Pretty Please, Contact Your Loved Ones
Loneliness will shorten your life – seek safety in numbers. Guard yourself against this threat.
"If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight?”
… Crooned The Smiths frontrunner Morrissey in their song “I Know It’s Over.”
The lyrics speak to how an inflated sense of self and unrestrained ego can lead to self-isolation and loneliness. Ultimately, this defeatist cycle culminates in demise: “Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head.”
If headlines are to be believed, loneliness has hit “epidemic levels,” and it’s actually killing Americans. NPR has reported on it, PBS chimed in, and if you hunt through Reddit you’ll see internet user upon internet user discussing what in the world is going on with this genuine major public health crisis.
Over one in three Americans are lonely, according to research released in 2021… and I can only imagine that things haven’t improved too much since then.
But wait… should we really be calling our societal uptick in loneliness an epidemic? Epidemics are defined as sudden outbreaks of disease throughout a particular community or region… but frankly, it seems more like loneliness has taken on the form of a global pandemic.
This state of distress cannot be compared to the devastation that humanity faces when plagued by viral or bacterial disease, but the latent sense of isolation from a lack of social connection has tragically complex consequences for bodies and souls.
It depletes our ability to “live long and prosper,” and it’s rolling overhead like dark, gloomy clouds carrying a storm which won’t let up any time soon.
Solitude is a Double-Edged Sword
Loneliness isn’t necessarily such a bad thing. In his recent “3 Minute Monday” newsletter, Chris Williamson from the Modern Wisdom podcast meditated on the concept, saying that “loneliness is a kind of tax you have to pay to atone for a certain complexity of mind.”
According to Williamson, if you’re a bit weird, fewer people can relate to you and therefore, fewer people will “‘get’ you.”
He said this was fine, and as a bit of a self-diagnosed black sheep myself I’d normally be inclined to say I agree. But then I started meditating on my own relationship with loneliness.
I don’t feel as confident that this phenomenon is fine.
Maybe my mind is a bit complex. Maybe I view the world through a “weirder” lens than the normies.
I can come to terms with the fact that most people I cross paths with won’t get my sense of humor – I mean, I was extremely corrupted by the internet from a very young age so what’s the chance I could ever find an episode of “The Office” remotely funny?
The trade-off I inadvertently make by being abnormal comes at a grave cost… if I let it. And I think plenty of people inclined to self-isolation who lackadaisically amble through life will let it.
Here’s Why We Should Care Much More About the Ills of Self-Isolation
Men – young and old – are particularly feeling the effects of what some call a “friendship recession.” Over half of all men don’t feel satisfied by their friend group size.
George, content creator for one of my favorite accounts, TheTinMen, once wrote:“the only thing more disheartening than the epidemic of male loneliness, is the widespread hostility toward men's groups, and the spaces for them to discuss their problems. These spaces are intentionally, and repeatedly misunderstood and vilified, shouted down, and mocked.”
Indeed, men report receiving emotional support from their friends at about half the rate of women and most male-dominated haunts are either expected to accommodate women… or shut down all together. I’ve certainly seen plenty of female-only gyms pop up, but where are the male-only gyms? How about social clubs?
Just like women need time and space to dig into their feminine behaviors and girl-out, men need time and space to be authentically male. It’s not misogynistic – it’s denying a dumb double standard.
In his excerpts on male loneliness, George went on to explain how this sense of isolation could perhaps be “the most important associated factor” in male suicide research. This is certainly a cause for concern, when suicide is – and has been for a bit of time – the leading cause of death for men under the age of 50.
The issue of loneliness as it pertains to the female sex, however, takes on a different form.
I recently had the opportunity to meet
, bestselling author of “Irreversible Damage” who has been on a bit of a book tour for her latest release, “Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up.”During the event which I attended, she brought up a brilliant point about how young women who are siphoned into therapy are missing out on their much-needed girl time. Instead of seeking out comfort and companionship from their friends, young women allow their therapists to take on all their self-disclosure from body image issues to relationship drama and more.
Having personally gone from a bit of a NLOG who struggled to connect with my female friends throughout late high school and early into college, to a twenty-something woman who has no idea how she’d survive without confiding in her gal pals… I felt vindicated by Shrier condemning the role of therapy in replacing same-sex friendships.
It’s not enough to just follow pretty women on social media and live vicariously through the happy hours, brunches, and outings that they post about enjoying with their own friends.
As I wrote once in Evie Magazine: We need trusted girlfriends to share both the good times and the difficult ones with, keep our perspectives broad, and act as one another’s best cheerleaders.
Recent research also shows that chronic loneliness could mean way worse health outcomes for older adults.
Cue the “Kill Bill” sirens! Apparently, loneliness causes more biopsychosocial stress to older adults than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, than being obese, or than being an alcoholic. Keep in mind that 53% of old folks additionally report to their doctors feeling lonely.
My grandfather-in-law is in his 90s… and boy am I always a bit taken aback by how healthy he is despite very regularly drinking alcohol. No matter that small vice in the grand scheme of things, he’s also extremely social.
Yes yes yes, I know. While this is only anecdotal and doesn’t prove that feeling a sense of fellowship can reverse the very real damages that alcohol can cause to the human body, I think it’s worth taking into consideration.
Trust me – I love my alone time. I write best when I’m a bit isolated, I can’t really stand group exercise, and I feel I’m at my most self-indulgent state when I can just shut off the world around me with a good book.
I also enjoy the occasional solo date. One of my favorite travel memories was when I spent a bit of time in London and took myself out to a full, high tea all by myself. Is that weird? Maybe.
I took a temperature check on how depressing or enjoyable people find the concept of eating alone in a restaurant with a Twitter poll.
Of the respondents, more people found it enjoyable than depressing, but more men found the concept to be depressing than women did – oddly enough. There’s a time and a place for isolation, and sometimes that can and should be mealtime.
There should not be, however, so much isolation away from our families. Friendships are important – that can be said without a doubt. But family is forever, in ways that friendships can never compare.
Spread the Love, and Pay it Forward
America has become fundamentally family unfriendly, according to columnist and author Tim Carney who recently appeared on The Federalist Radio Hour with Emily Jashinsky.
A country unfriendly to a thriving family unit, he explained is a country which will become incrementally sadder and have fewer babies. Carney referenced a segment he had done on MSNBC, of all things, with Al Sharpton, who had explained his sadness to Carney about the cultural loss of connection.
Growing up in a church setting in Brooklyn, Sharpton said the people in his community viewed themselves “as a part of a continuity of generations.” Really old people passed something down to old people, who passed something down to young people, and so on.
If only Sharpton could understand that the people he waves his flags of support for are the ones making matters so much worse, when it comes to the cultural loss of purpose. Indeed, now that we’ve hit the social media age we’ve become all too individualistic.
“Who's your mom? Who's your dad? What's your hometown? What's your, what religion were you brought up in? What's your ethnicity? All of those things were unchosen,” Carney said to Jashinsky. “Something about social media I think drives us to see our lives, to see our project in life as writing a script of our life on a blank page.”
But being an individual, enjoying spending a bit of time alone and having moments of introversion is scientifically quite different from loneliness. Once a person spends about 75% of their time alone, that’s when the low feelings of solitude set in.
It’s a little like in Sims, when the “Social” meter on your sim’s “Needs” gets far too depleted. We’re not unlike sims, who are “friendly creatures that crave social interaction,” I mean… they’re modeled on us after all.
Next time you’re going about your day-to-day life and you find yourself thinking about a good friend you have – text them. Call them. Do more than just keep up-to-date with their social media posts and don’t let the spark burn out between you two.
It’s stupidly easy to accidentally let critically important friendships fade when you’re just trying to stay afloat and check off the basic boxes on your hierarchy of needs. But don’t be inauthentic about your outreach either. People can tell when you’re really just trying to accomplish a task instead of genuinely taking an interest in their lives.
Have dinner with your in-laws. Check up on your siblings from time to time. Or FaceTime with your parents even when you really would rather be doing just about anything else.
Please – just engage with human beings in such a way that overcompensates for the sheer amount of time you probably have to spend online… and the sheer amount of time you elect to. It’s one of the most important investments for your health and wellness.