Where Do All the Lonely People Come From?

Someone's picture of loneliness

Some fifty years ago, the Beatles asked this question is their song, “Where do all the lonely people come from? Where do they belong?”  

I wonder sometimes, if some of us are clearly a case of typical adolescents who won’t admit that we are starving for friendship, or love or simply an acquaintance. Today, we’re more digitally connected to our friends and family than in real. We have thousands of friends online and lesser in reality, and still some of us experience the epidemic of social isolation.

There is a scientific edge to single people’s grumble, “I’m going to die alone,” which is in fact dying if you’re alone. They say that a lack of social connection inflames the brain which affects everything with our body, and life. So the internet trolls about loneliness being more dangerous than obesity is actually true. But what is so wrong in being alone that it destroys you even to an extent of killing you?

Humans are social species- we need social engagement, support and connection. We are designed with social skills to make friends, help eachother and co-exist on this planet. But isn’t is also funny that we exploit eachother, betray and coerce eachother? What’s difficult to understand is that, we yearn for something that we potentially would destroy at some point.

Yet, we are all motivated to connect because we fear loneliness. We fear alienation, we fear the horrible stage of being totally alone.

Lonely people have always been alienated as someone who needs help. And that help has always been social interaction-encouraging them to talk to people and make friends. Loneliness is often associated with being alone, and lonely people are assumed to be poor with social skills but this hasn’t always been true. People with incredible social skills and having a lot of friends are lonely sometimes. Therefore a solution like making people interact with eachother can be dangerous sometimes because when people are lonely, they are also threatened by social interaction.

It scares me sometimes how hauntingly ironic this world is. We feel the need to connect and share with people but we also tend to withdraw from it for reasons with no explanations. My best advice would be to hold on to what we have right now and be kind to eachother. Seeking for salvation from books is also a solution I try sometimes and it works for me.