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Writer's pictureAislinn Evans-Wilday

The Bachelorette Pad 2: How To Stop Feeling Lonely When You Start Living Alone

Where were we? Ah yes, I had just finished telling you about how I transformed my first ever flat from a dank, depressing space, into one of beautiful, calm and cosy and about how once all that work was done and I had nothing left that I “needed” to do, I began to feel very lonely. This was the moment I had been waiting for, nay preparing for. Like a doomsday prepper I had a whole arsenal of tips and tricks, locked and loaded, ready to be deployed into the battle against loneliness.


During my split from Mr Ex, I dived into the world of self-help as a means to get over the breakdown of such a long relationship, but also to get over the messy, painful, will-we, won’t-we situationship I had going on in the early days post break-up. I read a whole stack of books and listened to endless podcasts (see the bibliography at the end) one of which showed me the importance of practicing how to live alone.


As the title would suggest, the Heal Your Heartbreak podcast is all about surviving break-ups and really honours the fact that break-ups are s~!%. My break-up with Mr Ex was amicable and not particularly painful but the situationship that followed was an emotional rollercoaster, the likes of which I had never experienced before. The more I listened to the podcast, the more I appreciated that what I was going through was a big deal and that in order to get over Situationship Guy, I would have to actively work at it. What’s more, I soon learned that once I moved out of my friend’s house and started living on my own, I would be faced with a whole host of new triggers, insecurities and anxieties. Thankfully, there are multiple episodes that address dealing with loneliness in one form or another and after binge-listening to every episode, I knew what to expect and how to cope in the moment.


Below are my tips for living alone without feeling lonely, some of which I learned through the Heal Your Heartbreak podcast, others I figured out for myself along the way. They might not all work for you or you may find that some things work for you now and others work for you later. Wherever you’re at in your solo-living journey, take what works for you and leave the rest.


1. Journaling

My journey of self-discovery began with journaling and it remains a staple of my self-help diet. I ask myself questions when I journal and write out lengthy answers, unpicking every thought that I’m having until I get to the root of what’s bothering me, but I know it’s not for everyone. If journaling is not your cup of tea but you find yourself living alone and not knowing what to do with yourself, try this:


When I was looking ahead to living alone and dating again in the future, I asked myself what I was most looking forward to about living alone and what was I not looking forward to? After nearly ten years of living with Mr Ex and never doing anything (no holidays, no dinners out, no day trips, nothing), my biggest concern was not knowing what to do in my free time. But it ran deeper with that. Not only did I not know what I wanted to do in my free time, I didn’t know what I liked doing. I had to go right back to basics and get to know myself now that I was single. It might sound like a cliché, but I didn’t know who I was on my own. So I made a list of the things that I like and (possibly more importantly) the things that I don’t like. I wrote out what an ideal weekend would look like and then looked at the barriers I could see preventing me from doing those things (eg: riding lessons – cost and money mindset). From there I came up with solutions to those barriers or found a compromise so that I had no excuse not to do those things. Now, I’m not going to sit here and say that I then went out and did all those lovely things on my list, of course I didn’t, but they formed the basis of the next step…




2. Make Plans

A few months ago, Watson said to me in a somewhat disheartened voice “I have to get used to how quickly you make other plans…”

This was in response to him cancelling his weekend plans to visit his parents in Wales (yes, that’s right, both our parents live in Wales, ten minutes down the road from each other in fact) and asking me what we would do instead. Since he was going to be away all weekend, I had made plans to see my friends on the Saturday and my dad on the Sunday. I’ll tell you what I told him; living alone is not my norm and it still takes practice. If I don’t make plans to fill my free time, I start to get lonely.


There are three parts to this step:

a) In the beginning, fill every gap in your schedule with various things. Visit friends and family, go shopping, go to the gym, anything! Fill your free time with the hustle and bustle of being around other people so that when you do get home, the peace and quiet is a blessing. Take that list of things you want to do and find people to do them with, especially if there are things on there like learning a new skill or taking a class. In the short term, this is a distraction and it is setting you up for success. Actively reaching out to your loved ones or making new friends by joining a class or a group walk in your community helps you feel connected and just knowing that you have people that you can talk to, is such a buffer against loneliness.


b) After a while, you’ll need balance, especially if like me, you’re an introvert. Start to schedule in some solitary down-time but don’t stop making plans to see other people. For me, this looks like a lie-in and a lazy morning in bed, reading a magazine and drinking copious amounts of tea before meeting someone in the evening. If mornings aren’t your thing, then maybe it could be brunch with a friend followed by a movie night by yourself, snuggled up on the sofa or a luxurious bubble bath before bed. If this time alone still feels triggering then make it something to look forward to by buying yourself something special to have as part of it – artisan popcorn to have with your movie, a bath bomb, a special mug. I recommend making this something that you do at home, so that you’re not then coming home to your empty house after something lovely. The contrast between being out and about with other people and being home alone again afterwards can be jarring - more on this later. Ritualise this time spent alone and make it something you look forward to and enjoy so that being home alone is a pleasure, not a punishment.


c) Actively practise being alone. Once you’ve started enjoying your solo downtime at home, I want you to start transferring this skill to doing things outside of the home. Date yourself. Go back to your list of things that you’d like to do and pick out the things that you can do on your own. Taking yourself to the cinema or booking a massage are great places to start because these are quiet experiences anyway (unless you’re the kind of person who talks through movies and massages). As part of this, I want you to identify where you feel happiest and where you feel most like yourself. Is there any kind of place or activity that you have done with friends or family that you found yourself wishing you could be alone for? For me, visiting historic houses and castles is a prime example of this. Those places feel very special to me and visiting them with friends and family has always felt as though they’re encroaching on something quite personal to me. I would rather visit those places on my own and absorb their magic and mystery in my own time. (The exception to this rule is Watson.) Start seeking out those places and practise visiting them on your own. It will feel uncomfortable at first, this is why it takes practice.




3. Make Your Home Beautiful

This should be fairly obvious in that if your home is beautiful, then you’re going to enjoy spending time there alone. You do not have to spend a lot of money on achieving this. If you’re going through a break-up and your partner has moved out of the home you used to share together, then move some stuff around. Moving furniture and hanging new pictures is a great way to breathe new life into an old space. Mood lighting and scented candles are my go-to for transforming any space and a throwing a blanket in a new colour over an old sofa can give the impression of a new colour scheme.


4. Fill Your Home With Sound

Don’t sit in silence! Whether it’s the radio, the TV, a podcast or music, when you get home, start something playing. Being alone in an empty house feels even more lonely when it’s quiet. If you’re happy watching TV in the evenings, then maybe this one won’t be as useful for you but as someone who likes to talk about what they’re watching, I find that watching TV on my own makes me feel even more lonely and I have music playing instead. When I first started living alone, I didn’t always do this as I struggled when it came to bedtime and I had to turn the music off. Suddenly it was even more quiet! As someone who can’t sleep without an audiobook playing anyway, I would now recommend that as the evening wears on, you change from music to a sleep playlist (the kind that’s available on sleep apps) so that you can leave it on as you go to sleep.


If you are listening to a lot of music though, pay close attention to the type of music you are choosing and how it makes you feel. As tempting as it can be to have a big ol' cryfest to some Celine Dion, power ballads are not going to lift your mood if you're feeling lonely. Don't get me wrong, I love a good cry and it's healthy to express your emotions but be mindful that you're not wallowing. Music affects mood and if your playlist is mostly music in the major key, it is going to be uplifting, as opposed to music in the minor key.

Even better than music (for me anyway) is podcasts and the best bit of advice I have around this tip is to find a podcast that is related to something you share with your friends and only listen to it when you’re home alone. For me, it’s Shut Up & Sit Down, the podcast version of the board game review YouTube channel of the same name. Watson and I love board games, so listening to the podcast not only satisfies the geek in me but also conjures up the feeling I get when we’re playing a game together – one of rainy afternoons spent cosied up inside drinking tea; it’s comforting. I don’t listen to the podcast anywhere else so that 1) I don’t run out of episodes to listen to and 2) being home alone has a positive association. If you’re stuck for podcast ideas, humorous ones with two or more hosts fill your home with more sound and laughter than one person talking about a topic. They also give the feeling of overhearing a conversation rather than being talked to so you don’t have to give it all of your attention and are free to do whatever.


5. Schedule Time for Relaxing

Shout out to the people who feel guilty when they’re doing nothing! Are you the kind of person who can spend hours doing stuff but not actually getting anything done? Can you waste a whole evening just pottering around? Have you ever told yourself “I’ll just get these few bits done and then I’ll sit down with a nice cup of tea and watch something on the telly / read my book / run myself a nice hot bath” (*insert other relaxing activity of your choice here*). Do you want to be able to answer the question “what do you do in the evenings?” without staring off into the distance, brow furrowed, racking your brain for what it is you actually do in the evenings? Yes? Well then do I have the tip of the century for you…


Set a timer.


What? Yes. Set yourself an actual timer on your phone (not an alarm) until the time you want to be sitting down with that cup of tea / glass of wine / in the bath / in front of the telly and get all the little jobs done in that time. If you’re anything like me, you won’t believe the get-up-and-go you’ll get from seeing the time counting down and knowing you have a deadline to hit. Suddenly you won’t be pottering around at a leisurely pace and losing the whole evening to housework; you will have washed up, put the laundry away, emptied the bins, showered and washed your hair and still have the rest of the evening ahead of you to actually relax in. I have realised that spending whole evenings tidying up after myself is not relaxing. My brain is constantly on the lookout for the next job and my batteries are never recharging. By setting myself a timer and doing all the stuff I feel like I “need” to do in that time, I feel like I’ve accomplished something so that I can then go on to relax guilt-free. Oh, and remind yourself that resting is productive – you cannot give from an empty cup.




6. Connect

Tell your friends how you are feeling. If you don’t already have a group chat between your best friends or with your family, then I highly recommend that you set one up. That way, if plans have fallen through or you find yourself feeling lonely throughout your day, you can ping a message to the group and the more people in it, the higher your chances that someone will pick it up and get back to you. But this point isn’t about the mechanics of having a group chat or even a good old fashioned book club or coffee morning where you can talk to people, it’s about the act of talking.


Everyone knows what it’s like to feel lonely in one way or another - if you’re the only one of your friends who lives alone, they will still be able to sympathise even if they can’t empathise. Especially if you find yourself being the only recently-single friend in a group of couples, newly-weds and even new parents; those friends in relationships will be able to imagine what it would be like to be without their partner and will rally around you if you let them. Pretending to be fine when you're not isn't helping anyone. Be honest about how you’re feeling and let your support network do its job of bolstering you. You’d do the same for your friends, right?


Remember what I said earlier about how the contrast between being with other people and being home alone can be jarring? I'm going to address this in the next blog because to do it justice requires at least another 662 words. (Specific, I know, but it's currently sitting in a word document after I decided it was too long for this post.)



7. Finally, Take Care of Yourself

This tip should probably be first but when we’re in a bit of a downward spiral being told to look after ourselves can just be annoying. We want actions that we can take right now that don’t look like drinking a glass of water, cooking a healthy meal, or getting an early night (but seriously, go and drink a glass of water). Everything seems worse when we let these things fall by the wayside because our brains are literally nourished by sleep, food and water. If you can, the next time you’re having a bad day try and drink more water, eat a healthy dinner that night and go to bed early without exploring why you’re feeling a bit rubbish. Just accept it and take care of yourself by addressing these 3 things and then see how you’re feeling the next day. I have learned that if I’m upset about something at night, journaling on it is the worst thing I can do because I just end up wallowing. Every time I have go to bed early instead, I wake up the next morning and realise that I was overacting because I was tired. Again, it takes practice to realise what’s going on in the moment and to catch yourself and say “I know I’m not actually upset by this, I’m just tired” but when you start wielding this power, you gain so much more control over your emotions and develop a deeper understanding of yourself.



So there you have it, my toolkit for beating loneliness when you live alone. They say that authors write the books they need for themselves, and in the case of this blog post, it is certainly true. Before the summer, I had reached a point where I was no longer feeling the need to fill the weekends I wasn’t spending with Watson with seeing other people. I was starting to do more things on my own and no longer needed to plan my downtime in advance. I was getting more comfortable with seeing how I felt on a day off and doing something spontaneous, but then I worked thirteen weekends out of sixteen over the summer and my down-time was suddenly filled with other people’s dogs. Like all new habits and routines, they require consistency and falling out of practice meant that when I came home after the summer, I had taken a step backwards in the progress I had made. So this post is as much for myself as it is for you and you can read this knowing that I am following my own tips and advice during this time.


I do have one other (rather drastic) solution to help me stop feeling lonely in this little flat of mine but I’m not quite ready to share that one with you yet – it’s a work in progress.

Watch this space. This tiny, cosy, bachelorette pad of a space.





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