The first line from the popular song written by Harry Nilsson in 1968 says “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do”. The song goes on to say “Two can be as bad as one,” and anybody who has ever been in a long-term broken relationship could attest to the validity of that statement.
Why do we feel so lonely in such a connected world?
Now more than ever there are countless ways to communicate. With the rise of the internet, email, chat rooms, forums and social media you can easily get in touch with someone, even if they live halfway across the world. All it takes is just a click of a button or a few taps on a screen.
However, as technology advances, there are more and more people claiming a deep sadness connected to feeling alone.
So what’s the deal? Why are so many of us lonely?
Instant communication vs deep connection
While researching this topic I came across something quite interesting. Below is a graph from Google’s Ngram Viewer. This particular graph charts the mention of the use of the word ‘loneliest’ in published media from 1800 to 2019.
Do you realise the correlation? Loneliest wasn’t that much on people’s mind’s until that sharp jump in around the 1960s and has been steadily rising ever since. Now, of course, Google’s data here should be taken with a pinch of salt but it makes a very pertinent point. As technology rapidly increases, so does our collective loneliest.
The definition of loneliness is not confined to the number of people you know, or who know you, but is determined by the depth of those relationships. That’s why so many people feel so lonely but have a thousand Facebook ‘friends’ or a million Instagram followers because those numbers are meaningless.
Humans were created as social beings. Inside each of us, is a distinct desire for connection with others, and if not fulfilled can lead to feelings of worthlessness and loneliness. There is a difference between being alone and feeling lonely. You can be alone for a long period and never feel lonely.
We all have that one friend (hopefully) that we haven’t seen in ages and when we finally reconnect with that person it feels as though they’ve been there all along. You feel as if that person knows the real you and that friendship is meaningful.
Conversely, you can be surrounded by friends and family all of the time but no real connection is made.
Two is the loneliest number
I was recently chatting with a friend who is going through a divorce. I hadn’t really connected with him in years. We were once close but the moment he got married our friendship seemed to have disappeared.
It was partly my fault. I naively believed at the time that married people don’t need friends so I made a conscious effort to reduce communication with him. After all, I can’t be all up in the man’s chat and he has a wife now, right?
But for some reason, he had popped up in my mind and I decided to give him a call and that’s when the bombshell was dropped. He and his wife had separated after only 3 years of marriage and he was now seeking a divorce.
It didn’t take much for him to break down. He described the horrors of being with someone who was always argumentative, and selfish and didn’t seem to understand him. He lamented on how perfect she seemed when they were courting and how the sudden turnaround after they were married shocked him. He felt as though he couldn’t be himself in his own home and how he felt like he had to walk on eggshells for their entire relationship.
Like me, most of his friends seemed to have pulled away since he got married. He had no one to talk to and felt isolated and alone within his marriage.
Naturally, I felt horrible.
I empathized with my friend but also I felt like crap that I didn’t make an effort to maintain our friendship.
I discovered then, that married people need friends too. Surprise, surprise.
Our need for deep connection
It is our natural desire to belong; it is imprinted on our DNA to long for real, genuine connections with others. It is the lack of these real connections with others that prompts loneliness. The existence of great fans or followers in your life can never replace the intimacy of true friendship, and to deny your need for companionship is to deny the very meaning of being human.
For some (not my friend) that deep connection can be fulfilled in a romantic partner and one would expect that to be the case, but the genuine connection can also be fulfilled in friends and family.
Naturally, I am an introverted person. I’ve struggled to maintain close friendships over the years because, to be honest, I enjoy my own company a bit too much. I sometimes feel drained by others and I much prefer to be alone.
However, I’ve also come to understand the importance of connection, for my mental health and that of my friends and family.
When the pandemic hit, I was living alone. I had recently gone through a depressive period and I feared what the isolation of the lockdown would do to my mental health.
So I asked my sister to chat with me on video call every day. At first, it was difficult. She is my younger sister and I wasn’t used to opening up to her about my feelings. But as the months dragged on I grew to enjoy our daily chats. Our bond as sisters grew stronger and I felt less alone.
What to do about loneliness?
Everyone feels lonely at some point; it is a normal human emotion.
Part of the reason why the epidemic of loneliness keeps rising is that we’ve invested our time in things that look like real connections. But all the chatbots in the world cannot replace someone taking the time to know the real you. All the parasocial relationships cannot replace two-way conversations. And all the followers in the world cannot replace real friendship.
I get it, it’s hard to open up to others. There will always be that fear of rejection or the fear that they just wouldn’t understand you. But if you never reach out, you will never know.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:”
Matthew 7:7
Remember,
Tell Your Story
Niques.