Loneliness Awareness Week — June 2020
Written June 2020 — This hasn’t been written with anything other than embracing the idea of talking openly about loneliness in mind. I’ve not planned this out, I’ve just sat down and started typing.
I didn’t know Loneliness Awareness Week was a thing. I do now and the creative minds behind this year’s campaign can chalk this years event as a success, they’ve reached at least one new person, although I’m sure there will be many more to come.
It’s been a wild ride these last few months. I started the year in a brand new direction after taking a personal leap of faith. Things had been going well but after a productive start the last three months have been restricted to time spent in a flat that I would only ever use as a place to lay my head.
I’ve always appreciated the strong independent streak I have developed over the years. Probably a combination of moving quite a lot when I was younger and having a core family unit that aren’t really that close.
I am relatively content living alone. I’m free to make my own decisions. I don’t bounce from one relationship to the next, I often revel in the fluidity that travelling independently brings and I embrace the ability to be the “Yes Man” when it’s time for that one last, last round. I am though pretty stubborn when it comes to asking for help or when having to spend my free time on something I don’t want to do.
For years I’ve focused on the strengths that this streak have instilled in me but as I’ve grown older and dare I say wiser, as my peers settle down, as going for a pint becomes a mission three months in the planning, as another event ticks by where I am the odd one out or when I find myself scanning a picturesque view alone, in a far off land with a full belly and a tipsy heart, melancholy can at times descend.
People often say to me, part jokingly, part seriously, “I could never go do that”. I always laugh it off, I know my ability to just “do” things is a strength. I will when the mood takes me engage in conversation with absolutely anyone. The network of friends I have built off the back of a random DM or message are testament to that, but when I reply to the original protestation with something as beige as, “It’s easy!” in reality the words I want to say are, “It would be quite nice not to have to alone sometimes.”
During these most unique of times I, like many others, have had my mental resilience challenged on multiple occasions as the mechanisms I use to maintain a level of social interaction which keeps me happy and engaged have been stripped away. Usually, if I’ve had a bad day I’ll go to my local and have a pint, letting the hubbub of conversation wash over me. If I’ve had a particularly weary morning I’ll head for a coffee and a quick chat. I can tell you my heart soared when one of my favourite stops re-opened a couple of weeks ago.
Then there’s football, it plays a massive part in my life. It currently pays the bills in a roundabout way and I spend more time in and around the game than I do at home. It too is another way for me to make little connections and clear my head.
Football grounds are kind of great actually. It’s possible to feel lonely whilst simultaneously having no desire to interact with another human being at all, football lets you do that. The comfort of other faces without the expectation to have a full-blown conversation or the torture of generic small talk.
As alluded to earlier social media has been an ally in meeting people with shared interests and some of the better things to have happened to me in recent times wouldn’t have transpired without it. It does however have a habit of shedding a light on some of the worst traits in humanity. The last month has been particularly brutal and no matter how hard I tried to hack the system I couldn’t find a way to let the positive override the negative, for a while I had to shut it down. I sought comfort in loneliness.
The toughest part of these last three months have been the last fortnight or so. Lockdown was easing and soon you would be able to see your family and friends but instead of excitement I felt a strange sense of inevitability, I anticipated feeling more lonely. Lonelier than at any other time during this whole mess.
When you get used to being alone, adept at projecting an air of confident independence, you start to assume your place at the back of the line when the social bubbles are being formed, or, that you need to step aside so that other people can get their chance first.
The mad thing is that even when people make the effort you will turn your back because being alone can also be incredibly easy, giving you a ready made excuse when it all goes wrong. You don’t have to be on your own to feel alone either. I’ve felt it in crowded places surrounded by those that I care about most.
Self-doubt is a pretty large ongoing concern too and it can feel a lot harder to switch off when you can’t turn around to somebody for affirmation or consultation. It’s something I’m working on as I try and filter through the endlessly spinning rolodex in my mind.
I should stress I am, when all is right with the world, comfortable with being alone but feeling lonely still sucks, although it’s important to acknowledge that it’s a feeling not exclusively felt by those who fall into conventional definitions related to solitude.
I should also stress I haven’t written this so that folk can publicly declare that “they are there for me”. If you’ve read this and done that then you have missed the point and most likely haven’t held on until the end.
I have written this because it’s important to recognise that at times we all feel alone, it can happen at any time and in any situation but with self-recognition and understanding those feelings can be overcome.
The Marmalade Trust: https://marmaladetrust.org