I listened to Brene Brown’s podcast Unlocking Us yesterday and in her most recent episode focused on the topic of loneliness, which made me want to elaborate more on my feelings about the topic.
Throughout my life I’ve struggled on and off with loneliness. When I was younger I was quite socially isolated, but I didn’t feel lonely much due to the impact that certain TV shows and video games had on me. As I became older and learned that most people interacted with friends on a regular basis, I felt disconnected from the world around me. I could be around a group of people and feel profoundly lonely. This sometimes led to self-loathing and avoiding social interactions entirely.
I didn’t try to do much about feeling lonely until I graduated high school, though. It was then that I saw studies that indicated that loneliness was more dangerous for your health than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. That spooked me into trying to manage my feelings proactively to try and avoid feeling lonely.
Three Types of Loneliness
In the podcast Vivek describes three different types of loneliness people struggle with:
- Intimate / Emotional Loneliness
- Relational / Social Loneliness
- Collective Loneliness
Each one has its own facets to it. Intimate loneliness is the one that motivates people to swipe right on dating sites like Tinder. Relational loneliness occurs when you wish you had a group of friends to talk to and hang out with. Collective loneliness occurs when you don’t have a larger scale network that you share interests or a purpose with.
That means you can still feel lonely even if you’re in a committed relationship! While you may have a strong intimate connection, it’s still possible to experience either relational or community loneliness. I feel like in our modern culture having a relationship is supposed to “solve” any social needs a person may have, and that perspective is profoundly unhealthy in the long run, especially for extroverts.
Loneliness During COVID-19
I found this concept of different types of loneliness a useful reference looking back on my life to understand exactly why I’ve been feeling lonely.
Right now, I live alone in my apartment and have been shelter in place for over a month. During this time I’ve worked remotely for my job, and I have had connected with friends online through both voice calls and texts. Previously, with my job I used to work in an office and had a good rapport with my coworkers, so if I was feeling stressed out about a work project I could walk ten steps away from my desk and talk to someone else for 10 minutes to decompress. Being able to do that offered a sense of community and belonging that isn’t as easy to foster working from home, so I’ve been struggling with some collective loneliness as of late.
I’ve also struggled with intimate loneliness recently, as I was dumped right before going shelter in place. Fostering intimate connections in the midst of a pandemic is difficult without being able to meet in person, and the uncertainty of the state of the world right now makes it hard for a lot of people to be their best selves for dating.
However, I don’t feel like I can really tell people I’m feeling lonely. For the most part, I feel like I’m doing okay in the relational loneliness realm. I have some solid friendships I’ve made over the years with people that can help ground me when I’m stressed out over something. But when I mention feeling lonely, I’ll be encouraged to reach out to friends usually. That’s useful advice if a person is dealing with relational loneliness. But if a person is struggling with intimate or collective loneliness, talking to a friend isn’t likely to ease their current pain.
I know I’m not the only one struggling with feelings of loneliness during this pandemic. For a lot of people this is the first time they’ve had to deal with the people in their living situation on a constant basis, or it’s the first time they’ve had to deal with being completely alone in their thoughts and feelings. I feel lucky that I’m introverted because I’m at least used to spending a lot of my time alone, but even for me having to spend so much time away from others has had negative effects mentally. I cannot fathom the misery that my extroverted friends are going through. But regardless, we are all suffering in our own unique ways, and we need to be aware of that moving forward.
Conclusion
I can’t in good faith suggest solutions to the loneliness that people are feeling right now. All I can say is “I feel you” when anyone else mentions feeling lonely, whether it be caused by the pandemic or from something else. The best we can do is to be there for each other, even while we’re all not at our best.
Hang in there. You matter.