Lonely

Do you feel lonely? Outright or deep down. How do you go about it? Do you need people around you? Do they make you lonelier? What are the “right” people for you?

It seems there are people who are just happy having other people around them. Someone to chat and go out with. Are you one of those people? Are those friends from childhood, from school, from uni? Maybe from work? Did you grow up to be still compatible, were you ever? Did it matter back then? Once upon a time, it was mostly about having playmates (but maybe you also liked staying home to read and play and maybe write). Later in your twenties maybe they aren’t exactly your soulmates, maybe you don’t have the connection you’d ideally like, but you can all go clubbing together, dance till the morning, take the metro back home as other people are going to work – or maybe church, dunno what people are doing up on a Sunday morning.

Is that enough, now? Is it even bearable? Not for everyone, we are different, find fulfilment differently. But isn’t all this surface draining, after a point? Covid quarantines seem to have changed things for us. That forced isolation, lead some to craving more substantial human contact. Actual contact. In person, but also mentally, emotionally, an easy, true communication, of minds and hearts, and by extension, sharing similar worldviews. Relationships that aren’t mostly work to work out. Relationships that don’t merely exist, so we aren’t on our own, or so that others don’t think there is something wrong with us for not having “friends”. But sometimes it’s not others who don’t want to play with you. It’s that you are tired of playing with kids you need to flatten a bit who you are to make yourself understood and so that they don’t feel not good enough. It’s that the games you play together don’t interest you, but you don’t want to make them feel bad. It’s that it’s a lot of work to make other people feel accepted and interesting and important, but for you there is no true communication, no real connection. You can’t be understood because you can’t even touch upon what makes you tick. Because it’s all foreign to them for one reason or another, or just not interesting. You can’t talk with ease, picking each other’s brains, you don’t have the same sense of humour. And they might be good people. Fine people. But not your people. And then the presence of others, of good people, fine people like that, makes one feel lonelier, doesn’t it? Maybe even unbearably lonely, because there are all those people, but if no-one is your people, do your people even exist?

But it wouldn’t be surprising if many feel this way, yet wear a mask for society that they don’t. Because loneliness is accompanied by stigma. There must be something wrong with a person with no social life. They must be unbearable. But then people go back home, after having participated themselves in the perpetuation of that stigma, feeling lonely, whether they have a social life or not, and they take the mask off. Or they go home to a person who doesn’t feel like their person anymore or ever.  And not only do they feel lonely, but are also ashamed to talk about it, maybe even think about it. And maybe they think there is something wrong with them.

But is there something wrong with craving meaningful connections? Is there something wrong with feeling exhausted by the lack of them, and with the need to avoid engaging with good, fine people, who nevertheless drain you, since you can’t share, partake in what you need? Since your bodies share the same space, or your eyes the same letters on a screen, but your souls are kilometres apart (and you seem to be the only one knowing it, because after testing the waters, you saw there’s nothing connecting you besides, at best, kindness)? Shouldn’t we, maybe, exonerate loneliness? Accept it as a fact of life, maybe more so today’s life, something that just is, and try to process it, with honesty and self reflection, and try to respect our true needs, and those who don’t find fulfillment in casual relationships to stop feeling ashamed or guilty or that there is something wrong with them for that, be kinder to themselves, try to find those relationships but not grind themselves down so as not to disappoint good, fine people, disrespecting their own emotional wellbeing, or to “fit in” with social expectations.

There seems to be a pandemic of loneliness. This is already bad. Attaching negative assumptions only makes things worse. Whether one makes those assumptions for others, or oneself. Sure, work on yourself, that might be part of the problem. But working on yourself in a world where self reflection isn’t that popular might be part of the problem as well. Or your mind works in ways that for most doesn’t. Or your interests are niche. Not doing the personal work yourself and expecting others to do it for you is a problem and absolutely your responsibility, especially past a certain age. Subjectively speaking, before 30 we may still be the persons our parents and schools and societies shaped. After 30 we are the persons we choose to be, it’s up to us to work toward that, and it’s a lifelong work. But there are also so many reasons that are not your fault, are not even a “fault”, on the contrary, that it might not be working out for you so far (or ever). Let’s, at least, remove the guilt. And the stigma.

I hope (and I know hopes and wishes are metaphysical and have no real power, but still) you soon find yourself in a hug you want.