How much of your loneliness is self-taught?
If you want more friends and connections, start making more effort.
We have several contacts on our phones, but how many do we call when we feel like talking to someone?
How many can call you just to check up on you? No hidden agendas. No urgent request, etc.
Yes, there’s a place for being there for others. When it looks like you’re the only person to the rescue. That friend you can call at 2am and expect a response or call back immediately when they get to their phones.
Loneliness is on the increase these days while we seem to be more connected than ever.
A few of my dates this year, amongst other great ones; she was on her phone more than ever, watching random videos that didn’t concern me or the date.
Of course, she was signaling something deeper. Her interest was fading away or never present in the first place.
Loneliness by design
My daily routine these days starts with writing first thing in the morning and managing my ecommerce from home or my office.
I get little or no physical interaction from my customers. And to be honest, that’s fine by me.
But I didn’t even start by having an office. I could remember how many years I spent only working from home and only got to see people whenever I took a break or stepped out of the house for some other reason.
Yet we all know, meeting random people does not in any way cure or solve the problem of loneliness.
The main culprit of loneliness these days is both the design of our environment, which teaches independence and self-reliance, which we can’t really help as it’s coming too fast, and our personal choices to keep making less effort in connecting with others.
“Move on,” "Cut off”
In fact, these days, the words “move on” and “cut off” are getting more popular by the day.
I can remember ending a new relationship in one week. She asked what we were going to do now. And I said casually how everyone should “move on.” And in one week again, I was begging her to come back into my life. She did. And it eventually didn’t work out.
It’s very easy for one screw-up or different political stance to get you “cut off” from a so-called 10-year friendship. And guess what, no alarms; sometimes there are threats, but everybody learns to “move on.”
Is your quest for a private life setting you up for more loneliness?
Don’t get me wrong. Solitude is different from loneliness and among the highest ROI a man can subject himself to.
It teaches you to value yourself, to embrace your own company and to have the courage to let go of relationships that don’t serve your well-being.
I also remember when I deleted my first Facebook account. I had just gotten into university and had a lot of new friends from the university connecting with me.
It was fun at first. Then I thought of how much these guys I saw every everyday would know of me.
BOOM. I deleted the account. It was safer than removing those connections for them to notice and get offended.
10 years later I speak to probably 5% or less of all those connections, as my quest for a private life eliminated the full pack.
Loneliness doesn’t just happen
I’ve learned to stop blaming my personality (introversion) or any circumstances for my loneliness.
If you want more friends and connections, start making more effort.
Start caring more genuinely for other people, and you get the ripple effect when they do it back for you.
It’s Sunday.
I won’t be going to church to solve loneliness, but I’d be going to connect more with God and other people genuinely.
Cheers. Happy Sunday.