Overcoming Loneliness

Loneliness is all the rage nowadays. How does it feel to feel alone? What is the difference between loneliness and solitude? The New York Times has published a compendium of the latest research on loneliness.

At the least, the researchers tell us that loneliness is more than a feeling. This tells us that we can plumb the depths of our psyches to discover what it feels like to be lonely and we will still remain lonely. In fact, the exercise will make us feel more alone.

As for the larger question, what do we need to do to overcome loneliness, the research suggests that we need people to care about us. We need to reach out to others, to spend time with other people. And we need for it to be reciprocated. 

And yet, at a time when 29% of American adults live in one-person households, we are drawn to consider something that other researchers have pointed out. Among the best ways to enhance the emotional well-being of children is-- family dinners. Might this not also apply to adults?

Regular family dinners, ritualized family dinners, routinized activity, where everyone practices the same table manners and shares the food.  

Roles, rules and routines-- these are the key to successful family dinners. Add to that that the ritual should be practiced regularly with roughly the same people. 

One might say the same thing about joining a baseball team or even a reading group. ccc

For most people, relationships with colleagues and coworkers produce a good sense of connection.  And combat loneliness.

Obviously, the more people work at home and the more they avoid the office the more they are going to feel lonely.

Of course, there is more to life than family dinner. Yet, try applying the same principles to activities between friends. For example, as Robert Putnam famously argued, you can join a bowling league, or even a baseball team or a bridge club.

To overcome loneliness you need to see out social harmony. And this tells us that multicultural communities are the enemy of social connection. If different people are playing by different rules and if they do not accept predetermined roles, they are not going to feel connected.

Evidently, they must be speaking the same language and following the same customs and norms. It applies to family dinner and to office coworker outings. 

Groups coheres because everyone is following the same rules. If such is the case people have far more latitude in expressing opinions. 

Keep in mind, participants do not have the right to undermine harmony by following different rules and practicing different table manners. If you introduce disharmony by eating with your fingers, the group will lack cohesion. In that case, since groups, even families, seek cohesion, people will compensate by trying to impose groupthink.

Again, it’s about playing by the rules, adopting the predetermined roles and following the same customs and norms. Such is the formula for producing social cohesion and for overcoming loneliness. 

Take it a step further and address an issue that has come up in these pages previously. When we are asking what makes a marriage durable, we have largely rejected the notion that it is all about romantic love. 

Romantic love is not going to endure over a multi decade marriage. And yet, the notion that it must remain so is one of the reasons that people fall out of love and get divorced. 

In marriage even the truest of love will need to be domesticated and socialized. These are hardly self-evident.

So, if you would like an alternative, consider the three Rs. Marriages endure based on roles, rules and routines. When couples marry they gain and adopt new roles. Of course, some people find that to be an unjust imposition. Their marriages will be unstable from the start. 

Following rules means, quite simply, that as a husband or a wife, you gain certain responsibilities and duties. You might not want to perform them at all times, but you do better to follow the rules than to follow your bliss.

As far as routines are concerned, most people, if they live in our culture, prefer spontaneity and surprise. Such qualities are often enticing at the onset of a relationship, but if you domesticate and socialize your love you do not want a lot of surprises. You do not want to be unsure about whether your partner will show up or not. 

You want to have a life that is largely routinized, because the ability to perform routines consistently will allow both of you to feel confident in an organized life. It is much easier to make plans and to fulfill responsibilities when your life is well-organized and predictable. It will make you feel grounded and connected.

If your lover fails to show up on time you will feel that the two of you are not connected. 

Too many surprises will make you feel disorganized and will make it impossible to get along with your one and only true love.

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