Dear Dana,

I am sorry you’re feeling alone and surrounded only by colleagues, but no friends. You said on your previous thread that you live surrounded by a lot of suffering, and you’re helping non-stop, not really having time for a proper rest either. Are you still living there, in similar circumstances? I am asking because it’s hard to nurture friendships if one is in the survival mode all the time. So this may be contributing to you being without real friends?

Perhaps, we are not supposed to have friends after a certain age? May be, friendship is just a faze that ends up somewhere in the middle of life, when everything finally becomes clear? Clear that all relationships are based on egoism?

It seems you were hurt by relationships, that’s why you believe they are based on egoism.

In the end, I was disappointed with everyone I ever knew.

How did those people hurt you (if you’d like to share some more)?

It does not include my parents: they obviously have instinctive parental affection towards me.

Unfortunately, not all parents have that. It’s not that instinctive (it wasn’t for my mother, for example). So I just want to ask: have you really felt loved and supported by you parents, or perhaps a part of the disappointment is stemming from them too?