Good Luck!
Okay, get used to it is not helpful, but just going out is not helpful either. Find some interest groups, go and learn a language in a school, play tennis or golf, go and sing in a choir, do workshops, learn karate, etc. these are the things where you can meet people. And, if you do it because you like rather than because you want to meet people, then you migh also find friends who share your interestes.
You can call me weird but I enjoy being alone: I am perfectly happy in my own company.
BTW I don't call it "Loneliness" but "Freedom".
Anywhere can be the loneliest place on Earth and you can be lonely even when you are with a crowd.
Age can be a factor in some people - I actually enjoy my own company far more as I have got older - and I could not bear to be by myself when I was younger. I know a lot of people who feel that way - I do not know the OP age
I am sure the OP has taken on board all the suggestions and am sure that he/she will come back in the future feeling a lot happier and not so lonely. There are some really great people on here so I do urge you to meet up with some. I live in a very quiet place - no expats - but when I am down I get the train and go and visit an EF member
I understand that Vaud has many expats? Are you in a remote part of the canton?
Vaud is a large canton and most of the expats are around Lake Leman. The North Vaudoise has lots of villages and some parts are really quiet.
I am up on the Jura near L'Auberson and not far from where you go into Neuchatel canton. To get to me if you don't drive is a 40 min train up onto the Jura and a bus ride.........
OP, in the meantime, think also of all the things you can do because you don't have anyone hanging around you. That's another way of looking at your situation. Things will evolve and eventually fall into place, rest assured.
(Several months after I moved here, I picked up the courage to speak to a woman at the playground and she has turned out to be a wonderful friend and inspiring person. She also introduced me to her friends and now we're a warm circle of friends who meet once a month or so. A few of my ex-German coursemates have also become firm friends.)
Why not join couch surfers and invite people to spend a night or two on your couch? That way you get a bit of company and maybe share a day exploring together and then they are gone! The bonus is you could also surf on other people's couch if you fancy a change of scene...
Gal x
What a fun and funny idea. But you won't want to 'surf' on my couch. It's a sickly blue and it has crumbs and dog hairs all over.
Hello from Lugano..I haven't read all the posts but seen that people suggest courses, sports activities, etc. Throwing yourself in at the deep end is certainly the only way here or elsewhere..
Take a look at the Corsi per Adulti website ( www.ti.ch/cpa ), they offer all kinds of adult education courses, languages, IT, philosophy, art, history, etc. Most courses are offered in Bellinzona as well as Lugano so you needn't travel that far. There is also an English film club in Giubiasco, starting in October and running sort of every fortnight on Thursdays/Fridays. Plenty of sporting clubs, too, if you are a sporty type: a very quick search has come up with http://www.sscb.ch/ (Sci e Snowboard Bellinzona).
And, as I've said before, if 'local' non-locals want to show those from the rest of Switzerland what Ticino has to offer, I'm up for it and can help you organize a day event, etc.
Good luck and remember that it's better to feel lonely when alone than when you are in an unhappy relationship!
Lorenza
Believe me, I understand what you are going through, I had also had to undergo not one but twice the adaptation process in Switzerland, first in Geneva, now here in Zurich.
My phrase, "if you want to stay around here get used to it" it is not to discourage you. It is to make you aware that it is really difficult to geting integrated here. You better are aware of reality so you don't get disapponted aftewards.
Experiences are varied though. I know people who where simply lucky. came here and found the right people and just everything went smooth.
I knew others who never adapted or never go integrated into anything after many years (decades) of trying.
Even swiss, who move from the french side to the german side, have long adaptation periods and at the end give up. A friend of mine from geneva, 100% swiss, spent 10 years in Zurich without making any real friends or feeling accepted by their closest aquitances here, and just went back to geneva.
Some got in a couple with a local and then married and with that integrated with all his circle of friends and family easily, others felt isolated from everything around living on a small village as the spouse of a swiss, but left out of any family or friends activity, and not because they are bad or unsufferable people, simply because they are different and they don't fit in the local culture.
I have been back in zurich for almost 2 years now, I came back with a total 100% positive attitude to get me integrated, and I have a very active social life, organising sports events, BBQs, going out with people, partying many times per week etc etc.
But now I feel entirely disconnected of this place.
Much more than what I felt at the beginning of my immigration experience in Geneva, when I was really alone with language barriers and without much social life.
I go out, and I know practically everybody on the places I go, but I don't feel connected, accepted or accepting most of them, and the rare exceptions are not allways avaliable for me.
I know it is my current mood what makes me post this. But it is reality and teality has to be taken as a bull by the horns, no advantage to sweeten the pill.
Lots of good advice here, no need to repeat. I just have one suggestion that hasn't been covered.
One thing I have learned so far, you need to lower your expectations. If a "good" day back at home included going shopping with your friends with a nice lunch and then having other friends over at night for a quick drink before going out to dinner together, or a pot luck supper at a friend's house which involved 8 other friends and playing cards all night, well that is probably not ever going to happen here, at least not any time soon.
In my "old" life, we literally had something going on from Wednesday straight through Saturday. I had to wrap my mind around the fact that my world shrunk when I moved here to just my husband and that was it. So, now I try to find little pleasures and triumphs over loneliness whenever and wherever I can. For instance, yesterday I was on the Metro in Lausanne and there was a woman who was truly lost and who only spoke English. I considered yesterday a "good" day because I helped this woman find her way. Small things. Baby steps.
You are not alone. There are others just like you all around you but you just don't know it. Redefine your definition of a "good" day. It cannot be stressed enough just how traumatic it is to transplant yourself to another culture. Learn to look at little things as great triumphs.
Best of luck. Hang in there.
Sounds to me like a comment by healthy person who is enjoying racing around in a wheelchair! Not quite the same thing as using one because one is unable to walk.
Normally I'd be fully in agreement with the contents of these two posts. However, it looks like the last bus comes up from Lugano to Roverdero at 19.20 (including Saturdays) – so if Taliasam is dependent on public transport there's little hope of any regular evenings at courses, sports' clubs and the like.
I suppose it would be easy enough for her to get to both Bellinzona and Giubiasco by 'road' if she were are a mountain goat with a car...
There is however, a 'Book Nook' in Viganello , so maybe a visit would at least allow her to hear some English and you can take loumaca up on this one.
without sounding like a shrink...
OP - were you ever lonely where you came from? and why do you think not? maybe it's not the people but the place? if you're used to wide open spaces, sparsely populated - it could be the surrounding high mountains and lots of 'inappropriate' people - because you have no links to them? each country has minority groups - were you used to being in the majority group?
i sometimes feel overwhelmed because everything is just so wet and green?!?!
is loneliness linked to feeling unsafe? what made you feel safe where you came from? maybe you need to import stuff that makes you feel at home? i love coming home to my paintings and was very emotional the day they were all hanged - suddenly the walls were not white - they were home!
i'm lucky, i came with my small family, but i was in amsterdam for 6 months on exchange in my early 20s - i expected to be enthralled by europe - i was miserable and couldn't wait to go back! what made the difference? my stuff - the internet - more money (i can phone home weekly instead of monthly?!) my son and hubby - i don't know!
loneliness to me is like happiness - you make it yourself - you don't get up lonely or happy, you build your time into a happy place - and if the people here and the way of life prevents the people from rising to your expectations - can you make yourself less lonely without people?
so my advice is - look inside carefully first...and then decide on a course of action
good luck
it's really tough!
it is not really that lonely i switzerland too many things to do out there!
Oh I know what that feels like Salsa_Lover. It is indeed a great priviledge when you can feel truly connected, accepted and just feel good with one or two or three persons around you and this is often a surprise gift life hands you down sometimes under very curious circumstances. Personally I never took such a gift for granted.
But it is true, at times I am amazed too, how many out there live a very superficial life and seem to be absolutely content with it. I call it, in my visciously saracastic moments, a life for the carbage bin.
I agree about the lonely part.. It drives me crazy to stay at home.. The bad thing is that when you want to go out nobody is available and when you cannot all great things happen
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Have you thought about returning to the Latin culture since you like it so much over there and you find it to be the loneliest place on earth ?
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Well the thing to do is to change if it is not working for you after so many years here. Any place with language barriers is going to be twice as hard as one without it. That's why options exist and I agree with you actually on the 'get used to it or move out' suggestion.
The bull has to be taken by the horns as you said.
That said, both GE and ZH offer much more than they did 10 years ago.
Now when it comes to feeling 'connected', I would have to believe you at least to a great extent, since you are out so much all the time AND have done the adapation process TWICE in ZH and GE.
Well done though !!
Tonight for example was a great evening,
I went with one of my friends to party and we had a great time together, she is one of the ones you feel "connection" even when saying nothing. there we found many other cool people and had a great time together.
This "recharges your batteries" a bit as I heard said since the beginning when I arrived here.
"I have to go home for a month to recharge my batteries and then come back" kept saying the people.
And it is so true, you go home, get together with family and long time friends and refill your batteries with their love and human warmth and then can come back here charged and ready to transfer this to others.
Maybe the thing is I couldn't go home last Christmas and there has been 18 months since I was there, my "batteries" are close to empty I am planing to go next december.
Out of that is all good, I am very used to live here, understand well how this works and take the best profit I can of my living here and I really can't complain about many different aspects of the living.
It is just I would like to have more clear and clean relationships. But I find the Zurich culture is very a "façade" kind.
People seem to be keeping their image and displaying politeness and friendship that is not real. And I can read it between the lines and this deceives me a lot.
That is in clear words. I am clear with people, If I like you I'll be friendly and open and caring, and when you see that you'll know is for real and you can count on me. If don't I simply won't.
Some people give you that attitude and you believe it, but there is nothing behind, just that attitude to "fit in", but no real intention to relate.
You're correct on that one Salsa Lover, Zürich definetely is very shallow, especially if you like clubbing and the local house scene. Personally I avoid it like the plague, and I don't a single friend who comes from Zürich
Try meeting people from elsewhere who live in Zürich, they tend to be much less fake and more direct, honest.