Loneliness Is Deadly
slate.com
slate.com
As a 15 year old I'm sure this would have sounded like a dream; I get to do whatever I want, and there's no one around to bug me? Sign me up! And yet, when I actually lived it, it felt more like a kind of personal hell. I became depressed, anxious, and apathetic within just a few days. Turns out human contact is a lot more important to me than I would have guessed. I won't be repeating that experience any time soon if I can help it.
The scary thing is that there are many, many people who have lived this way for years or even decades, and will probably continue to do so for the rest of their lives (see http://www.wizardchan.org). I can't imagine how a person could stay sane.
I have done two eight day meditation retreats in complete silence (except for a short conversation with the mediation teacher once a day). The first time, after about one day, I was 100% sure I was going to give up that day. I missed sounds, listening to music, social interactions, etc. and ended up in a circle that slowly turned into hell (as you described).
After that day, during my daily conversation, I told my teacher that I couldn't bear it anymore and was going to leave. He kind and jokingly fashion said (I am paraphrasing): "we'll prepare the refund". Somehow that clicked and I realised that my mind had been running in circles, magnifying emotions of boredness and craving step by step. After that I had an excellent retreat, understanding a tiny bit better how the mind works.
We are social beings and social contacts are essential. However, silence can also help us every now and then.
Not feeling connected, feeling isolated amongst other poeple, beeing unable to make meaningful connections is lonelyness for me.
For me it really comes down to a mutual feeling of acceptance. I've spend some nights with some punks, watching movies and going to town. We did not know us before hand but I felt accepted not lonely. Meeting with other students from my university? Felt lonely and disconnected. Your brain is a strange device... or I am just having problems dealing with big egos and "alpha male" bullshit.
My conclusion would be that one should try to find and converge towards whatever fits his needs. You got to know how isolation was not for you, good thing.
Well, you evidently do have internet access...
This really should be called the quality of our relationships rather than this so called "quality of people", whatever that means.
but more importantly...
In one study, Cacioppo measured brain activity during the sleep of lonely and nonlonely people. Those who were lonely were far more prone to micro awakenings, which suggest the brain is on alert for threats throughout the night, perhaps just as earlier humans would have needed to be when separated from their tribe.
I experienced exactly this during the worst period of depression a few years ago. In a foreign country for work, I had many friendly colleagues but no one whom I could truly trust and could lay out the whole truth with. During this period, I would wake up at night 1 after going to sleep, ever night, without fail. (I'd eventually have mental breakdowns every 2 months, until I finally mustered the courage to resign, pack my bags, give away all my stuff, and leave the country)
It was a brutal time in my life and every time I think back to it, I'm thankful to be back home where I grew up amongst my closest friends.
+1. I have met plenty of wonderful people with whom I have somewhat strained relationships. This is neither my fault nor theirs.
So I've been wondering lately what this has to say about my personality. Am I just not ready yet to just leave what I call home now (and my friends and family) and start somewhere else again (maybe for a really worthwhile job in a cool city)? Or am I just the kind of person that is not cut out for doing this kind of stuff? This uncertainty is also amplified by the fact that I have a friend who is about the same age as me, mid-twenties, who just last year left to live in L.A. and seems quite happy there.
Maybe you'd like to elaborate on how your life changed after you decided to go back and if you think you will ever try to live somewhere else (wherever that may be) again? I'd really appreciate it!
Surely being a happy hermit isn't deadly; We find it quite gratifying.
Quoting the article: According to Cacioppo the key is in the quality, not the quantity of those people. We just need several on whom we can depend and who depend on us in return.
"Oh hey it's okay to be alone, like me and my wife..."
"Oh hey, it's okay to be poor, I only have a paid-off house and car..."
Having a wife and pets/livestock is not exactly being alone :)
I think what depresses people is not exactly the lack of social interaction (I wouldn't miss having to go to parties and pretend I'm interested on self-absorbed people), but rather the lack of contact with living things.
I could see myself living in the woods and traveling to a nearby town or city ever few weeks or so to 'dip my toes' in social activity, or to have friends visit me as a form of 'retreat'.
The main thing that I miss, I've noticed, is (intellectual) input. And being online can satisfy much of that need (though not all).
What I don't miss, is social interaction for the sake of it.
I'd miss sex though, if I were to do this without a partner.
But then I got a girlfriend, and soon after she moved in with me. She lived with me for an entire year. Every day I'd wake up with the same person and go to sleep with the same person. Anytime I wanted to go out and do something where you wouldn't want to do it alone, like people watching at parks, the beach, movies, new restaurants, road trips, new bars, etc., she was there and we would do it. I took up some new hobbies. We vibed really well for the most part, so lots of good and spontaneous interactions on a daily basis.
Then a couple months ago we broke up and she moved far away. Now I actually experience loneliness. I can't just go back to the old way, and isolate myself for a week at a time for some project or to learn a new technology. Viscerally, my body can't put up with it. I used to sleep incredibly when she was there. I could easily crawl into bed way before midnight or take naps during the day. Now I'm up late reading stuff or working on something every night, and I don't feel that great about it, physically. I have lost the desire to continue any of the hobbies. I feel a constant subtle pressure like something is wrong and I need to do something to fix it. It's not because I'm butt-hurt about the breakup (it was welcome at the time), it's just not having a person like that in your life anymore.
I think the only reason I was able to go on the way I did prior to the cohabitation, was because I'd simply never experienced such raw, intimate human connection before, like the kind that comes with living in the same one bedroom apartment with an SO for a year. It felt like it awakened a truly human need that perhaps had been long suppressed or I had rationalized a way to keep a distance from.
At any rate, the experience will hopefully make it easier for me to find another gal out there, now that I recognize, or rather "feel", the importance of deeper human connections.
I do think you will acclimatize to being alone over time, and it gets easier and perhaps almost back to 'before'. But I also agree that once you've had a taste of good partnership, it changes your perspective permanently, and you don't want to settle for 'before'.
"Almost all of the recent photographs of him on his website appeared to be 'selfies.'
[...]
"He ate one meal a day, sometimes nothing at all, and had 'consistently inconsistent' sleep habits. At one point, he experimented with staying awake 36 hours at a time, then sleeping for 12.
"He had a collection of 25 fedora hats, boasted about wearing the same pair of $12 Wal-Mart shoes for 12 years and played a monthly game of dollar poker that welcomed obscure variations of the game with names like 'Three Turds' and 'No Peak.'
"He had a collection of more than 1,000 movies on VHS tape, along with a computer database that would sort them by title, rating, year and genre. (He had his own rating system for them, too. He only handed out 21 perfect '10' scores over the years and his absolute favorite film was the 1986 adaptation of 'Little Shop of Horrors.'"
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/23/tech/web/martin-manley-suicide...
But consider: meaningful relationships take effort from everybody, including you. All the advice about learning to trust first, then you can trust others, etc, is right on target here.
It's a vicious cycle.
I found living in the northeast, USA -- so many were so focused on things they were told to do: Get education, work hard to start your career... that friendship building was not part of the equation.
Very different after I moved to Myrtle Beach, SC last year. 'Southern Hospitality' also helps: Its infectious. And the fact there are so many transplants from the North that everyone is looking to make new friends.
What I find interesting is, that I have less of this feeling when I'm in the south here as well (Bavaria). It's easier to connect there. There must be something about the south.
Or southmost state instead is famous for having some xenophobic people, separatist movements, and triggering a huge civil war in the past.my guess is that in colder environments people are very distrustful of newcomers because they are a new risk in a already risky environment
I used to know a girl (surname Britz) from Porto Alegre and her family was of German descent and seemed like she had no Brazilian features from what I could see.
When I see pictures and video of people in Rio it's like different country.
[1] The Dutch actually invaded Brazil for a few years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Brazil
Loneliness is a state of mind and is thus going to be a matter of temperament. The author of the essay felt lonely because he had less than the amount of personal contact than he wanted. But someone else with less urge for socialization may have not felt lonely at all under the exact same circumstances.
It's ok if this or that person is "only" a drinking after work friend, or this/that person is "only" a weekend friend, etc. While difficult, it is important to expand your social circle if you do not feel fulfilled. And, that can be difficult, but necessary.
Not sure it's for everyone as it can be hard initially going to a place to meet a group of strangers, but then you have to realise, they really want you there. You're key to their continued existence. It works both ways.
Another misconception is that traveling solo takes you out of your shell, and maybe I'm wasn't that introverted to begin with, but I don't feel any more extroverted. I was always comfortable chatting with people at a tech function or dinner party, but a generic cocktail mixer in a bar feels like hitting any meat market in any city, and it's still not something I'm comfortable with.
1. Details for the curious: http://philip.yurchuk.com/2012/12/07/basically-im-just-gonna...
We are social animals and disrupting this I think is something which causes all manner of problems from inner city violence and gangs to founder suicides. If we start changing our thinking about the problems we are solving, and start thinking about households and communities, and helping these thrive, then I think those solutions can be monetized just as much as the so-called "social" apps, which aren't really social at all in the same way.
I can think of one reason not to -- contrary to a popular belief, parents aren't necessarily as happy or satisfied as single people, and I suspect this is more likely to be true if the parenting decision is based on something orthogonal, like thinking of it as a way to deal with loneliness, rather than any real commitment to the activity itself.
"All Joy and No Fun ... Why parents hate parenting": http://nymag.com/news/features/67024/
Quote: " ... a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines."
> ... just do what people have been doing for ages.
To me that's not much of an argument in favor of doing something. People owned slaves for ages, claimed that women were stupid and subhuman for ages, and burned original thinkers at the stake for ages.
What she says is true: it is so hard to build up a social circle from scratch that way, while also working a full-time job. Seeing the same people once every couple of weeks is not enough. There were a number nights where I felt very lonely. It really made me realise how easy it is making friends through school/work/housemates/mutual friends.
I lived in share houses as a means to meeting people, but it is complete potluck who you end up with. The first house I lived in was with people who were very different to me, so after a few months I left. I finally found a house with a decent set of people dropping by, however I always felt like I was on the fringe of the group -- they had all been friends for years.
I believe another problem is the fact that even between countries like Britain and Australia (and even cities within those countries) there are subtle differences between the types of people in each place. These small differences from what I was used to also contributed to my feelings of isolation.
For these reasons, countries like India -- where people tend to live in much closer proximity -- really appeal to me. In most Western countries we have a very isolationist culture, i.e. big fences, not knowing your neighbours etc. and I think this makes loneliness more of a problem on quite a deep level in society. Having said that, the initial language barrier would make things hard in countries such as India.
Having said all that, I don't think that these feelings of loneliness were particularly serious in my case. I am a melancholic person, but pretty far from being depressed. I tend to think of these experiences as "character building" -- this puts it in quite a positive light for me. If I really am unhappy with a situation, then I will work towards doing something about it, which makes me feel more positive as I look towards the future. So I have my ways of dealing with this, but I can sympathise with anyone who has these issues, and understand how it can very easily become a serious problem -- given the right ingredients.
I've done okay on that front, having moved to a completely new place very often in my life. I find that one of the secrets is being extra honest, and extra open, instead of waiting for 'organic' moments of connection. These moments happen if you have loads of time to spend with people. If you don't have the time, too much can happen to get in the way of making such a connection before it is too late.
I rather like this quote in the context. Can't remember who wrote it:
"We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.
When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy.
It’s like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable."
So loneliness may be about taking are of our desires and needs. Sometimes it actually is borne out of what society has conditioned us to believe and to want.
Also I slammed OkCupid and Tinder for dates. I think I went on 15 first dates my first month here--some back-to-back on the weekend. Beware though: hitting the dating scene hard is superficial social interaction until you start seeing the same person repeatedly.
It does take longer to make true friends here. But it does get better. It felt like every other week I was internally debating dropping everything and moving back home. But now... I can't imagine living anywhere else.
If you'd like to grab a coffee or a beer some time, check my profile for my email address.
Remote you could mitigate issues by making sure they go to shared offices where people tend to stay a while.
This isn't the best article in the world on the issue, but it certainly needs looking into.
I guess the moral of the story is, prescribing general office policies under the assumption any work from home employee is a potential suicide risk is misguided. People are responsible for looking after their own mental health, not the company.
WFH can be isolating, but I much prefer it to the obligatory, often superficial conversations with coworkers or managers, as well as not to mention the myriad other distractions that keep you from getting your work done.
Online dating is still not as successful it could be because all data is not used. Everyone has smartphones, partners could be matched up based on the generated sensor data. There's also the low cost gene sequencing services, daters could be matched up using it.
The friendship problem cannot be tackled the same way. Women might be more open to actively seeking new platonic friendships in dating service kind of fashion, but they are less likely to be lonely anyway.
To solve the male loneliness problem would require focusing men around an issue. Men build good friendships over shared forced activities (school, work, military, political meetups, dinners with their wives's friends husbands).
To solve the loney man issue requires more of the same. Greater efficiencies in organizing economic/volunteery groups.
Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding is the answer here. Sites like mechanical turk and kickstarter with better social networking features, and finding ways to physically get people meeting together. For example, a component of kickstarter campaign might require doing a thousand man march in the capital city. Part of a mechanical turk task would require holding a protest. Similar ideas to get people excited about a shared cause meeting up at the same place.
Also, governments should consider creating an army units for elderly or otherwise lonely men. If your old and you're wife/husband died, you should be able to join the army to help in some capacity, even sitting at a desk at the barracks and filling in mechanical turk tasks.
Which are all sales techniques to get you to get a subscription. It's worse when you're a woman, put your picture up there and you get a dozen messages a week from guys suggesting you should have sex with them.
To solve loneliness, people need to talk. Not try and find people that 'match' according to some obscure algorithm on an impersonal, protective online cocoon in the form of a dating site.
Also, aren't veterans an army social club of sorts? Annual meetups and the like.
So I've been scouring Meetup, and I've been having a lot of trouble finding things there, too. Here I live in the East Bay, literally I'm at the most ideal place on Earth for finding the kind of people I'm interested in, and struggling. The problem is me, of course! But still, there is opportunity here for the right kind of startup or community.