Happier Abroad Forum Community

I have a client that vents to me every time I work on her on the massage table said her Thanksgiving she spent at home crying alone drinking bourbon because nobody was in her life. This was after she fell down at a parking lot in Kroger and they tried to buy her off with a $25 gift card. As her massage therapist I have helped her to be able to sit down without feeling pain and her walking has improved since she started coming to me. I make an effort to treat this person as more than just an economic resource because I may be one of very few people in her life that cares about her. Sadly my holiday was about the same.

My birthday just had to fall on Thanksgiving this year and most people couldn't even be bothered to call me because everyone was too ****ing busy with Thanksgiving. Everyone wrote on my facebook wall which is pretty much as close to nothing as you can get. Facebook only has a few real uses. I couldn't go out with people because everyone is out of town with their own families and I was stuck with mine eating at a buffet full of processed frozen food. I spent the whole day saying **** the pilgrims and **** Christopher Columbus. I want to be in a country where nobody celebrates Thanksgiving and where someone cares about me enough to friggin' pick up the phone! Social media is meaningless communication; it is the height of sloth. When it is someone else's birthday I will care enough to call them personally because I want to be more than just a sham friend and it seems in America there are nothing but sham friends that pay lip service but produce no real results. When I was in Costa Rica someone wrote to me how everyone back at home missed me while I was away but when I came back, I had to go out alone every damn weekend because nobody could find time for me. Then they couldn't figure out why I was depressed or why I wanted to go back to Latin America where at least some people could look at me in the eye. I have saved up enough to get out now and as soon as I have completed close to a year at this job I am out of here.

So do you really feel that your friends will be there for you in your darkest hour or do you feel we are all on our own?

Ah. Philosophy time! You know, that's the name of the game for Generation Y. I find that being social isn't as dramatic as the edgy hipsters will illustrate, I still sense an . . . I don't know, a disconnect? Where I am, people are focused on their lovers and that's that. They're also often busy unless they want something. Who knows why this is. It simply is. Now we have to adapt. You did in some way by leaving for Latin America. I really don't know what else to say other than that.

Temprano26 wrote: So do you really feel that your friends will be there for you in your darkest hour or do you feel we are all on our own?

Luckily I am out already from Europe, not so much different from the USA. I was not even thinking about friends who will be with me, as I never had real friends there. - But this is a typical men related problem in all Western countries.

There are plenty of men around, who do not know even a single person as a personal friend. With women I am not so sure, I don't think women are 'lonely' - for sure not lonely like men. Women have more options compared to men and it does not cost them anything.