3 out of 5 Americans report feeling lonely, with similar numbers in other western countries.
The number is much higher in younger people.
Statistically speaking, if a big majority of people report feeling lonely, it would be irresponsible to entirely blame the individual without doing further investigation.
What is Loneliness?
According to many experts, loneliness isn’t necessarily about being alone but instead is caused when you feel alone.
The feeling of loneliness comes from a lack of connection, whether it be to a person, community, society, purpose, activity, or an idea.
Although addressing the feeling of loneliness through non-human connection methods can work for the short term, connection with humans is the only long term solution for the simple reason that humans are social creatures.
If you’re interested in creating a rewarding social life, get my book Outside the Box to Box: Experience the Joys of Connection by Creating a Rewarding Social Life: https://rocketshippublishing.com/giveaway/
Macro Trends that Make People Lonely
Since the industrial revolution, humans have started doing something that is historically unprecedented for our species.
We’ve survived and evolved by creating social tribes and communities but since the industrial revolution and especially since the 1950s, we’ve started to go in the opposite direction. More and more people are opting to live away from home and on their own.
While there are many benefits that come from living on one’s own, the trend of people living on their own has undoubtedly contributed to the loneliness crisis since more people are choosing to be isolated from the social networks that we’ve depended on for millions of years.
But it’s not just that. There is something more subtle but impactful going on.
On April 30, 1993, the web became public domain. What the creators of the internet may or may not have known is that it was going to alter human history forever — for great benefit and for great pain.
Before the internet rose to dominate society, humans had to be quite social in order to function well in society. Back then, in order to do things, we needed human interaction. Now, not so much.
Instead of calling a store and placing an order for a product, we can hit a button for same-day shipping.
Instead of dealing with an actual business front operator, we can click around on a website. Instead of picking up the phone and talking to a friend or meeting up with them in person, we can send them a text or a social media message instead. Or post on social media so everyone can see, because everybody deserves to see what restaurant I’m at today.
With social media, we don’t even communicate in the English language sometimes. We send them a funny photo or video, and that becomes our version of communication. Instead of physically being in an office and working with people, more and more companies are choosing to work remotely.
When society lives in isolation more and has less social interaction, you get exactly what you’d expect: a loneliness crisis.
The subtle reason why people are becoming more lonely and socially isolated is both the effect and the cause of our new environment. People don’t get a chance to develop their social abilities to a point where it can help serve their needs in the world. People are becoming more socially anxious and avoidant, we take longer to build real conversation skills (if at all), and the ability to be intimate is becoming rare.
Individual Reasons Why People May Be Lonely
At first glance, it seems like the obvious answer to fix loneliness is to get out there and just go meet some new people and make friends with them.
While that answer is not wrong, it’s just theory.
Unfortunately, theory doesn’t take into consideration the emotional aspects of the problem and in this case, loneliness is almost always an emotional issue, not just a logical fix of “talk to new people.”
Laziness
If you are lonely, a good part of it that comes from laziness.
It’s far easier to come straight home from work or spend a weekend inside your house watching youtube videos and scrolling your phone than it is to go out to social events and make a real effort into making friends or dating.
However, laziness is often the surface-level symptom of a deeper emotional issue because laziness assumes it’s purely a logical problem.
It says that you spend too much time inside, and if you spent it in social activities instead, you would have your problem solved. For some people, a little kick in the butt to get off it is all you need, and if that’s you, thanks for reading — now get out there!
But for many, laziness is only a part of the problem. Pulling a Nike and telling you to “Just Do It” isn’t great advice for most people reading this article.
Lack of Interest
Lack of interest could either be a defense mechanism to protect you from emotional pain or could be a symptom of something else.
A lack of interest in socializing could be a symptom of schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, depression, emotional trauma, social anxiety disorder, among others. If you feel like you have trouble with being interested in social relationships, please talk to a medical doctor or a licensed therapist.
Commitment
When you aren’t fully committed to something, your brain’s creativity shuts off and you resort to the path of least resistance.
When you aren’t fully committed to a partner, you start taking them for granted and even checking other people out to see if you can get something better.
When you’re not fully committed to your work, you start doing the bare minimum of what’s required and start checking out at meetings.
This is for the simple fact that commitment takes effort and thinking, and this requires energy and cognitive power which are limited in your brain.
So if you don’t commit to something, your brain automatically lowers it on its list of priorities and it doesn’t use enough creative ability to go about solving it.
Chances are if you’re currently feeling lonely or friendless, you haven’t committed entirely to solving the issue. Not just taking the effort to reach out to new people, but also working on yourself to become someone that people actually want to be around.
But if you clicked on this article and read this far, you’re also not on the other end of the spectrum of the people who give up and complain without making a real effort, so you are to be applauded for that!
Insecurities
Is there insecurity that is holding you back from putting yourself out there and expressing your true self? Probably. We all do to some degree or another.
When it comes to insecurities, there are often two types of people. One completely refuses to do any introspection and denies the presence of insecurity (which is caused by insecurity, ironically), and the other who is very aware of their insecurities and gets swallowed up by them.
If I were to be one of the two (which I was), I’d much rather be the person who is completely aware of their insecurities, at least that way there is a solid foundation of honesty I can work from in order to address them instead of running away.
Insecurities come in all shapes and sizes.
They can be physical insecurities like your appearance, hair, body shape, attractive features, nails, nose, teeth, or acne.
They can be social like not knowing what to say in conversation, not feeling funny, being shy, or feeling awkward.
Or they can be emotional like thinking you’re unworthy of love, not being able to express your truth or the fear of abandonment.
Insecurities can be legitimate concerns or irrational beliefs.
If an overweight man grew up being teased or bullied for being chubby, then he is definitely not in the wrong to feel afraid of experiencing something similar again.
But a super attractive, confident woman can also feel insignificant and unworthy of love with no clear reason and that’s completely understandable too.
Your external circumstances don’t serve to validate your internal feelings. If you feel something, then you feel something — no need to justify it, let’s just work on a solution instead.
Anxiety
Anxiety can hold you back from becoming socially connected, and it’s far more common than you may realize. Anxiety is a general feeling of feeling unsafe — whether physically or emotionally.
It can make you tense up, feel shy, or not even bring out the words you need, you may start getting paranoid delusions of everyone hating you or them pointing something out that you’re anxious about. Regardless of the reason, it can serve to perpetuate the sense of loneliness.
Overall Life Dissatisfaction
Laziness could be a symptom of overall life dissatisfaction. Not just with your social life — although this is a huge part of your happiness, but everything else including but not limited to your work, romantic relationship, family situation, finances, personal state of mind, health, and personal goals.
When nothing else in your life seems to be going well, it’s easy to feel hopeless and overwhelmed then give up on making an effort on any of those.
That is a losing strategy, instead, you need to start learning and working on each area to make improvements, even if they’re slight improvements compounded over time.
Starting with the areas that will give you the biggest return on improvement are the best places to start: health, mental health, social relationships, work, money, and living conditions.
Being Single/ Unhappy in Relationship
Being single can certainly make you feel lonely.
Even if you have good friends or a good home environment, lacking the person that can bring you romantic, sexual, and intimate fulfillment can make you feel empty inside, even when you’re being filled from other areas.
Like a bucket with a hole in the bottom, all the water in the world won’t stop you from being empty. Lucky for you, success in dating often comes as a result of a successful social life, so if you work on one, you can indirectly improve the other one as well.
You could also be in a relationship with a person yet feel so lonely.
Even though you’re physically not alone, if you’re in a relationship you’re unhappy in, you can feel emotionally alone since you don’t necessarily want to connect fully with your partner.
This is a troubling spot to be in, because there may be some emotional reasons why you’re not willing to leave the relationship, even though that may sound like the most obvious answer.
Perhaps you’re scared to be single again as the uncertainty of potentially not finding someone else seems scarier than continuing to tolerate someone you’re not completely happy with. Perhaps you’re married and started a family with the person you’re unhappy with. By leaving, you’re putting yourself in emotional and financial trouble and harming your children’s emotional growth at the same time.
Dating and relationship struggles are those that need to be examined in much greater detail but it’s worth learning how other people have overcome the same problem you have. Virtually no problem is unique to you.
Lack of Social Skills
Not possessing the social skills required to talk to new people and build new friendships can be a legitimate barrier to creating a fulfilling social life because you cannot communicate with them effectively.
In this modern age, it’s not uncommon to not have the social skills required to build new and better friendships. The reason for this is because it’s not a necessity to be social to fulfill our needs, therefore we lose countless opportunities to learn and practice.
Lack of Vulnerability
A lack of vulnerability is when you are not willing to put yourself in uncertain situations to express your truth.
When it comes to social relationships, not being vulnerable could mean not being willing to go out and put yourself in a position where you can meet new people because there’s a chance you can feel awkward, not introducing yourself to someone you want to talk to because there is a chance of rejection, or not talking about things past the shallow, surface-level topics because they are safe and don’t have to involve emotions.
Unfortunately trying to become social without willing to be vulnerable won’t get you very far because everything you have to do to actively build a social life requires you to overcome uncertainty.
Work-Life
Your work life can also be a reason why your social life isn’t as developed as you would like it to be. However, when most people claim they’re too busy with work, it’s simply an excuse or a limiting belief they have. Even workaholics who work 80 hours a week can be using their work as an excuse as they may be blocking out other aspects of their life through their work.
If you struggle with this, just ask yourself: If I really wanted to, could I make time to do things I want to do with people I want to see?
Living Conditions
This one can be a legitimate issue. Particularly if you live in a rural area or live in the suburbs without a car or need to take extensive public transport. It’s highly recommended that you find a way to be more accessible to your friends or your potential new friends as it will be very difficult to make new friends and see them on a consistent basis if you live 1-hour bus ride away from them.
How you do that is up to you and depends on your life circumstances but getting a car or moving to a better location is among your options.
Technology
We no longer need to have social interactions with other people to cover our basic necessities and that is essentially a result of technology.
Technology has brought us some of the best opportunities and benefits that human history has ever seen but it definitely has its downsides as well. Among the biggest downfalls is that we have become emotionally disconnected from each other. It’s not uncommon for people to state that they have 0 close friends who they can turn to in times of trouble.
Technology also can make us far lazier too since it’s not a requirement that we get off our butts to function in life anymore. We can do almost anything from our seats or our couches, and our sedentary lifestyles make us fatter and lazier since we get a little exercise and tend to eat worse foods.
The Solution?
If you’ve identified one or a handful of reasons why you may be feeling lonely, it’s time to do something about it.
While this may seem like a cop-out, the solution is in my book which you can get for free right below this. The answer is already there, it wouldn’t make sense for me to paste the solution when it’s already present — and free!
If you’re interested in creating a rewarding social life, get my book Outside the Box to Box: Experience the Joys of Connection by Creating a Rewarding Social Life: https://rocketshippublishing.com/giveaway/