The people who says its better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, have had time to heal from the lost part.
I wish there was a way to fast forward that process, but there is no universal remote for people, so there's no FF button available.
The irony of it is that those who are cold and lonely because they are afraid of being cold and lonely, essentially ensure that they will be cold and lonely until they realize that.
Once it sinks in that the only way out of a hole is to climb out, and, yes, you might fall again, but, if you do, you are still in the same hole anyway....they start climbing, and are able to see failure as a process the same way success is a process, and they they are the SAME process, but, it just depends on when you look at it. If you look too early, its still failure. If you wait long enough to look again, its success.
So if you're lonely because when you were not lonely you were happy, and then when you were rendered lonely and then unhappy, the cure is to not be lonely again.
The way to STAY lonely is to NOT connect with others, so you isolate yourself...and avoid connections that might hurt if broken...so you basically break them pro-actively.
The way to NOT stay lonely is to MAKE connections with others, and NOT isolate yourself, and to NOT avoid connections that if broken might hurt.
It takes bravery to face danger, and, getting hurt is a type of danger. If you are too frightened to risk getting hurt, you don't go skiing, or chew gum with sugar, etc....depending on HOW frightened you are.
The way they treat people who are terrified of spiders for example, is to put them in a room full of spiders, and when they stop screaming and crying, they eventually realize that they are OK, and that spiders won't really hurt them. (Or the spiders killed them, and the doctors moved on, etc...)
If you are too afraid to risk being nice to someone because you might like them and they might like you and then they might not like you anymore....you have to FORCE yourself to try to be social, and try to connect...and try to fight the fear welling up inside you.
Cliff Jumpers, etc, will tell you that they are never more alive than when they are facing death.
If you are not emotionally alive, you are already sacrificing part of your life...and suffering the misery that you are trying to avoid.
If you can summon up the courage to risk death, then, you can also try to summon up the courage to risk LIFE.