I started feeling lonely when I was a teenager, so I would say around 15 it started to really sort of hit me a little bit, and it’s the first time I sort of realised that I was a bit lonely. I think partly because I withdrew from society a little bit at that age because I realised that I was homosexual and that the environment that I grew up in didn’t cater for that sort of lifestyle, I suppose you could say, so I started to feel very isolated from the people around me, and I kind of withdrew into myself because I really struggled with my sexuality and how I was going to cope with that through the coming years of getting older.

And the feelings of loneliness then were… You know, I used to look outside, I used to look outside my bedroom window and see my peers, like people that I went to school with socialising with each other, and I’d just feel so left out and so isolated. Especially the boys, because the boys were all into like football and sport and I wasn’t really into that sort of thing, so and you know and I used to see them look up at my bedroom window and call me things and make signs and that used to really hurt me, you know?

And when I hit 40 I started to, for some reason, I really started to think about my childhood again, and how it had affected me, and I hadn’t thought about that for a number of years, and I think it’s because I blocked it out. And then once I found myself by myself again and alone, not in a relationship, living by myself, these feelings of loneliness and isolation just came back. And I really struggled with that, you know, really struggled with it. And I’ve done silly things that I’m not proud of to try and combat the loneliness, and yeah.

I: What would you classify as silly?

Oh, you know, I used to take a lot of drugs and I used to drink too much, and you know I was quite promiscuous.

I: This is in your 40s?

Yeah, yeah. Promiscuous as well, and I’d say that was between 37 and 42, I went thought a few years of just self-neglect, I think you would call it.

I: Was it to combat loneliness?

Combat loneliness and combat feelings of rejection from my family. Because I hadn’t really faced that head on before. It had always kind of been in the back of my head, but I’d kind of managed to block it out because I was having a good time in my 20s and I was in a long-term relationship, so I had a support network, and then when that goes and you’re left by yourself again, I think the bubble bursts and stuff comes back that you’ve not dealt with for years. And I didn’t want to do therapy at that stage because I thought… Well I just didn’t understand therapy and I didn’t think I was going to get anything out of it, and I’m so glad that I did start doing it because it’s really helped me with my mental health. But yeah, there was a few years of trouble in my head. Big, big trouble.

So I was brought up Catholic, and everything that I was taught when I was growing up was that homosexuality was wrong, in every sense of the word. When I was very young I’d say… Because I always knew I was gay from about 10 or 11, although I didn’t really know, I knew I was different, but I didn’t know how to phrase it, if you know what I mean, and then, this is going to sound really strange, but there was a big, famous star at the time, popstar, that I really liked, and it was Madonna basically, and she made, she kind of came along and sent the message that it’s okay to be gay, it’s okay to be who you are.

So when I was growing up, I had the Catholic religion tell me everything I was doing about my life was wrong, and my family, because my family was a sort of family where they don’t talk, they keep things very bottled up, so even if my parents had have thought I was gay or anybody else in the family thought I was gay, they would never have said it. So they would never have said to me “are you okay, do you feel okay?” It just wasn’t talked about. So that made me feel even more isolated, and I thought everything that I was doing was wrong, I thought everything I was doing was a sin, and that really affected me I think mentally for… Well, it still is affecting me mentally, you know? I kind of felt like I was always doing things in secret, like my thoughts, everything that I thought, I thought that nobody can find out that I’m feeling this way, nobody can know what I am. And years later I find out that they all knew but nobody ever said anything, you know? So it wasn’t nice for, you know, a teenager to feel so isolated and feel like everybody was against him, you know?

And I didn’t have any support networks at all. I mean I was quite lucky when I hit 17, because my uncle married… Well, he got a girlfriend who was from London, and she was a Jewish girl, and she came back to [country], and it was like “there’s somebody different in the family finally”, you know? And she and I clicked really quick, and after about a year, she sat me down one day and she just said, “I know what’s going on with you and I want you to know that it’s going to be okay, and I’m going to help” and blah, blah, blah. So that was a real, real massive help for me. And they helped me to get to London, they helped me to get myself sorted over there, and just to feel comfortable with my sexuality and say that nothing’s wrong, you know, that I’m normal. Because I always thought that I wasn’t normal, I always thought that I was weird and at school I was bullied, and in a way that kind of made me stronger because I always think I never denied to myself what I was, I always knew in my own head what I was and I was always going to fight for that, you know? Whether it did make me lonely, or whether it did make me have not many friends, I was always going to fight for what I believed was right and I did.

And in some ways I think that’s paid me really good dividends in life, but then in other ways, especially as I’ve got older, I’m kind of in the mindset of “well if you don’t agree with me then I’m not going to bother being your friend anymore” do you know what I mean? So I don’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing. I mean I think it’s a good thing, it was definitely good when I was younger because it kept me sane, but as I’ve got older I probably could do with breaking down the barriers a little bit more, and that’s something that I work on in my therapy sessions and stuff like that as well.

I mean it’s a small little village, the population I would say is maybe about 10,000, they’re all Catholic, they all go to the same chapel, they all go to the same schools, everybody knows each other. If you’re one of the people that stands out from the crowd it’s really noticed, you know? And when I was young I was quite effeminate, and I didn’t hide the fact that I was effeminate, I didn’t really care to be honest. And, you know, I used to dress differently from everybody else, and I didn’t like the same music as everybody else, I liked my own music, and I was very much into pop culture and that sort of thing, and very much into art, and nobody was really into that sort of thing. So like I did stand out from the crowd, but I didn’t really care.

Well I often feel quite strange when I hear about that because they always say it’s the older people that feel lonely, it’s the older generation. So it’s like people that are pensioners or older. They never talk about the younger generation. So they never talk about people my generation, people in their 40s and 50s that might be lonely. The media just never, never discusses them… I think because society expects people at that age to be married, have children, and have their lives sorted so to speak, so they don’t think about people that might be gay, they don’t think about people that might be single, they don’t think about people that might be transexual, they just think about the mainstream. So that’s 2.4 children, you know the family unit. And I really struggle with that sometimes, and then sometimes that makes me feel guilty about being lonely or feel weird about being lonely, because I think I shouldn’t be lonely at my age, I should have lots of friends, I should have a partner. And then I think “what’s wrong with me? Why do I not have these things?”

I’ve got one particular one, yeah. So there’s a gay man, he’s passed away now sadly, but he was a guy called Quentin Crisp, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him or not?

I: No, maybe if you tell… Because I’m not good with names.

R: I mean basically he was English, from London, and he was born in the 1920s and he was one of the first gay men to publicly come out I would say. So there’s a movie about him, it’s called the Naked Civil Servant that come out in the 70s and you can still get the DVD and he came out in the 1940s after the First, Second World War I think, First or Second World War, and you know he was a teenager and he used to dye his hair purple, wear make-up, but walk down the street presented like that, and he used to get so much abuse, you know?

But he always knew what he was, and he always was never ashamed of it. But he did say in his documentary that he led a very lonely life. So for about 40, 50 years he was so lonely because he didn’t have any friends, society didn’t accept him. And I used to watch him, and I’d admire him because I’d be like “you’re so strong”, you know, “you’re really strong.” I remember I actually watched that movie when I was 14, and I was sat in my bedroom watching it, and my uncle came in and he said, “what are you doing watching that old gay?” you know? And I remember just thinking “you haven’t got a clue.”

And I watched it a couple of months ago actually because… But then on the other hand I remember I said to a friend of mine a couple of months ago, “oh I’m so lonely, I don’t want to end up like Quentin Crisp”, you know? So I think about him at times like that, but I also think how strong he was, you know? And also he was he got into the same habit that I have where he got so set in his ways that he didn’t court friendship anymore, and you know if he did become friends with somebody and it didn’t work out, he wouldn’t grieve that relationship. He would just get on with life because he’d been through so much that I think being lonely didn’t scare him anymore.

I: Have you ever sought help from a GP about loneliness, for loneliness?

Yeah, I have.

I: Could you tell me how that went down?

Sometimes I think GPs aren’t very well equipped to deal with that sort of thing. So you know I would go to them and say, “oh, I’m lonely, I’ve got no support networks” and they would say, “okay, we’re going to send you for some counselling then.” But then obviously in that 10 weeks you’ve got to wait for the counselling there’s no support in the meantime. So I have walked away from GPs sometimes thinking “they don’t have a clue what I’m going through”, you know? But it also depends on the GP that you’ve got. Because I went to a gay GP once and I didn’t know that he was going to be gay, but actually he was really nice, he kind of recognised everything that I was going through, and he gave me a proper pathway to cope with how I was feeling.

I would say stay strong, believe in yourself. It’s not your fault, and try not to stay silent, make sure you talk about your feelings to somebody. Make sure you seek help. Obviously, I go through therapy and it’s been an absolute godsend to me, so I would say there’s things out there to help you, there’s services out there to help you, there’s things like the Samaritans, which I’ve used in the past before. So use those networks, if you feel really lonely, use those networks. And also get out, don’t sit indoors thinking about it all the time. Get out and do something, whether it’s exercise, whether it’s going for a walk, listening to music, just get out and do something.

I: Have you ever tried to join any forum or any support group for loneliness?

R: No.

I: No. Would it be out of your comfort zone do you think? Or is it what we discussed?

R: Do you know what, I’ll tell you… So I have been to a couple of groups, but the groups I’ve been to.. I mean I went to one once which was for gay men that were I suppose you could say lonely, but just gay men that were struggling in their life with anything, it didn’t have to be a particular problem, it was just any struggle you had. So I went to this group situation and there was about 6 of us, but I just felt so uncomfortable the whole way through.

I felt embarrassed about talking about my problems, I felt that everybody was judging me, and also in those sort of groups I always found it was one person that tries to take over the whole thing. So there’s always one person that’s larger than everyone else and always wants to get their point across more than anybody else, and they just annoy me.[laughing] So I think I’d done about 3 sessions and I just left because I was like I can’t bear that person anymore, and I just left and I did say to the trainer “I’m really struggling with that guy and he’s really making me feel uncomfortable” and the trainer said, “well, you know, it’s for everybody so I can’t tell him not to come” and I went “that’s fine, I’ll just drop out of it, it’s no problem.” So I just find myself really uncomfortable in those sorts of situations. Which is I think why I like therapy a lot more because it’s 1 on 1, you know?

R: So they obviously recommended me to that group work, they also recommended me to counselling, and they also had drop-in centres where, this is in [city] though, not in [city], they had drop-in centres where on a Tuesday night if you were feeling a bit low, you were feeling a bit lonely, you could just go to this drop-in centre, there’d be people there chatting, having tea. Wasn’t anything formal, but it was just if you were feeling lonely and you could drop in. So actually I did do that a couple of times and it was really, really helpful, and you could meet all sorts of strangers you know, and it was just people that wanted a chat.

I: So it wasn’t that group, that…?

R: No, that was a lot more structured, so that was the kind of place where you walked in, there were 6 seats sat there and then they would go round you one by one and I just felt so uncomfortable, like really embarrassed. But this one was a drop-in and you would just sit down beside somebody and you would start chatting to them and that was it, very, very informal. And it was really nice actually. So I did do that for a couple of years.

I: That was more comfortable than the structured ones?

R: It was more comfortable, yeah, much more comfortable. And there wasn’t somebody analysing everything that you were saying, because in the group work you had a trainer there, who I didn’t think was very good actually, but he was analysing everything that you were saying, I suppose to question you, which is fine, but I didn’t think that he had the tools to… He couldn’t keep the group under control.

I: Because somebody else was leading the group?

R:Yeah, yeah. One of the participants was leading the group and not him.

But the thing that gets me through my loneliness in the mainstream I’d say is my therapy, because I just know once a fortnight I’ve got that time to just tell somebody how I’m feeling, and probably not somebody that’s involved in my day-to-day life, because I never see this person apart from my therapy sessions, so I don’t know anything about them. But I’ve got that outlet just to get everything that’s up here out. And I don’t feel as isolated, and that works for me. I know that’s not going to work for everybody and some people will like a group work situation where they can go and tell their problems to a few people, that doesn’t work for me at all. So for me it’s a therapy-based thing.

I tell you what I did used to like when I was with my ex-partner is we had a dog, and you really used to find a sense of community when you were dog walking because obviously you’d bump into the same people walking their dogs at the same time and that kind of thing, so that was kind of sense of community and a sense of friendship in that respect. And actually next year I’m thinking about getting a dog because I think it’s going to be really good for my mental health to get out with the dog and also meet people, meet other dog walkers, because you’ve got that thing in common, you talk about the dog, but then you start talking about other things. So I’ve really missed that aspect of my life since I’ve not had a dog, so I’m working towards getting one next year, and hopefully that will make things a little bit better as well.