That pretty much exactly describes me as well. Maybe not quite to the same degree. But the swinging back and forth between "I really need to have a connection w

That pretty much exactly describes me as well. Maybe not quite to the same degree. But the swinging back and forth between "I really need to have a connection with someone right now" and "I don't want to be around people right now" is something I feel too. And the painful difference between being alone when you want to be alone, by choice, and being alone when you don't want to, because you don't have anyone to talk to. As far as managing it, I can't say much. I've found that reading blog posts and forums about loneliness tends to make things worse (not really a surprise there), and getting involved in a coding project makes things better (again not too surprising). I think it helps to have a small number of closer friends rather than a larger number of less close ones, because closer friendships can more easily survive lapses in communication. As for how to make close friendships, I'm quite bad at that. My only advice so far is: have conversations about difficult topics.