by Rachel Couch

Created on: July 02, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2009

Many people really seem to feel lonely in a crowd of people. Myself for an example, I always seem to feel lonely in situations such as that. My main reason for this is because when I am in a crowd of people, it's usually when a friend of mine has introduced me to these new people and they usually start talking about certain events or people that I have no knowledge of at all what so ever, so I generally feel lonely as can be, not knowing what to say and feeling like I don't fit in at all.

What I usually do though, is just stand or sit there not saying anything. I'm generally a quiet person around new people anyway, but when I'm around a lot of them, I usually just keep to myself and if spoken to, I talk very quietly, almost afraid of doing or saying something wrong or inappropriate. So, I keep to myself and as pathetic as it sounds, dwell in my self created loneliness. I think about it and it does seem pretty ridiculous, but that's how I learned to deal with these types of situations.

When it's the other way around though, and I'm introducing someone to new people, I usually try my hardest to keep them involved with a certain situation so they can get involved or just not totally be lost/confused by it. I'll explain to them who exactly I'm talking about or what happened in a certain situation so they can at least get the gist of the matter. I know what it's like to feel lonely in a crowd of people, and I really don't like being in those types of situations, and I wouldn't want to put anyone else that I know through something like that. I'd want the person to feel completely comfortable no matter what, and I usually try to do whatever it takes for that to happen.

I have been in one situation where my ex boyfriend had taken me out of town to meet some of his friends because they wanted to meet me apparently. Well, we get to this place, and he introduces me to them, letting them know who I am and who they were. So, eventually they start conversing about some of the "crazy" times that they all had had together. They all began to walk away from me, total, there must have been about nine people. They were all so caught up in their conversations without even acknowledging the fact that I was pretty far behind them. Feeling lonely as well as sad in this situation, I just tagged along the best I could, feeling as if I were a lost puppy or something of that sort.

After a while of me tagging along, not saying a single word, finally my boyfriend at the time had looked back after what had seemed like to be forever, had said "Why aren't you walking with us? Why aren't you talking?" I remember saying to him that it's quite hard talking about something that I have no knowledge of and I'm not the type to stick my nose into a conversation that I wasn't invited into in the first place. As I get older though, I'm slowly getting better in these types of situations but they are still somewhat hard for me to deal with. I still feel lonely in crowds of people, and in situations such as the one I had mentioned above.

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