The Lonely Hearts Club

A few weeks ago, I started a new job that (miraculously) allows me plenty of time to read something other than emails during my workday. It also affords me access to reading material I would typically forgo because I'm cheap, which is how I happened across the following article in the NYT Magazine (sorry about the paywall).

The gist is, loneliness is a cyclically recurring social phenomenon that waxes and wanes, going along with the evolution of new technologies and/or the erosion of traditional social structures as new ones emerge. But new ones always emerge, because they have to: we are social creatures, and loneliness is bad for us, both mentally and physically. However, the article goes on to distinguish between loneliness (the feeling) and solitude (the act being alone). This got me thinking about my own relationship with both over the years, and how I've come to terms with a certain level of solitude while also taking steps to mitigate loneliness.

Let's start with the loneliness, because it's kind of a bummer: I was a lonely kid. Loneliness is perhaps one of the earliest feelings I can remember in an identifiable way, when I would say goodbye to my dad after a weekend at his apartment (or in the lonely moments at said apartment when he would be sleeping while my brother and I watched the discovery channel or animal planet).

I didn't really have close friends until late in high school. Even when I did make friends, I always felt different--not better or worse, just different in ways I couldn't articulate. But, because I had a good mom and good teachers, I never really had enough free time to feel lonely: I took piano lessons, played baseball (way out in left field), went camping with my boy scout troop, read voraciously, wrote wannabe rock songs, played video games (mostly Pokemon), watched every late '90s and early '00s cartoon, and joined every possible academic competition team.

But when I got to college, a lot of that structural support fell out of my life, and I found myself with more free time than I knew how to handle. This culminated in a lot of decisions, both good in bad, that ultimately led to my being diagnosed with both ADHD and ASD. If for some reason that interests you, you can read more about that in these posts:

How I Became an Impulsive Imaginer

In short, I was born this way. I have ADHD, but a lot of people would never guess it because I seem to lack the “Hyperactivity” built into the disorder’s name. However, the truth is that ADHD exists on a spectrum, and I have the predominantly inattentive type. It’s

Impulsive ImaginerAsa Page

The Many Shapes of Sharing

It’s been several weeks now since I last wrote here, and there are many reasons for that, most of which I’m still trying to fathom, so I guess I might as well do it in writing. The biggest reason for my silence has been keeping up with my classes at

Impulsive ImaginerAsa Page

If not, I don't blame you! TLDR; I tried a lot of maladaptive things to keep my loneliness at bay, and none of them worked (at least not for long).

Along the way though, I also discovered a few positive ways to engage with solitude that still serve me. Foremost among these are reading and/or seeing performances (be they plays, concerts, guest lectures, etc.), because experiencing the thoughts and feelings of another human in a way only they could express always reminds me we are never truly alone when we can share our knowledge, passions, griefs and joys with someone else who will listen (granted, those last three words are the hard part, easily formulated by the inner critic as a taunting question).

Now, I don't mean this to turn into a self-help post that puts the onus of stifling loneliness on the individual (like: "Just read a book and you'll feel better!"). Because sharing ourselves and connecting with other people is only possible when there are structures to reliably support people seeking connection. My own mental health is miles better in New York City than it was in East Texas. In my hometown, the only real way to connect with people for free is going to church. But in NYC, I live walking distance from a park where I can attend a poetry reading, hear a jazz quartet, paint with watercolors, and play ping pong, shuffleboard, chess, or any number of card and board games with strangers (all on the same day). And that's one park in a city full of such opportunities.

Note that these activities are not inherently expensive: they just take people to make them happen. They take enough people in a community wanting ways to spend leisure time together and organizing structures to enable that possibility. Honestly, having been exposed my whole life to the "community values" propaganda that small town America thrives on, I didn't expect NYC to be that kind of place, but I think a lot of other cities could stand to learn from her example.