thoughts on loneliness, part I

not that long ago i was in a discussion about the topic of loneliness. what struck me most about the conversation was how this group of fairly intelligent and thoughtful people had so little to say on this topic that was worthwhile or insightful, and so much to say that was confused or flat-out wrong. and i include myself in that criticism. it was as if we weren't quite able to get our bearings for reflection, or we lacked a grammar for the topic. that experience prompted me to ask a number of other friends for their thoughts on loneliness, and also to attempt some more helpful lines of thought.


loneliness and aloneness

to be alone, it seems, is a description of one's relation to other people. to be lonely, in contrast, describes one's perception of that relation, or one's attitude about one's situation. so, it is possible to be alone without feeling lonely. and, perhaps more interestingly, it seems to be possible to feel lonely without being alone. i have in mind times when we feel disconnected to the people around us -we have family, friends, lovers, but we still feel isolated, disconnected, lonely.

"i'm high
high again...
i'm in love, but i'm so lonesome..." -b. m.

but loneliness isn't just the perception that one is alone. it seems closer to say that loneliness is the awareness that one is alone combined with the desire not to be alone. so far as i know, we don't have a specific word in english for times when one is alone, is aware that one is alone, and is happy to be alone, or contented, satisfied to be alone. loneliness, in any case, seems to carry with it a dissatisfaction, a frustration of desire. this inclines me to say that loneliness can be thought of as a kind of pain, insofar as pain is (roughly) a conscious awareness that something is going wrong, that proper function is being disrupted.

however, i think its important to note that, on a given occasion, the difference between being aware that you are alone and feeling lonely is often subtle, and just what one is feeling might not even be fully clear to the person who is feeling it. there are times when i'm not sure if i'm enjoying my afternoon alone, or starting to feel lonely. on the mild end of the spectrum, the feelings shade into each other -"do i feel like calling somebody, or would i rather just enjoy the movie by myself? i can't decide."

this way of talking makes it sound like loneliness is an emotion. maybe it is, but i'm not sure. perhaps what we call loneliness is sometimes less of an emotion and more of a mood. that is, perhaps it is less episodic and more diffuse, less focused on something in particular and more like a coloring of everything. in either case, loneliness is something that can come and go over a fairly short period of time -"i felt really lonely last night, but i feel much better now." but it is also worth noting that loneliness can be something that characterizes larger stretches of time. thus we can say, "that summer was lonely for me", or, "my teenage years were lonely ones", or even "he lived a lonely life." in these cases, i don't think we mean merely "there were lots of episodes of loneliness during that stretch of time" (though its probably part of what we mean).



loneliness, proximity, absence

to be lonely is to be discontent. in feeling lonely, we are not at rest. this has to do with the fact that loneliness -as the pained awareness that one is alone, seen through the desire not to be alone- is also a reaching, an outstretching. this is not to say that when we are lonely we actually do reach out. we may choose to sit at home alone. but internal the feeling of loneliness, i think, is a longing for something outside oneself, a striving. when we are lonely, we are 'crying out' to someone.

this inclines me to say that part of loneliness is the feeling of absence. we sense an empty space that ought to be filled. we are aware of what is not there. this is closely connected, i think, to the desire to be heard, and also to listen, as well as the desire to be seen and also to see. to feel lonely is to want to be able to gaze meaningfully at someone else, to have one's attention filled by another person. to feel lonely is also to want to be seen, to be the object of someone else's attention.

our experience of loneliness, then, is deeply rooted in the fact that we occupy bodies, and that we live in space and time. because we are thus bounded, we can be set apart from others, we can be isolated and alone. and thus we can have the painful desire that things not be otherwise, that we be brought close to another person, that this lack be filled.

less abstractly, it seems to me that there is a close connection between being lonely and missing someone. when we miss someone, we might say that we are lonely for that person -that we have a pained awareness of our isolation from that particular person, that we desire the presence of that particular person. of course, one can also be lonely without really missing someone in particular. perhaps we can say, then, that with generalized loneliness, we simply miss some-one, though not a particular one. with both missing and loneliness, there is the sense of lack, of absence, and the longing that it be filled.

in this way, i think, intimacy makes possible new and deeper forms of loneliness: to know someone is to have a new bit of yourself come into existence, a new stretch of ourselves in created in our important relationships. if the person is gone, that space within yourself that the person created is no longer filled. what remains is an empty space -a lack that is made real in memory, in expectation, in longing. so, to experience intimacy means that there is more of you, and to miss someone is, in part, to feel an emptiness in that part of you.