"Most Connected Time In Human History, Yet Also The Loneliest."
How, what, and why is this happening?
First thing to discuss: We need to stop ignoring loneliness as a topic
I’ll begin with a story.
On March 3, 2017, I decided to get incredibly drunk during the day, and that was one of the catalyzing events for the end of my marriage at the time. I’ve looked back on that day numerous times over the past couple of years, and I really don’t fully understand the rationale … the relationship was not good at the time, and we would have reached that conclusion at another point (we probably should have by then, honestly), but I had a hand in the final poker lay-down of our deal, and I wonder why it was that day and that sequence sometimes. And when I think about that, it’s usually about how lonely I felt at the time.
The ironic thing about that day is that, in the middle of this bender I was on at 2:45pm on a Friday for some reason, I was texting with a new shrink I was considering going to … who I did end up going to for a while. He does rapid eye movement theory. You can Google that if you want, but basically you go into a room with a shrink, you focus on a laser pointer type deal, and you talk about stuff and walk through a sequence. The first 7–8 times I did it, it was pretty powerful. I was separated by this point, divorced soon after.
One of the things I did in that sequence of time was … I talked about how, since I had lived in Fort Worth, a lot of times I walked the Trinity River by myself, even though I was in a marriage at the time. It felt like I was always alone, and later stages, I was with my dog. This isn’t entirely true, because in my head now I can remember a few times walking with my ex, but in general, I was by myself in these memories and these stories. I just felt really lonely.
Then I’d think back to those adolescent days of yore on the Upper East Side, where often I’d spend a Saturday walking around by myself, no real friends, no one really contacting me to do anything … it was often a very sad, lonely existence, and then I wonder: Has that been a lot of my life?
In some ways, yes. In other ways, no. I’ve had relationships and I’ve had groups of friends, and while many have gone away, a few have stuck and when I interact with them, generally I don’t feel lonely. I’ve also spent most of the period November 2015 to now working by myself, with my dog since May 2016 (although he doesn’t speak), and that contributes to it. I also get scared of other people, and I get angry when I feel slighted, and that contributes to it.
But what I’d say broadly is that a lot more people than we admit feel lonely, and even now you’re seeing more about feeling lonely at work surrounded by others, and this feels like something we need to be talking about more and avoiding less.
Some stats on loneliness
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