I feel so alone in life and I'm only a 13 year old kid? :(?

[Owlsinacity]

So I just feel alone in life right now. I feel like nobody really has a genuine interest in me, and I'm just not really special to anyone. I'll start with that I'm 13 years old, in the 8th grade, and am home-schooled. I really do enjoy the fact that I am home-schooled, and that I get to work at my own pace, with my preferred textbooks and schedule. But it's also the main reason I'm so alone. Pretty much every kid my age has tons of friends, and its because they get to go to normal school. I know school is a drag, but they have an advantage over me because they have friends. When you go to school, you make friends, its inevitable. You are around people all day, and you make friends and reputation. I'm homeschooled, so I don't have this. I wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, take a shower, and then get to work on my school. I'm by myself on my desk, working till late afternoon. I didn't get to meet a single person or do anything. So that's the main reason why I have no friends, is because during week-days I don't even have a chance to make any. I'm helpless in this area, because my parents are going to home-school me till college, so I will never get to go to regular school. They swear on their lives they will NEVER stop home-schooling me over anything. They are firm. I've tried bringing it up, and they scream at me, and then ground me and leave it at that. So all of the chances of getting friends at school are gone. We do have a local homeschool group, but there is only like one event per month and there isn't a single kid who is in my age group (they are all like 7 - 8 year olds and 16 - 17 year olds). And most of their parents are idiots anyway.

The other reason is I live in a small town of like 16,000 people. There isn't a lot of events that happen, or clubs outside of regular school I could join. Even if there was, my parents are really over-protective and they wouldn't let me just sign up without thurough back-ground checks on the group.

Everyone tells me "befriend your neighbors!". But I don't have any neighbors that are my age. I've went around the whole block, and the closest to my age I found was some hyper 9 year old kid. The rest of the neighbors were adults and/or elderly.

Now I'll just be totally honest. My parents are just lazy. They don't want to commit to taking me to a group meet or club every week, so they just don't let me join any. They don't like busy schedules, and aren't spontaneous at all, and they are just lazy. This doesn't help my cause at all either.

So enough ramblings. What can I do? I'm lonely without any friends, and I feel stuck because of the things I just explained.

PS: Parents won't let me go on social networking sites either, so another lost chance (no twitter, facebook, myspace, or any online forums)...

I do believe in God, and pray night and day that he'll solve this problem for me. I've been praying for months now, and nothings changed. I'm alone, and bored, and my life seems to be a repeated cycle of nothing-ness. I'm losing sleep every night, and now I'm only getting like 4 hours of sleep every night because my mind wanders. I look like a wreck, dark circles everywhere and I feel depressed and tired because of lack of sleep. Just so you know, I'm not considering suicide at all. I'm not that kind of person. But it's just tough to live this way.

[Owlsinacity]

You're worrying a lot.

[Emily Chaffee]

Well honestly your parents are destroying your life and you need to tell them that. I'm sure their intentions are well but sheltering you from the world will only make things worse. One day your gonna have to go out onto it all like with your college, and you will have no idea how to handle it all. I assume your parents gave raised you right away from drugs and everything else. Maybe they are scarce school will get you into the wrong crowd of people. But you need to let them know that's not the case. All I can tell you is you really need to go to a public high school. Research it all public school vs home schooling go to your parents with a stack of papers explaining why you should be allowed to go to a public high school. Open their eyes.

[Ava]

oh love ur lonely. try going to ur local park and meet kids there? try befriending ur old neighbours. they will probably be very nice and might also be craving social contact like u. they might introduce u to grandkids that are ur age. go to the local library and meet people there or ur local coffee shop maybe?

[immensehair650]

You sound like me, Im 14, in online school in 8th grade, I live in middle of nowhere, and its hard to find friends. Its a little easier for me because I still have the friends from my old school and I have social networking sites.
If I were you, I would tell you parents to at least let you have a facebook, or bring you to one of those homeschool club meetings or just a club in general. Other than that, you pretty much don't have anything to do. Sorry man, I know how you feel.

[Clarence]

Hey there, I'm really sorry your going through this. It sounds very tough and unfair. It definitely seems like your parents are making life much harder for you then it needs to be but make sure that it doesn't cause you to think less of them. Everyone has their own odd ways of handling things in life and for whatever reason, this is their way. You are probably stronger and more mature than most because of it so as long as you can make it through then the adult part of your life will be a breeze.

To solve your problem, we need to break it down and just figure it out. Basically you can't join any sort of regular activity that has lots of people you can meet. You can't drive and you can't socialize online so this truly only leaves hanging out in your neighborhood.

This is important to figure out because this is your option. It narrows it down and helps you focus on things that are possible and not waste energy thinking about what you can't do.

So considering what you said about there only being one hyper 9 year old kid, you probably feel screwed. However, you just have to break down and think about it differently. To stop your loneliness you have to meet some people. To do this, you have no choice but to widen your range of acceptable acquaintances. I mean, really, right now you just need someone to talk to and share things with from time to time. You don't need a best friend. Go outside and start playing with the 9 year old hyper kid just to get started.

Think of it as you are helping him grow up. Maybe you can teach him to be less hyper. Maybe you can help him with his problems. If you don't like him, a lot of other people probably don't either which means he needs help too. You may not be life long friends but you could help each other out right now. This will ease your loneliness for a little while. Start playing games in the front yard together so other lonely people will see you and hopefully come play too. Ask your parents for a basketball hoop or something else that you could play on with 1+ players. That way you can play alone. You can play with the 9 year old and you can also allow any other people that come along to play as well.

If you can't get a basketball hoop, find something else you can do that will look interesting to anybody else. If it ends up being just you and the 9 year old, well whatever. Take what you got for right now. It will at least solve the loneliness problem.

I love that you pray and that you keep praying even though you don't see the answers yet. In my experience prayers, are sometimes answered with enlightenment rather than physical things. Try praying for God to help you figure out the answer rather than for him to solve it for you. This may help.

I hope this helps you out. Stay strong and stay happy!!