Loneliness is a measure of self-understanding
stan.bar
stan.bar
Do I "not understand how I feel" because I feel lonely right now? Or is communication not a one way street? Most of the time when I miscommunicate with someone, I find it's as much about their not wanting to understand as it is about my being unclear.
As a man, I have lots of people in my life who love me, but they consistently fail to take notice of my emotional needs. When I express that I have emotional needs, all I get in response is a "deer in the headlights" look, from other men, from women, from parents, from friends, from my SO. So usually I just keep them to myself because I don't see the point in asking for something that someone can't offer me - a tremendously lonely experience. Do I "not understand myself?" Am I not speaking clearly enough? No, the idea that I might need something from the people who rely on me terrifies them, and they freeze up and stutter and generally are unable to offer me any assistance.
And of course, I'm sure all of us experienced during the pandemic the loneliness of not having access to other people or being able to fulfill your social needs - distinct from the loneliness of being with people who don't understand you.
Although every man's circles are different, your experience is highly common. I'm going to intentionally dramatize a little to get the point across efficiently.
Men effectively live in an emotional desert. Showing emotion, vulnerability or dependency is discouraged, dismissed or even ridiculed. Men lack a support system. They're often the last buck and there's nothing or nobody to back them up.
This is why to many men, their relation with their mother is holy. It's often the only source of genuine unconditional love and a safe place to be vulnerable. Of course, you can't even have that, this too is to be ridiculed, hence the many "your mum" jokes.
When men get sick, they're ridiculed for being such a baby. Here too a rare sign of vulnerability expressed is to be laughed at.
Men are judged by utility. Society doesn't care about men's needs or problems. They are willingly sacrificed in war, work, homeless on the streets, and in suicide without this even being a topic of mainstream interest.
The handful of reasonable feminists spotting how this complete indifference is a problem are shouted down by their radical counterparts, that have seized the movement. Not only is there no mainstream culture to care about men, it's openly hostile to men in general.
If I were to post my little lecture on a social network, I'd be piled on with: "oh you poor man, you have it sooooo bad lmao!!!"
Anyway, I know none of this helps, but I just wanted to share that your experience in many ways is the experience of many if not most men. And I think you analyzed the situation very well with the "deer in the headlights" remark.
Women do not select for emotional men. They select for status, wealth, attractiveness. Only when those qualities are met FIRST, perhaps you may also share some feelings here and there, but do keep that shit in check.
The above sounds brutal and primitive, but every social study and dating research confirms it. And it makes perfect sense as it 100% aligns with biological incentives, as much as we want to deny those.
Men shouldn't be in touch with their emotions to attract women - they should be in touch with their emotions for their own well being.
The idea you're expressing is called hypergamy, and it's more of a caricature of human courtship than anything. There are women who are attracted to status and women who are looking for someone with emotional sophistication and there are millions of other things they might look for. They aren't robots; they don't behave in unison.
The other idea you're touching on is evolutionary psychology, the idea that human behavior stems from certain knowable evolutionary pressures. This makes sense at first glance but it ends up being a way for people to dehumanize others and use scientific language to justify the belief that a certain group of people are robots operating under a known ruleset. It's a rationalization of prejudice.
Evolutionary pressures are so vague and difficult to know, and sexual selection in particular, that you can justify anything with this framework. Try this on for size; "women disproportionately bear the cost of childbirth, so they're incentivized to select for partners with a high degree of emotional maturity, because these partners are more likely to attend to their needs during pregnancy, withstand the often traumatic stress of parenting an infant, and to be caring parents who will pass on these high-value traits to their male offspring." Is that any less sound an argument than that they select for high social status, or physical strength, or what have you?
I'd really encourage you to look into criticisms of these ideas. Unfortunately I don't have a lot to offer as far as places you may start, I've routed through my browser history and turned up a couple things that might interest you:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-...
(Non-paywall: http://web.archive.org/web/20230115075145/http://www.nytimes...)
"Men shouldn't be in touch with their emotions to attract women - they should be in touch with their emotions for their own well being."
And the point of this discussion, what started it, is that they can't. Those feelings are ignored, dismissed and ridiculed.
I think it would be worth considering that the ideas you were describing are axiomatic in incel ideology. If you dug through some Andrew Tate videos, you wouldn't have any trouble finding him make the same case as you've made. The crossroads here is, once one observes these critiques of masculinity - do you accept them fatalistically, attributing them to some indelible aspect of biology (this is the Peterson route), or do you seek to change it? Do you place the blame on women (the incel route), or do you observe that there is a power structure (the patriarchy) that is simultaneously oppressing and privileging both men and women in different ways, so that they both enforce the rules of the patriarchy on one another?
There is a problem here, absolutely, we're on the same page there. But it doesn't stem from biology, it is a set of social constructs and expectations; artifices created by humans and which can be abolished by humans, no more immutable than the concept of the divine right of kings.
The relationship that one has with oneself shouldn’t be dependent on others ‘ignoring/dismissing/ridiculing’ them. Then it is a relationship they have with the outside world.
I didn't realize this until recently. Rude awakening. Even the most close relationships turn out to be quite transactional.
It's not as transactional as to be loveless. It's conditional love.
So here when men are judged by utility, it is essentially competition between the males of the species themselves.
It isn’t dissimilar to ape societies or lions. The alpha wars are happening due to testosterone. There is most certainly an evolutionary and biological reasoning for this.
This has nothing to do with women. Please leave us out of this.
Is it possible you buried the lede? I'm a fellow sender of long strings of text messages. I've found that not everyone appreciates my potentially sprawling/parallel communication style. They don't always have the time or capacity to pick through all my words and respond thoughtfully to each point.
I used to take it personally, until I realized I was just being overwhelming. Now, if one thing in particular matters to me, I focus on communicating that one thing. I leave the rest on the back burner for more casual conversation.
The point was that, though the article suggests loneliness stems from being unable to describe your feelings simply and concisely, it is more complex than that.
Now..if it was a singular sentence or text that says ‘I feel like garbage’, then I know the purpose of the communication and enquire what’s going on.
If ‘I feel like garbage’ is preceded by the reasons that explain the conclusion of ‘feeling like garbage’, then it is a conclusion of everything before it.
If it’s in the middle of the communication, then what comes after could be the explanation for ‘feeling like garbage’.
So ..at no point is it the focal subject of the communication.
One effective way is including: What, Who, Why and if they’re an ask, make it clear. Most people can’t read minds.
I am trying to be mindful about my communication and I keep changing how I communicate based on feedback. How my family reacts is diff from how it is at work.. so we need to have different groups..like concentric circles: closest circle, family..friends, colleagues..neighbors etc. it’s always equal give and take. Don’t expect more than you can give. Sometimes, certain relationships aren’t worth it and it’s better to walk away or have no expectations.
This group of commenters in this subthread are laboring under the misunderstanding that I don't understand this criticism; I accepted it in my top reply in this subthread. The statement I think you're interpreting as a rejection of this criticism (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34436762) is an expression of a boundary; I'm saying, you don't have enough context to understand this, you're overextrapolating from a single data point, and I'm not going to enlighten you with additional context - I'm deliberately limiting the amount I share in this thread.
Additionally, this isn't actually what I was arguing; if we accept the axioms presented in the article, a poor presentation of thought doesn't indicate a lack of understanding, a poor expression does. That it is possible to be lonely as a result of a poor presentation is contradictory to the article's conclusion; make of that what you will.
When you continue that line of criticism - without asking questions, without understanding the boundary I expressed, and generally without showing me that you've listened to my previous statements & just repeating the criticism - I take that as transgressing my boundaries, and I draw the inference you are more interested in nitpicking my statements and expressing your criticism than respecting my boundaries.
I'd ask that, if you want to express such direct and personal criticism, you read much, much closer, especially with an eye to when I tell you that I'm not comfortable engaging with that criticism. If you didn't understand that saying, "I would not treat you this way, please do not treat me this way" was an expression of a boundary - now you know to be on the lookout for this common script for expressing boundaries. If you understood that it was a boundary and interpreted that as a challenge, or you don't feel it's legitimate for me to express a boundary in an online space - that is something to think about.
Edited to add after reading the comment again: Having said that, by the way you have reacted to my comment..I think it would serve you well to be more introspective of your thought process.
Why are you so sensitive to criticism and if you expect others to toe the lines of the boundaries that aren’t clearly defined, you shouldn’t have shared the details.
Engaging in any kind of interaction where people lend their ears to your words is calling upon their time and attention. If you call upon our time and ask for our attention and then complain about perceived criticism that you are not comfortable with it..then perhaps you should be aware that people can’t read your mind.
It comes across as manipulative where you are instructing the public as to the kind of response you’d like to hear. You have to pay people for that. Those people are called therapists and they charge $250/hour.
I think you need take some time off and ask yourself why you react like this. It isn’t normal and it must be difficult for you to interact with the RoW. It would be in your best interest to not consider everyone as against you.
Also: I didn’t read every comment and your reply to it in the thread. This is not my homework. I only replied to the parent.
ETA: good grief!! I read some more of the thread. Perhaps you need to speak to a woman instead of chatting with other men with the same problem. Someone needs to say this. As a female, I have a dim view of this chit chat amongst what seems to be a mostly a male bubble.
If a man wants to improve their relationship with women, then they need to speak to women. Not speak to other men who are essentially enablers here.
> Also: I didn’t read every comment and your reply to it in the thread. This is not my homework. I only replied to the parent.
Do whatever you want. Understand that if you don't have the full context, you might not be received in the way you expect. If you are curious, for your own edification, you may find these comments enlightening:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34436172
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34435037
I'm sorry if I made you feel called out or defensive.
I want to say that I did feel attacked but because I chose not to get triggered by it, I was able to make a few more observations. But I respect your request and will not further this discussion as you will likely construe it as criticism and uncalled for..
There is nothing further to discuss. Thanks for engaging thus far. It gave me something to ponder over.
I think the point we're all trying to make is that a text barrage is _not_ expressing yourself simply and concisely.
My own advice is to be direct with your SO about your needs / expectations not being met. I went through the same thing with my SO. We went to couples therapy for many years with no improvement, until eventually they realized it was serious enough of a problem to lead to the end of the relationship, prompting them to put in the necessary effort to change. Another poster mentioned Gottman "bids for attention" which is spot on as well. Both partners in the relationship need to show up for each other to provide emotional support. Some people are simply more used to receiving support and don't know how / aren't used to providing it. It should be made clear that this is unacceptable and needs to change, but also that you are willing to give it time and work with your SO to help them gradually improve their empathetic capacity so that they can be a better partner to you (and better person in general) and keep your relationship healthy.
I think it's also important to note that balance is key. You need to be mindful not to overload the other person's empathetic capacity by venting so much that they never have a chance to vent to you or to relax / recharge. If your SO is dealing with a lot of emotional distress themselves, they simply won't have bandwidth for you. We can never be perfect emotional support for each other, because each person deals with their own emotional distress / stressful events which temporarily limits their available empathetic capacity.
When I wrote my sibling comment it didn't come to mind, but this is exactly part of what I'm feeling as well - a strong lack of empathy on the part of my partner. It could be due to an underdeveloped insula or orbitofrontal cortexes from some of the reading I've done. This falls in line with my understanding of them having an avoidant attachment style, too, which generally I've heard is also due to being underdeveloped, compared to avoidant and securely attached individuals.
I also likely exhibit "too much" empathy myself, which is a heck of a pairing. It's not easy for me to feel like I need to "tune down" how receptive I am to my partners every little issue or negative expression and try to be there for them - but it is just so unequal otherwise, sometimes to both of our detriment. I am guessing also I need to give them space to feel negative feelings before jumping in so quickly.
I have been direct with my partner in the past about my needs not being met, as you suggest, but I think the conversation needs to happen again (and again?) as reminders and check-ins maybe? It doesn't feel good to have to do this though, especially during moments of distress when I really need them.
> We went to couples therapy for many years with no improvement, until eventually they realized it was serious enough of a problem to lead to the end of the relationship, prompting them to put in the necessary effort to change
In your case, was it truly just a matter of willpower on the part of your partner? How have things been since?
Since you seem more well read on the subject than myself: are there exercises or skills to help build someones empathetic capacity? Anything I can do (perhaps without involving/telling my partner directly) to help them? Behaviors of my own that I can change to get us going in the right direction?
Can I get this change from my partner without threatening the relationship itself as you had to do? I feel like that would undermine all the effort and reassurance I've put in, that they so badly need to help develop and feel safe.
I'm no therapist, but IMO, it is not healthy to try to help your partner change "without involving/telling them directly". It sounds like you are afraid to discuss this with them because of their reaction, and maybe they will tell you they don't want to change or feel the need for change, which would be another slap in your face.
Talk with a therapist; maybe your relationship is not all that great when it comes down to it, and you need to face that and perhaps consider leaving, or at least learn to accept that your partner is incapable of giving you certain things that you would like to have, but can't get from them. Not all things are fixable, and love doesn't conquer all, at least in my experience.
Another thing to consider: your relationship seems to be in trouble and you are unhappy with it. This could be magnifying other difficulties in your life, like at work, that would not be such a big deal if you didn't have these ongoing relationship concerns.
I'll admit I wrote that comment frustrated and after not sleeping great after reading this thread.
I think you touched on the root of the one-sided empathy situation with your SO and most likely also your broader relationship issues: incompatible attachment styles. After much research / reading and therapy, I eventually identified this as the root of my own relationship issues as well. Essentially it boils down to this: a person with an insecure attachment style is poorly matched for a person with an avoidant attachment style. I highly recommend reading the following book on this matter: "Attached Are you Anxious, Avoidant or Secure How the science of adult attachment can help you find – and keep – love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller". I also recommend reading Gottman's book "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" (Gottman doesn't really utilize the attachment styles model but his model is effective for relationship issues nonetheless).
Regarding how to talk to your partner about this, the optimal approach is in fact certainly much more nuanced than "be direct". You need to take care not to make your partner feel criticized, as this will trigger defensiveness, causing them to become more resistant to making changes. Generally, using "I feel" statements is a good approach but it can be tricky to implement well in practice. Also, you certainly don't want to make your partner feel the relationship is threatened / communicate a threat, unless you sincerely feel you're tired of trying / progress isn't being made / you've exhausted all other approaches. With I statements, it's possible to communicate that an issue is very important to you and your happiness in the relationship without making your partner feel excessively worried that the relationship is threatened. In particular by making it clear that you're not looking for immediate changes / perfection - that you're willing to work through it with them. And there's certainly much more to communication - it's a deep topic.
I think it's also important to note that attachment style / relational incompatibility is a matter of degree. As you'll learn from the book I recommended, attachment style is quantified on a four quadrant spectrum. If you're only a little insecure and your partner only a little avoidant, then your incompatibility is probably more workable. So I would certainly recommend using the attachment style assessment tool to gauge the degree of your and your partner's attachment style incompatibility. So while it will certainly always be difficult being in a mismatched attachment style relationship, it is possible for both partners to meet closer to somewhere in the middle and have a mostly functional relationship, through a mutual deep understanding of the mismatch and a sincere willingness to modulate your respective behaviors and expectations. However, if eventually you observe that your partner fundamentally lacks a willingness to make any significant changes to their own understanding and behavior, then I agree with the other poster in this thread that leaving the relationship should be seriously considered. But from what you've shared so far it sounds to me like you've not yet reached that point / haven't exhausted all your options. That said, the decision of whether to keep trying to make the relationship work or to give up on it, also depends on how much you've invested in it already. A long marriage with a kid (my situation), warrants trying harder to find solutions, putting up with unmet needs longer, and generally being more patient. If you don't have much time invested in your relationship then it may not make sense to keep banging your head against the wall for years (as I did). In which case you may want to set a more reasonable time limit on the order of months (keep this to yourself of course) to see if there's sufficient progress.
I also highly recommend seeing a personal therapist as they can provide an alternate source of empathy to you for your struggles so that you're not totally reliant on your avoidant attachment style partner - this was invaluable for me personally. Couples therapy was also helpful as forum for discussing relationship issues with my partner. It helped lend more weight to what I had to say, so that they took my stated issues and my analysis of the cause and solutions for the relationship problems more seriously.
Hopefully this is helpful to you and anyone else in a similar situation that comes across this post. It's really difficult to understand the cause of one's relationship problems and to find solutions because there's just so much information out there that it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Not to mention that you're doing all this research under the constant drag of feeling emotionally distressed / depressed. And although therapists are very helpful, in my experience, without extensively researching / reading on your own, you're unlikely to cultivate a deep enough understanding to work through to a positive outcome for a fundamental relationship problem such as an attachment style mismatch. It's a real struggle and I really wish there were better resources to help people that are dealing with relationship issues and mental health issues in general. In any event, best of luck to you, and as I said feel free to reach out if you want to discuss this further.
I'm also curious, does your partner have ADHD?
You have rock solid support system elsewhere I see. I’m curious how do you feel about them ignoring the texts? Would you feel different, perhaps even insecure if the your partner wasn’t dependent on you?
I sometimes wonder if I feel more lonely when I "let it go" aka suppress how I'm feeling. I imagine if it were me, I may have felt annoyed or sad or confused that they didn't see the "I feel like garbage" part and didn't reply to it, and when I"m feeling courageous, sometimes I'll say that to them. I think I've noticed that when people have that deer in the headlights look, I can slowly start to suppress more and more things about how I'm feeling and then sometimes feel stuck, wanting to go deeper and also trying to respect that they may already feel overwhelmed.
I don't know if there's an answer in any of what I wrote above, just wanted to share how I can struggle with this as well.
The usual knee jerk response is to blame the men for being unable to communicate effectively.
I think the sad truth is that not everyone is cared about equally, and sometimes it is everyone else's fault.
But it isn't like you can get mad about it. That is just going to push people away and make them bitter toward you.
If you ask for something specific and especially something your partner will not totally hate doing, you will make it easier for them to be there for you. "Can you make me my favorite comfort food for dinner tonight?"
People need scripts and many people struggle to provide active support to someone they view as supportive. Giving them a script can help.
I'm sure that somewhere out there is a person (or hundreds or thousands of people) who would be a perfect friend to me, but I doubt I'll ever meet them. It's pretty difficult to make friends as an adult, and every friendship I have made as an adult has been fleeting and fairly shallow.
It's bearable. Therapists exist for a reason.
I recently went through a purging of many of these one sided relationships. People I thought were friends, the kind who I would show up for and never ask for anything, but when it came time for me to need someone to lean on it was crickets. They are not bad people, I wouldnt have wasted time on them if they were, but now we are no longer compatible since my standards changed. (for both my approach and theirs)
It took some time to realize how un-healthly keeping that dynamic around had been, and that I am better off mostly alone doing my life while meeting new people (though it is difficult to make new friends).
There was one, even with their own limitations at the time, that tried to be supportive without making jokes or other weird behaviour I got from others. The surprising part was I had known them for a long time but they are at a distance and the relationship was mostly just sending jokes and random comments to each other from time to time. They are still in my life and the relationship changed to the supportive kind (still w/jokes) that I thought I had built w/others. My take is that the relationship wasn't built on a dynamic where they came to see me as an unshakable pillar so it wasn't confusing or awkward for them.
Unfortunately I don't have any great advice to solve this, except that therapy can be really helpful here, if just to provide a compassionate person to talk to.
Suggestions to those who don't know what to do:
Can I take you out to lunch? I found a new spot I think you might like.
Want to go to <nearby park> and take a walk?
Want to play catch?
Want to come over for dinner?
I was hung up for a long time because I don't know how to solve any serious personal problems, so I thought I couldn't be of any use. But just being there for someone, inviting them to something nice, and being a good listener can help. And it might be enjoyable for you, too.
In my case I wasn't even that in need of an ear, as I had a therapist on speed dial. I just wanted to see someone, for life to go on. The sudden distance, silence and unmade plans made me feel like a leper.
Imagine that I told you about a group of people who, for example, "are lovely and compassionate, they are simply unable to extend that to black people". Would you agree with those adjectives?
> It's bearable. Therapists exist for a reason.
Maybe the things that are "bearable, but require a therapy afterwards" should be improved.
It's hard to find them for one, and often you won't really know until you have gotten to know them a bit. And this assumes they are even interested in exploring a friendship with you.
A SO is just like you and the hard part is being able to share and open up. Because sometimes it isn’t right in a relationship and you can feel even lonelier.
> So it’s your task to make others understand you
There is another task that is just as important. You need to find people who are capable of understanding you. It may sound like a cart/horse issue where you need to understand enough about yourself to find people who are receptive. That my be true to a degree. But no amount of self-understanding is going to change how people respond to you if who you are is not comprehensible to those people.
As an example, imagine you are a straight man with many close friends who have known you for a long time. And at some point, you begin to grapple with the idea that you're not straight, but maybe bisexual. It is possible that some of your old straight friends will have the capacity to listen and understand and respond in ways that make you feel known. But it's not necessarily likely. And if those are the only people you are close to, no amount of self-knowledge is going to change their capacity to make you feel seen and heard.
You're gonna need some new friends.
This is spot on. I made a comment independently which made a similar point. Also, people who are too memetic (who tend to want what other people want) tend to lack self-understanding.
Such people tend to feel uncomfortable when they hang around other people who understand themselves because it makes them question their own motives and realize that their desires were never their own to begin with.
They are not capable of figuring out the meaning of their own life so they keep trying to borrow it from others around them and the futility of this makes them feel lonely. They can never find someone who can fill that void but they can't stop looking for them.
On a tangent, I can see a connection between the concepts 'meme' and 'mime'. I suspect they both involve mirror neurons. Viral memes spread by being relatable.
In general I agree with the premise of "You need to find people who are capable of understanding you".
It's actually a combination of that and your feeling about yourself. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I'll just call it once you're in balance with yourself, i.e. in an okay(maybe not perfect or ideal) mental state, and you have some sort of pillar you can lean on(your beliefs, your understanding of the world, etc.), then its no longer about your desire to get others to accept you, but rather putting yourself in an environment where you feel okay.
There are tons of examples OP could have chosen, this was just one that they did. It’s not the only example, but not everything needs to be exhaustive to be valuable for thought and discussion.
Another one I’d use is leaving an insular religion but the way that works tends to mean fewer people have observed it (e.g. if you don’t hang around with fundamentalists you probably haven’t witnessed it first or second hand).
Wow! I'm a total weirdo and I can only think of like 4-5.
As for reaching personal balance independently, it's a much shorter path to self acceptance moving from environments that stifle you to one's that encourage. Perhaps largely because it answers the question of whether there might actually be something wrong with you, and not everyone else. Before even getting into the possibility of actually thriving.
You may go up in abstraction to make it concise, but this risks either oversimplifying to the point that all nuance is lost and you feel alone, or requiring that the other person shares sufficiently overlapping definitions. They may probe further to build said abstractions, but this requires a time investment, and as you said, the capacity to relate to some extend.
I believe that a person who understands themselves well is bound to have a rich inner world and abstractions that adequately describe them while feeling very natural but because we are all humans with our own subjective experiences, finding people with similar abstractions - and experiences - such that we can relate to each other is difficult.
1. Understand others, therefore can describe them in a way suited to their way of thinking. This is probably controversial assumption but I believe people are unconstrained, everyone can understand everything, it may just require more time. If you believe people are constrained, or just don't want to spend time on them—find people who are capable of understanding you right away. By being honest about yourself you will attract like-minded people. The process of "explaining yourself" obligates you to approach new people (not only your current closest) and explain them your existence. If you feel understood only by your closest friends, then you are not good at expressing yourself.
2. become less self-concerned. You no longer seek validation and significance—you are fine with being normal. You no longer need someone who will make you less lonely, someone who will fix your flaws. You no longer focus on yourself (you know this guy good enough), rather, you pay all the attention to others, you become emphatic, which connects with others, and thus you become less lonely.
3. You can honesty communicate your needs, fears, desires, emotions. They are part of you, and hence it's your responsibility to explain them to others. Don't expect people to read your mind. Don't run away using abstractions, give concrete examples. If you believe in small lies for a greater good, then you are not communicating yourself. If you consider breaking up with your SO, talk about it with him/her, not your friends. If your boss annoys you, tell him which actions annoys you. It requires a lot of courage therefore little people do so, but not doing it results in loneliness. You have a choice.
I think a lot of our societal issues stem from not being able to connect authentically.
For example, I decided I wanted to let go of latent homophobia by dropping a word from my vocabulary that was seen as fairly harmless by sis males when I was growing up. After consciously avoiding it and choosing not to say it, even in my mind, for a while, it truly left my pallet of words for expression. I do think that had a perceivable (to me) effect on my attitude and thinking.
How many esoteric words have you learned in life that helped you to better describe a situation? I look up any word I don’t know (in something of an OCD way). I’ve had many “aha“ moments where learning a word gave me a slightly greater ability to understand the world, hence “shaping” my view of it. It’s not exact, but I wouldn’t be so dismissive of the value in thinking about words and decisions on how to think about things.
This is the point where the argument went off, I believe. People only listen to what they want to listen, and generally they care less, or won’t bother to care at all, if the topic is not somehow related with themselves.
So no, the lack of understanding you by other people is usually not caused by the lack of skills to explain yourself, but more often caused by human nature.
Although I still believe that self-understanding and communication are fundaments, other people are also important factor in this equation.
I wrote complementary points in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34497083
I personally have felt the most lonely when I feel disconnected from how I'm feeling AND how someone else is feeling.
1) If I get too focused on how I'm feeling and distant from how others are feeling, I can start to believe that no one will ever understand me, or "get me."
2) If I'm too focused on how others are feeling and not on how I'm feeling, then I may feel a lot of resentment towards them for not paying attention to me.
3) If I'm not focused on either how I'm feeling or how they might be feeling, I can feel quite numb and empty.
So for me, what helps is trying to focus on how I'm feeling and how other people might be feeling, while also trying to focus on letting myself accept uncertainty for both of those things.
Definition 1 could be broadened to: "Loneliness is when we aren't known and loved by others."
Loneliness can occur because we're socially isolated for some reason. It can also occur when we're with others who don't know us, because we're not willing or able to open up to them. This could be because we are afraid to be real with others, but it could also be because we're afraid to be real with ourselves.
There's nothing like being real with yourself, being real with others, being loved by others who really know you, and knowing/loving them as well.
Incidentally, this ties in with Christianity's value proposition: no human can both know and love you perfectly, but God can and will to those who receive his gospel.
Even if we take it as valid, how are you going to communicate who you are to others who aren't equipped to understand? As an extreme example, consider being dropped into another nation where they speak a language you have no knowledge of. Without shared language and culture, you can't hope to be understood.
Doesn't mean you can't be surrounded by helpful, caring people (friends?), though, which is why this argument is completely flawed from the get-go.
Consider being dropped into another nation where they speak a language you have no knowledge of. Without shared language and culture, you can't hope to be understood.
Doesn't mean you can't be surrounded by helpful, caring people (friends?), though, which is why this argument is completely flawed
That's the point. You can't be understood to a gratifying degree by people who don't share your culture, and simple words aren't going to fix the disconnect.
helpful and caring people that don't understand what's wrong can't provide very effective support.
If you saw someone from another country looking starved and miserable, you couldn't buy them food and direct them to shelter?
Loneliness means anything from not having enough people to chat with today to not having a soulmate who understands and affirms your every view.
If I become a duller and less complicated person, will I be able to more easily explain myself, and therefore less lonely? Absurd.
There are many ways to bond with others that are non-verbal.
This is rather difficult in some cases because it requires not only that you understand yourself but that others understand themselves. For certain personality types, it is actually healthier to give up on the idea of having everyone understand you and the worrying that accompanies that. In other words, loneliness can actually increase because some will simply not understand you. It isn’t in their personality’s makeup, and frustration will arise in wondering why they can’t understand you.
There is no one golden rule when it comes to personalities, loneliness, and self understanding. I recommend understanding your enneagram type, as it’s a great start into investigating your personality and self introspection.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Related: The entire introduction to the first edition of GK Chesterton's book on his friend George Bernard Shaw (1909): “Most people say that they agree with Bernard Shaw or that they do not understand him. I am the only person who understands him, and I do not agree with him.”
https://archive.org/details/georgebernardsha0000unse/page/n9...
Someone who feels alienated from others is most probably not in a place where they can just explain who they are to other people, even if they have perfect self-understanding.
Watch some videos by Gabor Maté. He links addition in adult life to childhood traumas. You can fit loneliness in there as well.
I'm guessing both of you mean addiction?
P.S. Sorry if my comment is derivative.
And the sad thing is, if you grew up this way, you're going to learn to be very defensive and keep all your feelings secret and you're going to learn to blend in, and never let anyone see who you are, in order to protect yourself. And that will become a habit to the extent that anyone finding out anything about you is going to trigger fear rather than relief.
1) First of all, staying in the world of pure deductive reasoning, isn't this fallacious?
> lack of skills to explain yourself is caused by lack of understanding yourself.
It's: (can't explain) => (doesn't understand), not (doesn't understand) => (can't explain). (I.e., there could be other reasons you can't explain yourself well).
2) More seriously, I think the "if you can't explain it you don't understand it" adage is more about concepts than about people. A person is a complicated set of constantly changing thoughts and emotions, and I'm unsure that it's possible to explain the entire phenomenon of a given person "simply".
That said, I think there's definitely a nugget of truth here. Often you feeling lonely may be the result of you not expressing yourself openly or honestly with people around you.
But you can't actually guarantee that others will understand you, no matter how good you become at explaining yourself. At the same time, acceptance and even connection on the basis of imperfect understanding is very much possible— connection of a kind that is still deep and meaningful, and which abates loneliness.
There is definitely some truth to OP, though. Feeling understood and correctly recognized absolutely does help with loneliness. I hope most people don't see their loneliness as a burden or personal failing, that they wouldn't have if only they were a perfect communicator.
While understanding and being able to give a simple explanation are correlated, this statement doesn't take into account that some understandings are deeply personal, require a pre-existing experience, or maybe a minimum level of intelligence on the part of the other person.
This type of reasoning usually makes me think the people doing it are clueless about life in general but are merely academically inclined.
My loneliness is a measure of other people's lack of self-understanding. I know this because I get along best with people who understand themselves. These people are more genuine because they're not caught up in the pursuit of memetic desires. There are very few such people.
Loneliness is when you desire company but are not able to find one. What the author is trying to describe is lack of intimacy which is what people normally desire after having company. It's weird how some people can't even conceive not being able to have an opportunity for others to get to know you to begin with.
It's like a rich person thinking being broke means you have only one house.
I've heard some people claim that they know themselves, but I don't believe they do, at least their own description of themselves seem vastly different from how I'd describe them (not that I claim to know them very well either). I kind of attribute the claim of self-knowing to a lack of reflection on the topic, and maybe mistaking ones values and ideals for ones actual behavior.
We certainly can improve at that, even if we never become perfect. Here is what I use to understand myself better:
* Reflecting on my past behavior. No matter how much I may hate to admit it, if in situation X I repeatedly did Y, it is fair to describe me as a person who "in situation X does Y". This is probably too humiliating for most people to do properly.
* Related: noticing long-term trends in my thoughts and behavior. What I feel today may be strongly influenced by what happened to me recently; tomorrow I can feel differently. But if I feel the same way or do the same things as I did 20 years ago, that probably means something important about me.
* Comparing my past behavior to other people's observed behavior. This is important, because many traits are relative to the population. Like, if you were the only person alive, you couldn't really classify yourself as "tall" or "short", even if you knew your height precisely to a millimeter; it is the comparison of your height to other people's heights that makes you "tall" or "short". By reflecting on my past behavior, I know what I am, but by comparing it to other people, I know what I am in the context of the society I live in. The context is important, if I want to communicate who I am to other people.
I mean, I can certainly say some things about how I react in certain situations, based on past observations, and I can also point out where those behaviours conflict with my own ideals, and how I will try to recognize and change that.
But I can't tell how I react in radically different and new situations, I can base it off of old observations and mix in some wishful thinking about how I would WANT to react based on my values, but in reality, I don't _KNOW_, I don't know it the way I know math or the way I know how a piece of code will execute, even without executing. There are unknown variables and just too many variables in total.
You know the phrase "you think you know people", it's the response to someone acting outside of your expectations, because we certainly also can't know other people, only their past behaviours and the pieces of their situations that we can observe or infer.
This is embarrassingly over-simplified. Maybe don't immediately turn every half-baked shower thought into a blog post and post it online.
Also, I would not be surprised if Nobel price ideas were invented under the shower. Actually it's the most likely that synthesis happens during the diffused mode of thinking, which happens under the relaxation like shower.
I don't claim my idea is worth Nobel price. I just explained in succinct (possibly over-simplified) way my experience of feeling misunderstood for most of my life and the solution that finally helped me.
I shared it to validate whether it's a solution to all causes of loneliness or just mine.
Def #2 assumes that there's no such thing as non-verbal knowledge. I wouldn't be so sure; if there's one thing that all that qualia crap shows, is that some things cannot be communicated verbally.
>the lack of understanding you by other people is caused by the lack of skills to explain yourself to others,
Even if someone accepts the heavily questionable premises ("definitions") #1 and #2, this is still problematic because it is an unwarranted assumption. It is not a logical consequence of the premises, even if dressed as such.
>Ultimately, you are the recipient of feeling understood or misunderstood, not others. So it’s your task to make others understand you.
GI/GO. Questionable premises + faulty reasoning = dumb "advice".
Some people will never understand you no matter how much you know yourself, and how good you are at explaining yourself to the others. And some people will never relate to you no matter how much they understand you.
If others think I have misunderstood myself, the burden of proof lies on them to prove the existence of such a misunderstanding.
The true great art in any field other than poetry and literature lives from the fact that language cannot express everything in just words. You can of course explain or describe everything with language, but unless you are truly a great writer everything that is essential about your experience will be lost on the way to the receiver. And some things are not expressable in language at all (e.g. it takes music, film, a painting or other expressions to get there).
Example: When we talk about a lonely old person that died recently and I would perfectly describe their inner workings, their thoughts and feelings to you in a empathic way, nothing would prepare you for the unique feeling you would get when you'd just pace through their now empty flat and wittness the way they decorated it. The materials, the objects, the traces they left would tell you another story, one they could never express with words and all of that would strike a different chord within you, maybe one you didn't even know existed.
That being said, as someone with a pretty good self understanding who grew up in a rural space at and during the dawn of the internet: loneliness to me never was about a lack of self-understanding, it was about living in an environment that did not have the capacity to receive the expression I had in a y way that was meaningful to me. I understood myself perfectly well, the people around me were just too dull, without ambitions and with so simple images of the world that what I had to say would just confuse them, make them angry or make them shrug. Sure — like every rural person you learn pretty quickly to dumb it down just enough to make them feel comfortable, but that makes you even lonelier, because you are deeply aware that the dumbed down version is not you anymore.
So sure, there is a link between being lonely and your ability to express yourself in a way that connects you with the people around you. But there is one additional, but crucial point: it needs to connect you to the people around you in ways that are meaningful to yourself, otherwise it will leave you empty and drained.
Moving away was the best thing I ever did for myself.
Your second last sentence “it needs to connect you to the people around you in ways that are meaningful to yourself, otherwise it will leave you empty and drained” is in my opinion a key point on this debate on longlines/communication.
As with anything in live communication, relationship, friendship needs to be a two ways street otherwise it won’t be of true value for either side or won’t work in the long run.
Thank you for the compliment, I am trying to improve my English continuously.
> As with anything in live communication, relationship, friendship needs to be a two ways street otherwise it won’t be of true value for either side or won’t work in the long run.
I think so too, although true value can take odd or unexpected shapes at times. Being open towards your own expectations is important.
Being able to explain/express yourself is a nice skill to have, and it may help certain people who are struggling to maintain relationships, though.
Not all people who are lonely are misunderstood. Perhaps others understand the person, but don't agree with their actions/thoughts/etc, so they isolate themselves from the person. Being misunderstood could contribute to loneliness, but it isn't the sole cause someone would be lonely.
Being understood is a complete joke, it's simply not important and for many of us on extreme ends of the bell curve is effectively impossible.
I was born with multiple heart defects, I was constantly at the cardiologist until about 15 with multiple surgeries and procedures. In all likelihood I will die relatively young.
My first memory and start of having memories was at 3, where I was about to go into surgery and might just die. A high probability of imminent death is the first remembered experience of my life.
I was fully grown by ~12 as a result of the stresses of surgery.
My parents both died when I was right around 20, a few years apart.
I started working fulltime at 15 to keep a roof over my families head and food on the table because of a combination of my fathers depression, the lies an old friend told him, my mothers poorly timed diagnosis of cancer and the evil state of pre-existing coverage rules pre-aca.
I was homeschooled after the age of 5.
I was not allowed to lift anything heavier than a jug of milk until 16 due to my heart problem.
I was not allowed to play organized sports.
I never had a birthday party with friend until 30 due to my birthdate.
My entire perspective on life is inverted, I am a dead person still living not an alive person avoiding death. This is fundemental and very very rarely understood.
Do you think at 7 any of my peers could understand me? No. Ditto as a teen and even into today. I am an extremely clear and concise communicator but I cannot inject complex, time layered, developmentally critical... insanity into a concise story that conveys the truth of living it. Not even as a novel.
The people I felt best understood by were a group I knew when I was 10 and they were in their late 70s and early 80s and about to die.
They played cards together at a senior citizens center, some traumas and life perspectives cannot be understood, it's a bell curve like so many things.
I am now in the top ~.5% of earnings for my cohort, this is also further isolating, I have a rare amount of resilience as well.
There are other unsusual things that are more common but still rare in and of themselves and compound the lack of shared reference points.
Small bits of my experience can be connected to by others now that I am older, the early loss of a parent, having a career as a child, the existential fear of returning to poverty, extreme poverty when young, homelessness, kids that had a leukemia relapse and the distancing that caused with their parents... but all together there is no one who can enter into my headspace, there is no cohesive framework of experiences for people to understand the extremes I have overcome.
Some trauma and experiences can smooth your edges and help you have the compassion to better connect, but at the extremes you just have to realize that being understood and being loved are not the same.
You can have a full life filled with love and many dear friends and community without being "understood".
I was also born with a genetic disorder, and been going to doctors constantly since birth. Not a heart condition but had likely organ and brain damage so they were always checking my development as if they knew I would never amount to anything. Always on expensive medications and scared of losing insurance too.
Sorry about your parents, my parents are still alive, they helped so much.
I was also homeschooled after age 10, but couldn't even hang out with other kids (they could come over, but I couldn't go to them). And never sleepovers of course.
Dealing with so many limitations I also felt most at home with seniors, couldn't really relate to my peers.
I know I'll die earlier than others, that's fine, I learned to appreciate the time I have more.
I'm also in the very top % income for my age, I can't tell anyone of my friends how much I make besides the ones in similar jobs. Showed those doctors at least.
I've never even met someone with the same condition let alone became friends. And I have other secrets that I'm too paranoid to share.
That's extremely isolating. I just think I'm not meant for love and deep connections/understanding. I have good friends but they can't possibly understand what I've been through to laugh and have drinks together.
Then again, you can say the same thing about other people too, and they still manage to not be lonely.
I also made mistakes sometime, pushed people away because I was so used to being alone. But really what did I do wrong? How is it possible to fix?
That's enough, the world and my life isn't meant to be understood or make sense, as far as I can tell my life is not meant for "anything" by "anyone"... though maybe I'll find out differently one day.
I don't know if that is part of ego death or what, but I am glad to be here, I'm glad and lucky I didn't die at 3, I do seek out people who are good hearted but weird, iconoclasts, unfiltered... in one instance I became a close friend to someone who has tourette's and I always know what's on their mind.
I don't know, I guess I ended up a misfit toy that really enjoys other misfit toys.
If "Loneliness is a measure of self-understanding", how can you measure it?