How Can I Cope with Being Alone Without Numbing My Heart?

As-salamu alaykum. I want to be straightforward here. How do you handle being isolated without constantly bottling up your feelings and eventually stopping yourself from reaching out to others? My situation: I’m mostly by myself. People don’t seem to include me or stay in my life, and old friendships have drifted away. Marriage doesn’t look likely for me right now (I’ve talked about that before). So loneliness has become the norm, and I’m slowly accepting it. What I’m asking is: how can I live with this in a way that’s healthy and realistic? The only thing I’ve found that protects me is emotionally distancing - lowering expectations, holding back warmth toward others, and always managing myself so I don’t get hurt again. I still try to be respectful, kind, and helpful to brothers and sisters and to people around me, but I do it expecting nothing deeper will come of it. It’s a shield to avoid pain. Acting like this, becoming almost robotic and always restraining myself, is exhausting, especially when I know I’m not naturally like that. It’s not who I want to be, but it feels like the only way to survive for now. I’m not talking about that cold, detached attitude you sometimes see online. TL;DR: How do you cope with isolation in a down-to-earth way without constantly suppressing your emotions and without giving up on meaningful relationships - yet still keeping yourself safe? This might be my last post. It’s painful to feel like our ummah doesn’t understand or can’t relate to struggles like this.