I'm a middle aged guy in the Uk and have absolutely no one to count on. My family weren't around and we grew apart a long time ago. I was never lucky enough to have many friends and they all left to live their own lives. So it has mean doing everything alone.

This was fine in my 20s because life didn't need to be taken too seriously. But trying to sort myself out in later life is stupidly difficult. There are so many barriers in front of me that aren't there for others.

- I can't work in the jobs I want because there's no industry contacts to tap.

- I can't live in the flats I want because you need a guarantor.

- I may not be able to go to university next year because no one will act as a reference.

- I can't replace my lost passport because someone must act as a countersignaturee. So despite being a lifelong Uk national, I can no longer hold a passport.

Having no friends or family is humiliating and makes opening up hard. But when you try to explain it, people don't get it. They'll say things like go online or take up charity work without considering that I've tried that a thousand times. People have already paired off, I move around for work, joining a book club won't replace a mother, father etc.

It's also painful to have noone. I'm a fairly solitary person anyway and manage alright by myself but the future is a lonely retirement in isolation. After work, people just don't budge from their sofas. So what am I supposed to do. Build robot friends?

Anyway I don't know what good writing this will do. It's another weekend in isolation. Again most people aren't really going to understand it fully. I'm just really tired of sucking it up.