Legit, all of them either were completely alone or extremely desperate dudes in their early 20's with fat single mothers.
Two points. You will not find new friends looking for them. I have had my fair share of experiences with lonely men trying to befriend me purely because I smiled and offered small talk. I could not, however, continue the supposed friendship in good faith. There was very little for us to talk about, I found them uncomfortable and clingy, and real friends do not have 'mate dates'. A friend to all is a friend to none. Like romantic love, there is a exclusivity to friendship, 'you don't understand him the way I do'. Not everyone is meant to get along. People who are 'friends' to everyone are the human equivalent to doormats, nobody likes them. Like with salesmen, the unnaturally and overtly friendly leave people cold and questioning of motives.
CS Lewis wrote that the typical expression for the beginnings of a real friendship is, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." Find a hobby, enjoy yourself, they you may meet someone. People, even the negative and miserable, gravitate towards positivity. When you have a hobby and common ground with another bloke, no matter how inane, then you have the bedrock to a lasting friendship.
As to my other point, don't worry too much about being alone. Much of our lives, especially as we age, are spent in solitude. That is good. It is how one grows and matures. Think of all the great art or innovations that exist because a man was forced to be alone. Think of Raymond Chandler writing
The Big Sleep because he was unemployed, bored, and knowing he could write far better than any pulp writer. I am not suggesting you write a novel, but that you should rethink your loneliness. The time spent mulling on the need for a friend is time that could be spent listening to the world around you.
Our relationships between friends, between family, between lovers, are all important. They shape us and make life worth living. They provide comfort and certainty, that feeling that you and I are not so strange as to be totally rejected by the world. But we live for a need of balance. To be alone is not be feared but trusted as an aspect of the whole experience of man. We learn to love others, and then we learn to accept that we must eventually depart from them. Even if you marry a woman and you both happily live to a 100, one of you will die before the other does, and one will be alone. That is how it is. I refuse to see that as a tragedy. Isolation makes us question and ponder. It makes us see life from a different perspective, absent from others. It is futile to try and escape that, nor should escape be sought.
There is in stillness oft a magic power
To calm the breast, when struggling passions lower;
Touch'd by its influence, in the soul arise
Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies.
etc
My explanation was not met with outrage but only with a barrage of playful punches. You can explain why the holocaust never happened (but it should have) in a similar fashion. It's not the information that matters when talking to a woman, it's how you present it.
