To Whom It May Concern…
…or not.
In Loneliness, the psychologist John T Cacioppo and the science writer William Patrick report on the situation in the United States: Between 1985 and 2004, the number of Americans who said they had no close confidants tripled. Single-parent households are on the rise, and the US Census estimates that 30 percent more Americans will live alone in 2010 than did so in 1980. As the American way of life spreads around the world, no doubt loneliness is being exported with it.
People do like to be alone sometimes. But no one likes to feel lonely – to feel that they are alone against their will, or that the social contacts they do have are without deeper meaning. According to Cacioppo and Patrick the feeling of loneliness is the least of it. They present scientific evidence suggesting that loneliness seriously burdens human health. By middle age, the lonely are less likely to exercise and more likely to eat a high-fat diet, and they report experiencing a greater number of stressful events. Loneliness correlates with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s. During a four-year study, lonely senior citizens were more likely to end up in nursing homes; during a nine-year study, people with fewer social ties were two to three times more likely to die.
To explain why loneliness hurts so bad, Cacioppo and Patrick turn to evolutionary psychology…
Caleb Crain, Lonely together
(Emphasis mine…) A chance comes along for you to do something good, maybe something wonderful for a friend. Perhaps nothing will come of it. The odds are poor at best. But it’s a chance. It has dropped in your lap. You need only lift your little finger to give this chance to your friend.
But perhaps lifting your little finger is too much trouble. If instead, you allow this chance to float away on the wind, like a dead autumn leaf, don’t tell yourself afterward that it wasn’t really of much importance. Don’t just shrug and think that, after all, probably nothing would have come of it. That isn’t the point. …scientific evidence suggesting that loneliness seriously burdens human health. By middle age, the lonely are less likely to exercise and more likely to eat a high-fat diet, and they report experiencing a greater number of stressful events. Loneliness correlates with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s. During a four-year study, lonely senior citizens were more likely to end up in nursing homes; during a nine-year study, people with fewer social ties were two to three times more likely to die…. Is this what decent people allow to happen to the ones they care about? Of course not.
So don’t tell yourself that it was nothing. Don’t reassure yourself that the odds were poor anyway. Stop making excuses. Look yourself in the mirror, and fess up to the fact that if you care so little about this person, that you’d allow even a billion to one chance they’d find happiness to fly off into the night without so much as a shrug, they were never really someone you cared all that much about to begin with.
November 9th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
When I’m lonely, I go hang out with people. When I’m sick of people, I come home and hang out with myself. When I’m sick of myself I….uh…I turn into someone else! I put on my Captain Faggot uniform and go fight hate crimes! And THAT keeps me from being lonely most of the time…..lots of new friends and people to meet in jail. Or I put on my hazmat suit and gas mask, take my gieger counter downtown and start ‘scanning’ people, then shrieking loudly and running away. And then suddenly there are LOTS of new social ties down at the mental ward.
But on the other hand….I have absolutly NO clue what you are talking about.
I believe the stuff about lonely people having more health issues and mortality rate. BUT I think it goes a little deeper then that, a bit more complex in it’s simplicity: Could it be that "Lonely people" ALSO have some emotional or psychiatric problems, such as depression? And THAT keeps them (Or creates for them) from developing a more fullfilling social circle? And that depression (We’re talking clinical depression or psychiatric problems) is REALLY the bigger factor affecting health? All of the commercials selling us magic-bullet miracle cures ARE telling the truth in some ways: depression DOES cause other health problems. (Sometimes from things as simple as lethargy and eating lots of crappy "Comfort foods" for the quick fix of sugar and carbs elevating seritonin and el dopa levels for a short time…providing "Comfort")(Cigarettes do similar things)
I know that for ME, drugs helped me develop a social circle and lots of social contacts…..but THOSE tend to be a lot more destructive and health damaging then just being alone. I found the same to be true of religion and churchs. People get addicted to THAT too, even obsessed, and just like drugs, they keep upping the dose hoping that it will resolve their ‘inner issues’. (And that might actually WORK for some people….but we see plenty of examples of "Happy God-loving (Or fearing) religious church-goers" who are just bitter mean nasty angry people…hmm…kinda like their real ‘issues’ arn’t being addressed at all….or they simply missed the point being they were too high and drunk on God, and the "gift" of being able to destroy and judge others without ever being accountable or responsable for themselves….in the name of GAWD. And THAT social circle quickly spits them out, even abuses them, if they don’t play the team-game.
Wal Mart puts out of business locally owned shops and manufacturers by providing cheap, cheaply made in volume mass-produced inferior crap imported from countries where the workers are exploited slaves. It makes it much harder to find good quality home-grown products, and those products become more and more expensive. The owners and businesses have massive market forces against them, and have to jack up their prices in order to stay in business. So we are generally "forced" to buy cheap crap from Wal Mart because thats all we think we can afford. Depressed local workers and manufacturers start making inferior products….partly because they just don’t care anymore: People don’t buy it because they can get it cheaper at Wal Mart. AND because they have to cut corners and use cheaper materials (Much of it coming from the same sources Wal Mart uses) in order to remain profitable.
I forget the point of that metaphore. But maybe it was something along the lines of developing a BIG and cheaper social circle of crappy vapid fake cheaply made fake friends for the sake of having friends and "Combating loneliness" by sheer volume…..OR buyiung locally owned and manufactured superior (Even if only "Superior" because it was made/marketed by people with good intentions) with a quality that makes you enjoy and "use" those products for a much longer and satisfying time.
But ANY product, with moving parts or not, wears out in time, and needs to be "Handed down" and exchanged for something new. Theres nothing wrong with that: Someone who gets it handed down to them will love it even more BECAUSE it is "broken in" and shows signs of a quality of love and enjoyment….the product of use by someone who truly enjoyed them and left them a better, softer, more comfortable ‘product’. Sure its fun to un-wrap a new pair of shoes, and admire their shiney scuff-free "Perfection" (Unles they are cheap crap made in China en mass that are basically desposable and planned-obsolecence by design) But that new pair of shoes will be awkward and uncomfortable and stiff for a while until they are broken in…..but THAT comfort basically comes at the exchange of the "prettiness" of the new thing, for the comfort of the real thing. And ultimately, that comfort and wear is FAR better and healthier, then the stiff starched chaffing bunion-causing of the new shoe. But you gotta put up with those things in order to break them in.
6 months ago, out of financial necisity, I bought a new pair of boots from Wal Mart. They where "Work boots", but have already fallen apart. (And I didn’t even do any WORK in them!) And were never really that comfortable….even though they looked good when new. BUT, three years ago, I found a pair of used, probably 3rd generation hand-me-down army boots at the Good Will store….and THOSE, while scuffed and worn, are STILL very servicable and comfortable, and will probably last a few more years.
I paid just a tiny bit less for THOSE at the Good Will store then I did for the new boots at Wal Mart.
Oh hell…I forgot what my point was…..but like any Ho Mo Sex Ual, I got distracted by shoes and fashion.
The LESS I pay for a car, the longer it lasts for me. The MORE I pay for a car, the bigger piece of crap it is….and more expensive in the long run (And its usually NOT a "long run".
But I save and hoarde EVERYTHING, long after it’s served its useful service life (At least for me) I COULD be donating some of this stuff back to Good Will (Except the cheap Wal Mart shit….which goes into the trash, because it has seriously self-destructed) So why hang onto this stuff? One mans trash is another mans treasure. Is it some emotional attachment to these things? Some kind of nostalgic memories attached to them?
Hmm…could be.
But then again, hoarding is ALSO a symptom of OCD and depression (Odd how those are connected and related to seritonin and dopamine levels). Attention Deficit Dissorder ALSO has a symptom of hoarding, and is ALSO connected to those same brain chemicals and imballences and hormones.
Weird.
I’d do something about that, someday. But for now I need coffee.
November 10th, 2008 at 7:51 am
While you’re reading up on loneliness, can I suggest you check out the living single blog on Psychology Today? It cuts through some of the "loneliness kills > you must get married" chatter and I think it’s interesting.
I know your single status isn’t voluntary, but I still think reading this lady’s writings might cheer you up a bit, you know, if you’re going to read all about how you will die young and in pain as punishment for being alone and all that…
November 10th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
If you do a search on Amazon and other book sites you see quite a lot of self-help books on loneliness. Nearly all of them are religious tracts. According to the user reviews, some of those don’t clearly identify themselves as such until you buy the thing and get several chapters into it and then you’re being proselytized.
Anger isn’t really a good substitute for companionship, but especially after Proposition 8, I’m really getting fed up with these religious nutcases preying (praying) on lonely people. Much of the loneliness and alienation in this world is their doing. They just forcibly divorced tens of thousands of loving couples in California. They added three more states to the roll call of places where gay people aren’t allowed to find love and contentment. They want to empty our hearts so they can scribble their devotions on the bare walls.
It’s so hard trying to keep anger from turning into hate sometimes…
November 10th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I would advise lonely Gay men to get a pet.
But then I remember that old slippery-slope that the christofascists are saving us from:
Gay men will only marry their puppy then have sex with it.
If churches are going to force legislation and enter electorial and political lobbying, then they should be identified and taxed as such.
Oh, wait…..THATS the point where they suddenly scream about "Seperation of church and state".
November 10th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I would advise lonely Gay men to get a pet.
If I had a pet chupacabra, I could let it answer the door the next time some Mormon missionaries knock on it…
November 10th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
HAH!
I think I’ll run out the back door, around the side of the house, and steal their bikes while they are distracted.
"It won’t kill you to be civil….just don’t stand too close.."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
I want a pet magic talking Salamander.