Friends, wanting isolation, loneliness

Bit of a ramble but hope someone understands? Two possibly related issues:

Number one

I'm so grateful for the fact that I've come to understand what exhausts me about social interaction, and I've given myself permission to minimise this. So, I've cut down on face to face meetings, I'm saying no to travel, and I'm finding comfort in my routine.

However, success in this is leaving me feeling isolated and lonely, and probably under-stimulated and bored too.

There doesn't seem to be an easy answer to this tension.

Number two

I have great difficulty in being able to work out whether I have any friends or not. I'm happy with my own company (see above) but I do enjoy the mutual support of a friendship. I offer my support to quite a few people (gently) and I have a couple of people who seem to value it and say that they count me as a good friend. However, I haven't found *anyone* who I would say frequently reaches back to me; if I don't put the effort in, I'm alone. It's like I'm always the one chasing.

I find this with family too; I feel that I'm absolutely exhausted feeling obligated to make my parents happy & support my children but no one seems to care about me. If I challenged anyone on this, I can guarantee that the answer would be "But of *course* we care, you're our number one, you're so special, we love you to bits." but no-one does (or rarely does) anything that helps me feel that.

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