Loneliness is stronger when not alone
This is pretty obvious from my experience. I don’t really get “lonely” but I can be miserable when out among people. But by myself I might just be bored. But only some times.<p>You know how “humans are social creatures”? A sort of corollary to that is that people define what a normal person is. And very subtle-like too. No one needs to spell it out one-on-one. But it’s always there. A constant reminder of how you might not conform, might not be good enough, might not have the right connections, might have the wrong interests. And once you check enough of those anti-boxes you realize that neither you <i>nor other people</i> have anything to offer each other. You are a bore, and they are there just to remind you of your failures.<p>That one can be lonely or feel bad in a crowd of people might be counter-intuitive to many because the narrative goes that loneliness is a disease that inflicts the individual and is only about a <i>lack</i> of people. But isn’t that hypocritical? How can you say that “humans are social creatures” and just outright deny all the <i>negative</i> signals that people (us) send to each other all the time?