Why are we all so lonely?
A vulnerable exploration into the current state of friendships and community.
Friendships have always been a little bit of a battle for me.
I grew up home-schooled in the countryside, and despite my parent’s efforts to take us to various social groups, I struggled to make friends. Which, in my shy years when I was happy being best friends with my many siblings, I was wholly content. But, as I got older, and as my sibling ‘friend group’ grew up (and apart), it was hard to deny I was a little lonely. It wasn’t as if I had zero friends; I had two close friends, but they both lived cities away and as kids, this obviously made it quite difficult to socialise often.
This culminated in what I feel is a lifelong struggle with gaining and maintaining friendships to this day. In simpler–and somewhat embarrassing to admit–terms I’m lonely. But, it’s not just me, so many of us are struggling to build these kinds of relationships, which is affecting us in more ways than we might realise.
The Campaign to End Loneliness reported that those aged between 16-29 are over two times as likely to report feeling lonely ‘often or always’ than those over 70 (9.7% versus 3.7%), with those aged between 30-49 close behind at 8.2%, and in 2022, 49.63% of adults (25.99 million people) in the UK reported feeling lonely ‘occasionally, sometimes, often or always’. These shocking statistics make me wonder why, in a world where we’re more connected than ever before, does loneliness continue to rise?
This issue goes deeper than the self-esteem hit feeling like billy-no-mates brings. Humans have lived for the majority of our existence surrounded by community, yet we have found ourselves in a situation where as our online friendship number ticks up, our real-life number goes down. In a world facing countless issues brought by climate change, we need community more than ever to weather the upcoming storm, to look after our most vulnerable and to raise intelligent, emotionally resilient, and prepared children.
It’s not only the climate crisis that brings concern, as societies begin to lose touch with traditional arms of care–think church, family, and local community–with faltering social security networks, many of us are becoming soberingly aware of the lack of mutual aid available to us.
But how does one find this necessary community in a world that is championing hyper-individualisation more than ever?
Lonely, and with unbridled access to the internet I, unsurprisingly, turned to the online world to satiate my need for social connection. I made friends on various MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) and social media sites who I spoke to daily, people who I would seek advice from, confide in, and laugh with.
Although I don’t speak to these people anymore, I do think about them sometimes and remember this time–somewhat–fondly. But, however much one can enjoy online friendships, they are not a comparative substitute for real-life community. We are social animals, and we cannot trick our monkey brains with online friendships. You will still feel lonely. Trust me–I’ve tried it.
And yet, even with this experience, in my attempts to make lasting real-life friendships, I’ve found myself stuck in this textually active phase time and time again.
Like any lonely Gen Z or Millenial, I downloaded Bumble BFF in my quest for friendship. Similar to the most popular dating apps, you swipe left or right in hopes of matching with a suitable candidate, but this time for friendship. I was lucky enough to meet my other half on Tinder, so why couldn’t I meet friends in the same way?
After swiping right on a few interesting-sounding women–and swiping left on a handful of men who seemed to forget they were not on a dating app–I managed to start a few text conversations, feeling like I cracked the hidden friendship code. Except they stayed just like that: text conversations.
I found myself stuck with online friends all over again.
This was pre-pandemic, so I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be to transfer these friendships now. Granted, perhaps I could’ve tried harder to bring these friendships to real life, perhaps these women were just as shy as me. And I was lucky enough to meet one close friend on the site I am still friends with to this day. But my point remains.
It’s not just a struggle I’ve faced on Bumble BFF, it seems to be a widespread problem.
Another Substacker,
, wrote about her struggle with friendship, and how these text-heavy relationships don’t provide the social nourishment we seek. In it, she quotes psychotherapist Esther Perel who said: “Modern loneliness masks itself as hyper connectivity. And so people have easily 1000 virtual friends, but no one they can ask to feed their cat. […] Everything about predictive technologies is basically giving us a form of assisted living. You get it all served in uncomplicated, lack of friction, no obstacles and you no longer know how to deal with people. Because people are complex systems. Relationships, friendships are complex systems. They often demand that they hold two sides of an equation. And not that you solve little problems with technical solutions. And that is intrinsic to modern loneliness.”Because friendships, real friendships–as Rosie explores–are made of friction. To schedule, and to reschedule. To show up when you’re not feeling 100%. To look after your friends when they’re not feeling 100%. To ask for help when you need it. To have someone bring you soup–feed your cat–and visa versa.
Yet technology (and capitalism, but more on this another time) has trained us to believe we can remove all friction from our lives through various apps and services, which has created a ‘social atrophy’, where we are so burnt out by ‘our data-heavy, screen-based, supposedly friction-free lives’ we feel we no longer have the time or energy to engage in real life friendships.
Now not only do we expect frictionless friendships, but our friendships in general seem to be becoming transactional. We are finding ourselves increasingly busy, which means social time with friends–as
explored in her post–has to fit into tight spots on our overscheduled calendars. Often making friendships feel like a work meeting or an act of duty. This leads to extra burdens being placed on hang-out time, bringing a transactional feeling to the friendship. The feeling that if someone has made time for you, you’ve got to make it seem ‘worth it’ for them.This sort of feeling has killed the joy of ‘hanging out’. Nikki asks when was the last time you did nothing with someone you’re not in a romantic relationship with, or related to? With our strictly allocated social hours, we find ourselves barely scratching the surface when catching up with friends, missing out on the deeper heart-to-heart connection we truly crave.
One study showed we spend just 4 hours a month socialising with our friends. How are you meant to have a deep connection with anyone in just 4 hours a month? Don’t get me wrong, my introverted ass loves the fact the car park next to my apartment means social visits are often allocated to 3 hours each time, but 4 hours A MONTH?! No wonder we all feel so goddamn lonely.
And not only are we seeing our friends less, but we’ve also lost entire categories of social interaction due to the pandemic, which provided us with the opportunity for low-stakes social interactions our brains have come to expect. This is something I’ve been feeling particularly strongly as a freelancer (with no colleagues) who works from home. There can be days when I don’t speak to a human for a full 12 hours until my boyfriend gets home from work.
So, where does this leave us? Has our modern society cursed us for a lifetime of loneliness? I certainly don’t think so.
The truth is, I can’t change how others act, their preference for a text-based relationship, or their transactional expectations, but I can set my own boundaries, let others know what to expect from me (I have become awful at texting back in a timely manner) and act in ways I would like others to emulate. I can follow experimental extrovert Jess Pan’s advice and be the first to smile and wave, to reach out to start a new relationship–and maybe even try something new and scary like improv.
Sure, I'll still text my friends about crazy social media posts to laugh at together, but I will also reach out more with the aim of building the deeper relationships I desire, by hanging out on the sofa together, without the restrictions of a dedicated time slot.
One of my ‘resolutions’ for 2024 is to push out on the walls of my comfort levels by exploring new ways to build these deeply connected relationships. I want to be the person who gets past the small talk, asks new people to meet up with me, and invites friends for those low-key hangouts.
I want to build my own village, whether with the people who will weather the oncoming storm with me or simply a handful of people who will water my plants for me if I ask. I can’t build the community I envision for my future if I don’t first learn how to build strong, resilient, and friction-full relationships with those around me.
P.S. If you enjoy my writing, you can buy me a coffee to fuel my work.
Inspirations:
The Friendship Dip — Culture Study
Isabelle,
Thank you for writing this. The more I experiment with this village-building work, the more I have come to see the loneliness epidemic as the ecological crisis. They become almost indistinguishable the deeper I wade in. I've just been working on some book chapters that circle around many of the topics you've courageously named here. Blessings, Adam
There is just so much to say on this topic! Another reason people are lonely is that they lack social skills to that are required to build friendships. The desire to have friends is there, but how does one do that? Friendship making skills involves how to read people to determine if they're safe, how to have witty banter, where to begin a conversation, how to keep it going, how to make others feel at ease, when to share more vulnerable things with others, taking on other people's perspectives (to build harmony), how to get past chit chat and onto more deep conversation - which is what builds connection, and satisfaction. Being with people is not enough to ward off feelings of loneliness - it has to be the right people. The kind of people that feed your soul and make one feel understood. I've teach social skills (which is really fun!) and some of my students claim their online friendships are all they need. I've always felt a bit suspicious of that. So thank you for clarifying this with your own experience in gaming. I'm gonna use what you said "You can't trick your monkey brain with online friendships." Thank you!