A Quiet Sunday Revelation: My Battle with Loneliness

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Hi there,

We all know the difference between being alone and being lonely.

Desired solitude feels peaceful, restorative, and often creative.

Loneliness, on the other hand, feels upsetting, distracting, and often debilitating.

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, has identified at least seven types of loneliness that can act as stumbling blocks to improving your well-being.

It’s bad enough to feel lonely, so why does it matter what type of loneliness you're experiencing? Knowing the kind of loneliness you’re experiencing is the key to addressing it and making it disappear.

The last time I experienced loneliness didn’t coincide with my being alone on some holiday or anniversary. It happened on an unremarkable, overcast Sunday morning when I woke up in my apartment alone, my youngest gone for the weekend at her mom’s.

I lay in my otherwise comfy bed, feeling disconnected from anyone, even though I had spent the previous night enjoying a group dinner and had time on the calendar for a hike with a friend later in the day.

In the stillness of that morning, I couldn’t shake a sense of heaviness that pinned me to the bed and kneecapped my attempts to muster the strength to get up and go about my day.

It took me the better part of half an hour to sit quietly with the feeling, to let it be in me, to try to figure out what was causing me to feel lonely, and finally identify it.

I was lonely from missing the presence of someone else in my home: someone to hang out with; someone quietly reading a book on the couch; someone making coffee in the kitchen.

I was experiencing quiet-presence loneliness.

By naming my loneliness, I was able to address it by reminding myself that my daughter would be with me the next day. I then thought of all the ways we’d fill the space with love and laughter again. And from that new frame of mind, I found the strength to climb out of bed and start my day.

When was the last time you felt lonely? Can you trace what you were feeling back to its source?

In contrast, over the years, I’ve become much more comfortable spending time alone. Although I do have moments when I feel lonely, I don’t consider myself a lonely person overall.

This is in no small part thanks to my learning to accept myself, faults and all.

I genuinely prefer my current, accepting self to the younger one, who was more conscientious of his flaws and shortcomings.

So, for better or worse, I feel no aversion to losing an entire day in my study, on my computer, following my curiosity across any number of subjects in research.

I should be more embarrassed at how many times I’ve looked up and realized the sun had set, and I had forgotten to eat anything since breakfast. But I’m not.

Believe me, I don’t lose sight of the irony of spending a lot of time alone, learning about the problems of loneliness and social isolation.

What I’m learning about the power of social connections and the small changes we can make in our everyday routines to strengthen our connections gives me great hope that we can shrink the amount of time we feel lonely and, in turn, help others do the same.

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At the airport on a Monday morning earlier this month, I stewed in frustration at my inability to block out all the noises of the people at the gate with me waiting to fly back to San Francisco.

I’d discovered, too late, that my Airpods and their case were out of charge, so instead of listening to soothing music to make the flying experience a little less miserable, I had to endure the discordant soundtracks of iPads in the laps of youngsters, the cacophony of competing phone conversations, and the murmur of mostly polite interactions between gate agents and passengers.

It was a stark reminder of why I love my noise-canceling Airpods and always travel with them.

It was also an "Aha!" moment to realize that AirPods are single-handedly destroying our ability to connect with others.

As I surveyed the large group of people seated all around me, I noted that over two-thirds of them were wearing in-ear headphones while staring at a screen or book.

They were disconnected from their surroundings, simply occupying a shared space as they waited to fly off to another shared space with another group of (likely) Airpod-wearing people.

It reminded me too much of reading about the long-term effects of this lack of social discourse in Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone almost 25 years ago.

When the book was first published in 2000, Putnam’s groundbreaking work showed that social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction and that the loss of social connections impacts our quality of life as individuals and as communities.

Keep in mind that all of Putnam’s observations were made when AOL was still one of the primary ways people connected online, flip phones had T9 mode as their SMS AI, and the iPod had yet to be introduced.

Fast-forward to today, and billions of dollars have been made selling devices that feed us unending scrolls of dopamine hits via fancy handheld devices.

The Airpods we use to listen to these devices insulate us from interacting with others, both as an outward signal (“don’t bother me; I’m busy”) and as an internal buffer (“I can’t hear anything, so I can stick to my own business”).

Our Airpods destroy any chance to create a micro connection with another through an overheard snippet of a dialog that could turn into a conversation, which could grow into an acquaintanceship, which could morph into a friendship.

While I didn’t wind up having any micro connections on the flight home that day (my seatmates all had their Airpods on the entire flight), I did learn a lot from my Uber driver about the kinds of passengers he likes carrying (inquisitive, cheerful tippers) and the ones he doesn’t (loud-talking on phone calls, smelly foods).

Not every micro connection leads to a deeper friendship, but no friendship starts without a micro connection first.

Follow Your Curiosity

• Quiz: Happiness Project Quizzes from Gretchen Rubin.

• Book: Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection by John T. Cacioppo & William Patrick.

• Essay: Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital (pdf) by Robert D Putnam

• Podcast: Chip Conley on Learning to Love Midlife (Making Space with Hoda Kotb)

What’s been your experience with Airpods or loneliness? Do you have something to share you think could help or inspire others? Just hit reply — your email goes straight to my inbox. 🙏