I'm painfully lonely, friend-wise and relationship-wise. I do all the things people say to do in order to deal with loneliness; I have hobbies that I love (photography, reading, cooking, language learning, films), I exercise and eat healthy, I journal, I have a writing project I'm dedicated to. I try really hard to maintain the friendships I still have, even though, I won't lie, I still haven't managed to make any of them last longer than a year. I journal every day, I go to therapy. And despite that, I am painfully lonely. Not just lonely, but bored. You know the kind of boredom I'm talking about; like a black hole inside you, just that constant, aching emptiness. It's to the point that I get violently angry when people say "invest in your friendships :)" or "spend time on yourself :)" or "find a hobby." I DO all those things already. And guess what? I still self-harm, I still fantasize about suicide, I still feel that horrible emptiness. 

I mean, is there something I'm missing here? I understand that being alone is a process, but to some degree I'm skeptical of the whole idea of "learning to love yourself" or whatever. To me it just feels like all these things I'm doing aren't actually going to make me feel any more fulfilled, they're just sort of temporary distractions from the constant emptiness and boredom.