On Aging Alone (2021)
I have always had a tough time applying the tool of reason to the problem of loneliness. In a way, I don&#x27;t feel like I&#x27;ve ever been lonely. Not that I have never felt the same way that people who do describe themselves as lonely feel. I have and still often do. The &#x27;problem&#x27; is that I&#x27;ve always been able to isolate the reason I&#x27;m feeling that way and administer some kind of intervention. And I know, that getting older will not bring with it any greater problems than I have now.<p>Is my soul yearning for spiritual connection? I&#x27;ve got a good friend for that. My libido looking for an exhilarating one? There&#x27;s bars and the ubiquitous &#x27;more-than-friend-but-not-quite-committed&#x27; friendship we all seem to have but never seem to really look to for that sort of thing. The least lonely person I know is in his late 70s. He&#x27;s always talking to someone whenever I see him.<p>But every American I know outside of my usual social circle seems to be painfully, debilitatingly lonely, and I can&#x27;t make heads or tails of it. Perhaps most are trapped in a hell of looksism. Instagram has ruined their lives because they can&#x27;t bring themselves to work that hard to look that good. Maybe they&#x27;re too shy to cultivate third places. Perhaps they&#x27;re looking for some kind of spiritual connection and, since American religion has so thoroughly shit the bed, they have absolutely zero idea of how to even approach it.<p>It often seems like they just want to find someone almost exactly like themselves. I remember one guy I met at a bar, who wanted dearly to find his next best friend in me, would start berating me almost immediately after we started hanging out together. Like I didn&#x27;t fit the role he wanted me to play in his life and that&#x27;s gotta be my fault.<p>The vagueness of the problem makes it so devilishly difficult to approach with reason. But just about any difference between what someone&#x27;s life is like and what they want it to be seems to manifest in their psyche as loneliness. And the reason they themselves come up with is often just utterly counter-productive. But you can&#x27;t challenge their reasoning head-on, it&#x27;s like fighting the tides.<p>It&#x27;s a sad, quiet, seemingly uniquely American epidemic, borne out of our thoroughgoing insecurity and status-desiring.