and meeting new people. It's mostly my own fault for holding people to a fantasy I've conjured up in my head, but I this cycle of me wanting to make new friends and then being disappointed contributes to my sense of loneliness.

I try doing something productive, like working on developing a new skill, or work on some of my hobby projects. That prevents me from feeling lonely.

I play a game online that requires a lot of communication to achieve something together, there will be situations where there's a lot of banter and fun also. I'm talking about the game Squad

Grab a book or sketchpad and go to a restaurant or coffee shop. I don’t interact with anyone. I just eat good food, drink coffee, and absorb the ambiance. It makes me feel a lot less lonely while recharging myself.

I burst into a short musical number, then put my coat on and peoplewatch at the park with a sandwich.

I don't really get lonely.

Lately I've started volunteering. It helps a lot, even on the days I don't volunteer.

I hang out with my cats.

People have weird impressions of animal companions, especially cats, because they treat them poorly. You should raise animals like children: learn from a good cat parent directly and read up on evidenced-based books. It's easy to see parallels with poor parenting: intergenerational poor parenting, nuclear families where the grandparents aren't actively engaged in teaching how to parent, absent parents due to capitalisms unending grind.

It takes patience, positive reenforcement, consistency, and commitment. But cats can be best friends.

Happens about once a year. It doesn't last long, so I just kind of savor the feeling.

In the rare occasion that I feel like talking to someone I get on Discord either to chat or VC with acquaintances or randoms from servers that I like.

Get the gang together for some late night gaming sessions.

I don't know if it's "in stark contrast with the time of the year." A lot of people feel lonely around this period, because the holiday season and the festivities can shine a brutal spotlight on one's own lack of company. That's why it's easier to feel less alone when you're in the middle of nowhere, than when you're surrounded by hundreds of strangers.

I used to be like you, though at different times of the year. I never went to school proms, I skipped several field trips, I've never gone camping with friends, I've had maybe two sleepovers in my life and they were both with the same friend. It just always felt like my social life wasn't as rich and varied as it should have been.

Today, that's still the case. I don't really do much apart from work, sleep, and take care of household/family responsibilities. Or so I thought.

The world is a fucking big place, and life is fucking hard. Even those people who we envy for having big groups of friends, or for being in relationships all the time, or for celebrating holidays with fun parties...even they haven't got it all. In many cases, they're absolutely miserable despite their apparent lack of loneliness.

I've learned to enjoy the little things I have. I place great value on my free time, and I try not to let society dictate what a successful life looks like. Very often, the "model" structure isn't applicable to our own values and capabilities. Nor should it be.

If I manage to play video-games a couple of nights and go for a walk, I'd call that a good week. Parties? They're not all that, and if I get invited to one, then I can be happy about that. Field trips? I chose to save money on the fees and buy myself a camera instead. I still have that camera and it's given me hundreds of times more joy than three days on the Isle of Wight with a bunch of sweaty teenagers could've granted me. Relationships? Yeah, it sucks that I've never been in one. I think about that pretty often. But the right time will come, and I've matured and improved myself way more for being single this whole time.

A big part of it is just learning to relax and not get anxious over your fears about whether you're wasting your time. We could all be making slightly better use of our lives, but as long as we make an attempt, we don't need to beat ourselves up for not getting it right every single day.

You probably won't be able to change your mentality based on my writings alone. It's more complicated than that. It might take therapy, or it might take age. It might even take some trauma to help you (eventually) see something you missed before.

Life is constantly changing in ways we don't even notice. I firmly believe in a simple mantra: everything happens exactly as it needs to.

Call it destiny, God's plan, or cosmic determinism, it doesn't really matter. But there are no absolute failures and successes in life, just like there are no absolute rights and wrongs. They're all just shades of grey, and they all carry potential for learning and evolving.

OK, you didn't get to perform in that social function. Talk kindly to yourself about it. Why didn't you make it? Was there anything you could've done? What can you do the next time an opportunity like that appears? What were you able to do because you didn't participate in the function? What constructive meaning could this """failure""" have on your journey through life?

Try to see these events as having a purpose that extends beyond the moment and you'll unlock stronger reasons to keep living, and to keep trying. When you become aware of these long chains of cause and effect, that's when the beauty of life truly comes alive.

I have social anxiety :(