The loneliness meta-problem.
“It is lonely when you’re among people, too,” said the snake.
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The way I see it, there are three distinct, but related, issues, each of which could be called “the loneliness problem” in its own right. These are:
1. the individual loneliness problem:
the question what one, who is afflicted with feelings of loneliness, could do in order to stop, or at the very least mitigate, being lonely.
2. the loneliness trend/epidemic problem:
the claim* that more and more people, in multiple countries, feel ever more atomized, grow ever lonelier and spend increasingly more time alone.
*- please note that this is mixed and somewhat disputed.
3. the loneliness meta-problem:
the impression that the majority of people, especially those who would not self-identify as being on the margins of society, neither fully grasp what loneliness is nor comprehend the depth of the matter, which has repercussions for both of the previously listed problems.
The bulk of this text would focus on point #3 and saying a few, maybe somewhat unconventional, words at the end regarding point #1.
What is loneliness?-
Before demonstrating what I mean by “the majority of people do not fully grasp what loneliness is”, I need to clarify what I even mean by “loneliness”. To do so, I would like to introduce a component one might call “antagonistic introspection”. I personally believe it is the “missing ingredient” between what most people would consider “normal”, though negative, sensations such as fear or sadness and “pathological” ones like anxiety or depression. To see what I mean, consider the following examples:
•Sleeplessness vs Insomnia-
Different people, during different phases of life (at times, for no apparent reason), might stay up till late and/or operate on little to no sleep for anywhere between days to years, but “insomniacs” are those who struggle to sleep. It is not simply about the lack of time spent asleep, but rather about the frustration stemming from repeated failure to fall asleep. The thing that makes it “insomnia” is the perception one has a kind of an urgent, chronic problem to be solved.
•Fear vs Anxiety-
“Fear” is a common (for some more often than others) and completely normal reaction to situations one perceives as dangerous, stressful and/or disturbing, but “anxiety” is, in a sense, a “fear of fear”. One perceives the fear (and all of the physical responses associated with it) as a kind of perpetual threat that should be eliminated.
•Unpleasant thoughts vs Intrusive thoughts-
Based on one’s personal history and immediate environment, the brain generates thousands of thoughts each day, some might be unsavory and even go completely against one’s personality traits and/or beliefs. The thoughts are however “intrusive”, when one deems them as something that should stop occurring and tries repeatedly to take active measures to make them stop.
Similarly, we can compare loneliness to “aloneness” (the state of being alone):
Being alone means finding oneself either physically or metaphorically (such as in one’s opinions or skills) removed from others. It is a rather neutral (and might even be positive) state that is necessary, yet insufficient for also feeling “lonely”. In my view, the sensation of “loneliness” arises from the frustration one experiences when the state of being alone (again, not necessarily in the physical sense) is both unwanted and remains unresolved despite repeated attempts to end it.
The “normie” conception of loneliness-
“Normie” is a term that has evolved significantly in the last decade or so, but its general usage has remained roughly the same: a “normie” is a person who is in many ways, unsurprisingly, “normal” or “typical”. “Normies” have typical, almost cookie-cutter life experiences, opinions, attitudes and fashions, they both follow and dish out generic advice and for people who self-identify as “outsider”, the “normie” seems to be less burdened with daily social friction of “not fitting in”, which, for the purpose of this text, is also a suitable definition- a “normie” is someone who would not self-identify as an “outsider” and would not describe themselves as experiencing regular social tension. When it comes to the topic of loneliness (but not only), this creates a kind of a self-defeating view because the normie’s outlook on life is ill-equipped to comment on the state of actually suffering from being alone:
Normies do not know what it is like to be lonely from the inside.
Sure, many people, “normies” included, might at times feel lonely (especially as we age), but it does not mean that the loneliness is, in their own subjective self-perception, a defining feature of their lives and does not mean they have actively tried to stop feeling lonely by attempting to find the kind of meaningful connections they crave. For most, it is just another sensation/emotion that comes and goes, sometimes a bit more pronounced, sometimes less, but as a rule of thumb “normies” do not experience and are not frustrated by profound, chronic loneliness.
Normie advice cannot work-
Nevertheless, people who clearly are not afflicted by profound, chronic loneliness still presume to give advice on the matter, which almost always boils down to the same bottom-line:
• “talking to other people can really help combat feelings of loneliness”
• “reach out with purpose”
• “find your tribe”
• “deepening the relationships you already have”
• “practice being vulnerable with other people”
• “finding a place where you can completely take your mind off of work and just have really deep, great conversations”*
and so on.
All of which suffer from the same major flaws, they assume that:
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1. You can “just decide” to talk to others in your environment or that you already have people in your life you could have talked to if you would have wanted.
2. Your world-view and/or interests are “similar enough” to your environment to be able to find like-minded individuals, also ignoring the fact that just because you have one, two or a few interests in common with someone, does not really mean you are compatible in general.
3. People who suffer from loneliness to the point of looking up advice online have not already tried all the commonsensical steps one could take (deepening existing relationships, opening up to others, showing vulnerability, etc.) and have not met with repeated disappointment and failure.
4. Others in your environment are cooperative and will reciprocate your openness and other attempts at connecting or that you can “have deep conversations” with just about anyone.
*- This YouTuber seems to also have it backwards here in general:
it is probably not the case that so-called “third places” are being shut down and therefore humans now socialize less, but rather the opposite direction; people hang out in those types of locations less and less so these end up closing because they are not turning a profit.
This is essentially a miniature version of “the fallacy of the big red button”; you cannot just “flip a switch” and stop being lonely any more than you could “just decide” to have a romantic partner. Social interactions are a two-way street; just because you crave a specific kind of interaction/understanding/connection does not mean that your environment is interested, or even able, to grant you said interaction/understanding/connection. It is also contingent on factors beyond anyone’s control like the culture into which you were born, the social frameworks your city of residence has to offer or the general zeitgeist. “Normie-esque” advice, even if well-intended, tacitly assumes that you feeling lonely is, in a sense, up to you, which is why all of the quotes provided above are either phrased using the imperative (“reach out”, “find”, “practice”) or assume a kind of agency that allows the individual greater control over others’ social-navigation than others have over themselves:
• What if my existing friends/acquaintances are not interested in “deepening the relationship” or we actually do not have good enough chemistry?
• What if other people in my life do not know what to do with my “vulnerability”, do not know what to say, are put off by it or end up saying things that make me feel even worse?
• What if I know no one with whom I can have the kind of “really deep, great conversations” I am interested in or if my opinions are very idiosyncratic?
I understand that those who say these kinds of platitudes are only trying to help, but it strongly seems to me that they are talking from a place of taking for granted that:
1. They are someone who already shares an integral part of the social cohesion of their community.
2. They probably would not be considered “weird” by their peers.
3. They are likely not as affected by the occasional sense of “loneliness” as much as people who self-identify as “outsider” would and do not perceive it as an instance of some greater pattern about themselves.
4. People in their environment might be just more responsive to their type of socializing due to sheer luck, conditioning to behave like everyone else where they grew up (basically, they have successfully inherited the memes of their environment regarding how to behave/interact in a way acceptable by the social group to which they belong) and/or a kind of self-selection bias that has led them to (honestly, somewhat myopically) spending time only in highly self-affirming social contexts.
which makes the entire thing come across as lecturing a fish on how to row a boat; just because both you and the fish are interested in being transported from point A to point B in the vicinity of water, does not mean that the theoretical mechanics of rowing are an adequate solution for fish-like issues.
What has worked for me-
Everyone’s sense of loneliness is unique to their own circumstances and different individuals end up feeling lonely due to different reasons.
No one is better qualified to comment on someone’s life than the individual in question themselves (I would often remark to acquaintances that “there is no ‘should’ in life”) and therefore the following is better not seen as advice, but as a kind of laying out the logic behind the strategy I personally follow and that has personally helped me experience waves of loneliness both less often and less intensely than before:
(★) The thing that has helped me the most in coping with loneliness is to do absolutely nothing special.
It might seem weird, counter-intuitive, self-defeating, fatalistic or self-evidently wrong, especially for strongly “agentically-minded” folks, but what could I realistically do otherwise? Note:
1. It is neither possible to force others to have a deep connection with me nor am I interested in doing so.
2. If there is a mismatch between the way I am “wired” and the current zeitgeist, then this is unfortunate, but ultimately it is not really a failure of character on my part (nor on society’s part for that matter).
3. Repeated attempts to bridge a perceived gap between myself and others (colleagues, friends of friends, etc.) have worsened the frustration and just bred contempt, sometimes on both sides.
4. Normie-esque advice has led me nowhere.
I did not give up on myself, my personality traits, my hobbies or my routines.
I did not give up on meeting up with people, having small-talk or participating in society.
However, the thing I did give up on is actively trying to stop feeling lonely. You see, the “normies”, in my opinion, do get many things right even if they lack the eloquence to verbalize why those things are correct:
the feeling of loneliness is just that, a feeling.
Yes, I do think of myself as an “outsider” (for better or worse) and yes I find it hard to “click” with most people due to a myriad of idiosyncrasies which I will not go into, but by “surrendering” to this sensation whenever it rears its ugly head while continuing to actually live my life, I have essentially trained myself to not care as much about my place in the social causal-web of my environment and indeed, the sensation dissolves again fairly quickly.
I understand this might be a hard pill to swallow and it is perfectly fine if you object to everything that I have written here, but I felt it was important to put a perspective out there that was not yet another “reach-out-to-others-Hail Mary” that is clearly communicated by those unafflicted by the thing they claim to tackle.
