Working against one's natural inclinations is a difficult matter, but I've found that having thoughtful friends around helps quite a bit. My move to the Bay Area in the last week and a half has been made so much happier due to the friends I have here, and I respect their openness and willingness to share their own friends with me, thereby helping me overcome my own propensity toward an annoying shyness that I daily work on overcoming.
The morning trudge through the dark hall into the kitchen to eat some sort of sehri alone is a difficult one (and frightening sometimes too, I must admit: many sehris were left uneaten when I was younger, because, I weighed in my mind, is that bowl of cereal worth walking through the big dark scary hall in the middle of the night for?! I may be utterly hungry by iftar time, but darn it I shall not be eaten by a monster in the dark!).
I've always heard of how sehri and iftar were such joyous occasions within Ramadan back in Pakistan, at least in my parents' generation when it was still safe in Karachi to walk over to your neighbor's house in the middle of the night. Neighbors and family and friends would come over with trays for sehri and iftar, love was shared, prayers were said together, fasts were kept together. These days, here, it seems odd to be waking up for sehri alone, explaining why you can't accept the glass of water, thank you, and sometimes opening your fast alone again at the end of day, because work needs to be done at home. But days like today, when friends open their homes to all, a communal iftar, communal eating, communal praying, makes it feel just that little bit more special again.
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I know exactly how you feel with the sehris and iftaris being lonely. Just know that you're not alone because the Big Guy is right there with you. Once you understand His presence, you never feel that loneliness again. Ramadan Kareem :-)
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