An Iranian man is struggling to make friends in Germany. Mariella Frostrup says he must embrace anything and everything until he finds his feet

The dilemma I am a 30-year-old guy and I am really lonely. I was born in Iran and was raised in a conservative family and society. I went to university there and graduated with a master’s degree in English language studies. I am now at university in Germany, but I am not able to make friends with girls. I have no proper job, no future and not even a friend. I tried online dating sites; they don’t work. What is wrong with me? I even think of ending my life. I do not have any future going back to a country which does not accept me when I do not believe in Islam.

Mariella replies With loneliness it really doesn’t help to know you’re one of a huge majority, but I must tell you that you are. I could write responses to lonely people every week of the year if diversity of suffering wasn’t a criterion in the agony business. If you can gauge society’s woes on the basis of a column like this then the sense of isolation you articulate is at epidemic levels across the developed world. How interesting that that should be the price we pay for “success”.

In your longer letter you describe the restrictions of your conservative family back in Tehran, which must have been tough to live with – but I bet you never felt “alone”. Don’t worry, I’m not recommending you return and wallow in the misery of their control. Personal liberty comes at a price and the one we dwell on least is the responsibility it bestows on us for our own lives and the choices we make. Living in a less-fettered society has its drawbacks, and having to imagine our own destinies, rather than have them dictated by the edicts of societal expectations and religious diktats, is one of them.

You’ve already taken the brave step to change your destiny. This is no time to let your courage fail you

So here you are having made a seismic move from one culture to another. It’s hard to build your self-esteem when no one is looking and I sense quite strongly that what you are really struggling with is belief in yourself.

You’ve come an immensely long way and as a result are feeling like an outsider in both cultures. Your lack of belief is a problem, I imagine, among the Iranian diaspora, and the mere fact that you are Iranian among Europeans. Yet you’ve already taken a huge, brave and fundamental step in changing your destiny by making this geographical move.

This is no time to let your courage fail. You’ve embraced your right to make up your own mind, to choose whether to follow your inherited religious practice or to embrace secular life. There is a price to pay for everything. I’m not saying that the cost of your principles is to be eternally damned to an existence absent of friends and romance, but extracting yourself from the masses by carving an individual position puts you in a minority. If all this is contributing to suicidal thoughts then you must access professional help. In the UK the Samaritans do a great job.

What’s very important is to take responsibility and, more importantly, enormous pride in the strength it has taken to direct your own destiny. By choosing freedom and individualism you make life more daunting, perhaps because there is no prescribed path, but, let’s face it, so much more exciting, too.

You don’t say how long you’ve been in Germany, but I sense not too long. It takes time to construct a new life and also courage and tenacity. The hardest choice you’ve made is behind you and here you are with a blank slate ahead. How great. Who will you be? What will you do?

I received a letter this week from a woman who took positive action to achieve her desired destiny on the basis of something I wrote. It gave me hope that my strong belief in our ability to change course, to make a determined effort to alter the status quo, is not ill-founded. She is now enjoying the lifestyle she desperately craved and all because she decided to make the changes required to bring her goals into reach.

Being true to yourself may make it harder to fit in, but it also gives you a lot more room to manoeuvre. University offers a multitude of extracurricular ways to meet people with similar interests, whether in politics or painting, sporting interests, books, dancing, or philosophy. You need to embrace anything and everything that’s on offer until you find your feet.

The search for friends, and love, isn’t something to be pursued in isolation but will happen naturally when you broaden your horizons instead of hunkering down in misery. Luckily, you don’t have to try to be brave because you’ve already proved you are. So far you’ve acted on your principles; now you’re ready to harvest the rewards when you accept that you are in the driving seat.

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1