I've been pretty much a loner all my life too. In school I had a few (two or three) very close friends and outside of that it was an "us against them" situation --- not that we wanted it that way, but when you stand apart from the mainstream (not into football, pop, gross humour, drinking etc) you tend to get ostracised and compartmentalised. After leaving school and getting a job I made some friends, but none I'd see outside of work. I had one or two --- literally --- good friends I would see but as time went on these drifted away, due to various circumstances.
When I took redunancy from work in 2009 to look after my sick sister, I had at that point no friends outside of work (though I keep in touch with one) and so I became basically a loner, again. But I have made friends through MB and though it may seem sad to say that your only friends are online, there have been times when the support of these guys has seen me through tough times. It's hard to be on your own, the moreso when you're caring for someone and your family has generally lost interest in the situation, casting you adrift, so the friends I've made here are as valuable as just about any I had in the "real world", some more so.
Of course, I can't exactly go for a pint with any of them or watch a movie, or go to dinner or to a match, or the other things you do with friends, but even so, a lot of them I would regard as true friends.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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