Tagged “loneliness”

tell your friends you love them.

… in speaking to women’s groups, I have suggested that women look at men this way: If they took away their own network of intimate friends, those with whom they share their personal journey, removed their sense of instinctual guidance, concluded that they were almost wholly alone in the world, and understood that they would be defined only by standards of productivity external to them, they would then know the inner state of the average man.

—Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, by James Hollis

Was also quoted on Austin Kleon post on a similar theme.

I think about the fact that I have two friends, grown men my own age, who, unprompted, within the last year, have told me that they loved me. And I told them I loved them back.

And on how to manage/express emotions:

With so few socially acceptable avenues for processing these emotions, it isn’t uncommon for men to find other ways of managing them. Sometimes we isolate ourselves or disassociate. We may distract ourselves, keeping busy enough that the inner world can’t catch up. Other times, we numb ourselves by drinking or using substances. When pushed too close to our emotions, unresolved grief can come out as anger.

More on the loneliness/time with people charts. That novelty and learning and socialising peak, then decline for the following decades.

Solutions:

1. scheduled, recurring social events with friends and family. Make it more automatic
2. Take a break every quarter. Design another level for for life's video game.
3. Learn how to learn
4. Celebrate the 25th birthday, like a passage into actual adulthood.
5. Create rituals.

I agree that flexing the boredom muscle is good, as is finding joy in time to yourself.
But don't know if embracing solitude is the right conclusion to draw from a chart of alone time increasing over lifespan.

That you could also flex the socialising muscle, and try to buck a trend from a chart of averages.

I am already off the chart on average hours per day, so there is also that..

, that treating loneliness simply by telling lonely people to go out and socialize more (the way you can treat a phobia of snakes with exposure) will often not work because it fails to address the root cause of the loneliness. In fact, a recent meta-analysis confirmed that simply providing lonely people with easier access to potential friends has no effect on subjective loneliness.

Adapting to solitude, and downsides of getting stuck there

cabinsitting in a national forest