it feels like 6 months is a long time when you are going through that six months but it really isn't a long time at all on this journey - others don't understand that - and actually the dating comment was something you are right to be put out by -you cant just pop another person in the gap he has left.
Dating is something personal and only you would know if you were ready for, but being lonely isn't a reason to get into another relationship it wouldn't be fair to you or them to have something based purely on loneliness.
If anyone new comes into your life it must be for more than just filling a space - no-one can be a replacement you didn't stop loving him because he is no longer here so he cant be replaced. That doesn't mean you cant love some-one else when you meet them but you will love them for themselves not as a plaster to cover loneliness or a replacement.
Its ok to want to stay at home and just do what needs to be done as well - stepping outside that safe routine is another thing you will do when you are ready - maybe you could talk to your daughter about that and take away some of her hurt - If you don't feel up to going away with her just now perhaps you could come up with other things you can do together that are less of a giant step and that mean you can step back inside your safety zone afterwards.Shopping trip, theatre, cinema, yoga, dance class -something you can both enjoy together but which is shorter duration and doesn't need you to put dogs in kennels etc. Both going away from home and dating are giant leaps - and they are way too giant right now, its all about taking small steps.
For me being lonely was about filling the time not at work with other things - gardening helped a massive amount i didn't feel lonely in the garden there was always life around not human life that puts pressure on you -plants and birds and insects that don't.
But i also did future-learn online courses, they're free and short and don't require much time or pre- knowledge - no need to leave the house, you do communicate with other students but only online and with whatever the course you were doing is the interest in common that you talk about.After trying to "join" a couple of local things and failing i realized it was because they were not things i had any real interest in - i was just doing it because people said i should "join something" - the online courses created an opportunity to find out what i was good at or not, and more importantly what inspired me or not - so i just randomly picked some i thought i might be interested in - a couple i ditched part way through - you just stop there is no hassle - but with the others one would lead too another then too another and then they eventually fitted together and gave me a direction to take.
When you have been wife parent carer worker all your adult life its difficult to be something else as well - so we don't - and then suddenly when those roles disappear we don't know who we are
and have to start over and all that takes time - much longer than six months.
I can still be lonely in some ways, but in the early days that space next to me where he was physically felt like a massive gaping hole you can never avoid - Learning how to be alone but not always lonely - is the trick that goes a long way to building a safety net around the space where they were so we don't keep falling back into it.
Building that net piece by piece is a long process but it helps to heal the wounds each piece means finding something of yourself - an interest an incentive discovering who you are and who you can become and at some point when you look through the net you will see it isn't covering a gaping hole, because they are still there as part of your life - we just couldn't see them because we were looking for their physical presence. Making those changes is what frightens us and part of that fear is that we are moving away from them, but he will always be part of who you become.