@LukeHill It really depends on what kind of loneliness. 1) If longing for a soulmate, find a girlfriend. 2) If longing for an activity partner that shares the same enthusiasm (let's say for a topic, a sport, a hobby), try to join a club, a meetup, a church activity / fellowship group. 3) If longing for God, develop a spiritual practice suited to your temperament, possibly guided by a spiritual director / pastor.

4) If longing for family-type relationship (which by virtue of related to you by blood should never abandon you), try to re-establish contact with your cousin, uncle, grandparents, etc. 5) If longing for being needed, join a charity / non-profit group, even teach a course to your fellow high school students.

6) If longing to contribute to culture, then make something and market it in the hope of finding others who appreciate your work, etc. (extreme example: C.S. Lewis's Narnia series kept him busy answering letters). 7) If longing to contribute to economy, find a job or start a company and start business networking

Bottom line: there are many more tools and ways nowadays to be connected in any of the 7 ways above. Hopefully the above tips help, but if the loneliness you're talking about is not any of the above 7, you'll have to be more specific.

OR there are also lots of solitary activities that takes your mind off loneliness. 1) Since I'm in IT, I can always learn a new technology then write a software and publish them on GitHub. 2) Since I'm into music, I can always learn new classical pieces on the piano (can easily consume 7-10 hours per week) and publish them on YouTube. 3) Since I'm into learning many religious related subjects, there are tons of books to read and contemplate on the ideas and on God. Etc.

@LukeHill The NIV doesn't suck ;) and it is actually written in English rather than the fake English of the ESV.

@LukeHill in addition to GratefulDisciples suggestions, find a Christian ministry to serve in alongside others

@LukeHill If you're Gen Z fighting loneliness, you may not be alone! I just came across this 2-day old Christianity Today article blaming the pandemic for 45% Gen Z to find that "being alone" has been their biggest challenge, with 21% says "extremely lonely".

Good news is that young people 1) with religious worldview, 2) attending traditional faith practice, and 3) engaging adults who care about them, came out a lot stronger statistically ("flourishing") in several areas: work, friendship, family, romantic relationships, etc. Thus, those 3 cross-cutting aspects can be part of a solution for you in combination with the 7 tips from me and 1 tip from @curiousdannii.

Correction: The article is not a Christianity Today magazine article but a the Better Samaritan blog article hosted by christianitytoday.com.

@curiousdannii perhaps my language was a bit primitive ;) I just don’t love the NIV’s language, it comes off as a bit awkward to me.

@GratefulDisciple 1) this one has been a big one for me. I’ve been rejected 4 times since the summer of last year! So that’s difficult. 2) I have one of these. He’s cool. Part of the problem is that my friend group that I had been a part of forever (8+ years) abandoned me this year. 3) always longing for God, but pornography is a stain on my life. I’m really trying to do better but it’s so difficult

@LukeHill loneliness is pretty terrible, I hate being left to my own devices. The best way to beat porn is an accountability partner, someone you can send a text to if you're being tempted. I was in a similar boat, but it was a year out of college - three of my friends and I moved in together and they each left one by one. That was the worst point in my life (there were worse bubbles, but that was the biggest dip); that is where understanding Mary as your spiritual mother helps.

I wish my our old priest from college still had his podcast site up, he had wonderful tips and he always ended it with "let us turn to Mary". But I can tell you that Marian consecration is especially helpful.

I had worked up a devotion to Mary by way of the Militia Immaculata and St. Maximillian Kolbe by way of a set of book written by a guy who turned out to be a bum given to me by a girl with a beautiful soul who just modeled goodness and made me want to be a much better person - who made me my first Rosary which I started praying as soon as I left home. So I think those kinds of weird journeys are the kinds of things you have to make on your own, it'll make sense in the end.

@PeterTurner yes. Hard part is I can’t think of anyone to be my accountability partner.

If you sent a message

@PeterTurner it just says (removed)

Exodus 90 is pretty great because you're actually supposed to check in with your anchor every day

Not doing it as much any more as we were since we're in the "day 91" reflection phase. I think we're a little sick of each other, I'm just glad the guys in my fraternity wanted to keep it going. I've got nearly no adult male bonding other than an hour on Friday mornings. But that was 100% more than I had before

None of my friends stuck around much after high school and getting married and having kids during college didn't help much with friends, but I was never very lonely

@PeterTurner what’s it like to have kids?

That has to be stressful and beautiful

Pregnancy is stressful - especially after you've went through a miscarriage and know how unsettling that is. I spent so much time driving to work and commuting the last 15 years, I'm so glad to be around for everything now. I'm not sure beautiful is a good word to describe it, that'll have to be in retrospect - now it's just messy

@PeterTurner 5 Kids is certainly messy :)

@PeterTurner I've thought about doing Exodus 90 but I don't know if I have any friends to do it with who aren't protestant

Actually, I do know a protestant who might be willing too

Maybe not a full exodus 90 but their 7 day challenges look good

Yeah, Exodus 90 isn't super deep on Catholic stuff, I think it's palatable to Protestants. I like it because it makes you do stuff.

We're on the second genesis bible series, the main disciplines are "spend time with your family every day" and "give up something you like at every meal". Also not to use phones around other people, but I don't have a smartphone so it never really applied to me.

@PeterTurner you don't have a smartphone

flip phone?

Okay I have 4 guys and starting sunday we are doing cold showers + no media for a week

@LukeHill yeah, it's a kyocera duraxe I picked up off ebay for 30 bucks. It does internet connection sharing (so I can do on-call work with a laptop) and has a crappy browser so I can find my way back home in a pinch, but it keeps me pretty much undistracted

@LukeHill sweet! let me know how you manage! Some of the guys in my group were like "piece of cake, we love cold showers." I did not.

@PeterTurner yea it sounds like hell

But anything to get off porn and get back my relationship with god

God*

@PeterTurner I'mma get me one of those

wow these are not 50$

@LukeHill Pray the rosary every day if you haven't already

when covenanteyes and exodus90 and having a accountability partner didn't help, the rosary did

@SupportiveDante not any more at least. ebay.com/itm/… looks like a good deal

if you come into the church a dread of confessing the same sin every month is also helpful - monthly confession is so much better than what most of us do (yearly or never or when there's a communal penance). Plus a desire not to commit sacrilege in receiving the Eucharist and/or not have anybody wonder what kind of a sinner your are when you don't go up for communion.

^^^ that's all human frailty though, not a grace-filled mode of being.