Existential malaise

I don’t know.

OK, well I'll err on the side of caution then. 

I'd suggest the following:

1) Don't try to forget your ex. (s)he clearly has moved on, but not everyone moves on at the same rate, if at all. Do try to get on with your days acknowledging what was there in the past, but that there's a future too. Without her/him.

2) that whole parental marriage means that you probably won't ever get away from your ex being in your life, but you can control how you feel - to a certain degree. Go into situations with an open eye, and be honest with yourself. You'll know what I'm talking about, even though I don't know the specifics of your life. 

3) do you regret not having kids? if you do, maybe you can think about helping out poor kids in your area. they're not yours, but there are myriad people who need our help. 

4) the age thing is pretty tricky. generally speaking (and for the love of bob, not meaning to offend anyone so don't bother having a go at me if someone reading this fits some semblance of what I'm about to say) if younger people are attracted to reasonably/much older people, a lot of the time there's a negative reason for this. it's probably not healthy. a few years younger is OK, but "too much" is too much. Be sensible.

5) grey areas. Surely you have SOME interests that others do? Maybe try to go to a thing where people go to talk about the thing you like. I mean, you like this band called The Cure. See about meeting some folk before a show or something. Or tee up going to see a The Cure cover band. Something...

6) I wonder about sobriety actually. I believe )generally speaking of course) that too much or too little of anything is bad for you. (Some things are off that scale - such as heroin, probs best to stay away from even a little bit of that, same with risky sexual activities...). If you're sober because you and booze don't mix (you'll know if this is you) then stay away. Go jerk off instead, ride a bike. Play a guitar. 

If you chose to stop for "a while" that turned into years, then I see no reason to have a drink, or not to. but again, that depends on you being honest with yourself. Don't lie to yourself. We each have failings that we need to be honest with ourselves about before we can consider getting over them, or at least accepting them. 

Not being a mental health professional, I can't really say any of this stuff with any real confidence, but I think it's a good idea to try to get out and just meet people. 

Another thing you can do is ask yourself what advice would you give someone who came to you saying the things you're saying? Step away from your position and come at it from an outsider looking in. 

And yes, the rain will stop. 

Even though each of us sometimes feels like varying degrees of this, saying "oh it's normal" isn't helpful, because so what? Hopefully what i've written there helps? I don't know. 

I'm half your age but if you ever need to chat or need to vent to an almost complete stranger, send me a PM for my number.

Oh, and I'm male so I'll have to let you down on that front... ;P

quoting nausearockpig

5) grey areas. Surely you have SOME interests that others do? Maybe try to go to a thing where people go to talk about the thing you like. I mean, you like this band called The Cure. See about meeting some folk before a show or something. Or tee up going to see a The Cure cover band. Something...


that is the way i meet my GF... going to places and events of the music i love... she is more like Lacrimosa fan but we realize that we have a lot of common... books, music, films, and now we share life...

so give you the chance to know new people... i use to go completily alone to that places and events... so it is just matter of time

I'm with you. I'm 61 & really think my time is way more finite than most. I'm further down the spiral than you but I've got a few years on you. I've shared some (not all) about my health stuff here. It's really bleak & contributes heavily to my malaise. Basically I guess for the most part I don't give a fook about anything anymore. I'll write more later probably but I dont want to bum everyone out. I'm in bad trouble on several levels.

Thanks, guys. I guess I'll start heading out to different places and just hanging out by myself. It's hard for me to meet people but I'll just have to get better at it I guess. I'm always like "oh crap, this person is making eye contact and it's freaking me out, what do I do?" To be honest I don't even know how I met my ex wife, it was just like the universe threw her in my path.