Not Lonely Enough

This is currently a draft, I’d very much appreciate feedback anonymously, through discord (kogappa), or via email ([email protected])!

Since high school I knew that loneliness is optional. I would eat lunch by myself and not talk to anybody all day, but I didn’t feel a hint of loneliness. For me, loneliness comes from the longing for connection, not the absolute quantity of it, and I was happy with the friends that I had. Now, I have many more friends, both in-person and oceans away, yet the pang of loneliness strikes on weekends when I don’t know what to do with myself.

This is a stupid problem. Why don’t I just fix my attitude and be grateful for the friends and family that I have and enjoy spending time alone?

It’s actually appreciation of both friendship and solitude that makes me lonely. I’ve experienced being both too lonely and not lonely enough. But to unpack this I’ll have to ramble a bit about my life story (I promise it’ll be more concise than how I tell it in-person).

In high school I consciously decided not to be lonely. I didn’t need new in-person friends because even after I moved my middle school friends wanted to stay in touch. I was grateful that they would go out of their way to call me and even come visit. We’d imagine sci-fi worlds together and roleplay in them with made up rules. We played the best video games, read the best books, and watched the best shows. We talked about our biggest dreams and fears.

Meanwhile, every high school lunch table I sat at felt like a gathering of convenience friends where spending time together was for Instagram or Clash Royale not the other way around. I found that I preferred spending time alone. My hometown friends were special, and there was no point in trying to “find my people” a second time, considering that I was going to go to college in a few years anyway. Convenience friends were tiring—I might as well enjoy solitude. I went on runs, played chess, practiced piano and saxophone, studied math, meditated, read books, and gained a greater appreciation for nature and the world.¹ I spent a lot of time thinking for myself, and listened to jazz, classical, and electronic music without lyrics.²

But when I graduated high school, I realized that my best memories were not when I was alone. They were with friends and family, and the main reason I didn’t have more of them was that all my close friends lived a six-hour train ride away. Despite keeping in touch at a level that rivals some long-distance relationships, my hometown friends had way more of these memories without me simply as a result of spending 10x more time together. As much as I enjoyed spending time alone, the lifelong memories and friendships were all made in-person. Looking back, those in-person experiences are the things most worth remembering.³

For four years I had bamboozled myself into a local maximum of blissful ignorance:

I was standing happily on mount solitude, recognizing that I was happier alone without putting effort into making new friends, but failing to see that on the other side of Meeting People Valley was Mount Meaning where lifelong friendships, partners, and memories lie.

Reflecting on high school, I felt I had squandered the opportunity to make friends. Looking back, there was never a shortage of amazing people there who would have wanted to be close friends with me had I not given up on making new friends so quickly.⁴ It felt even more existential than that. If I didn’t meet new people, how do I expect to ever meet a life partner and eventually have a family? I’m pretty sure having a family would be an enormous part of my happiness, fulfillment, and contribution to the world, and certainly I could be substantially happier⁵ if I wasn’t single.⁶

I decided that in college I was going to stop being a loner. I was going to make more lifelong friends.

I joined MIT Motorsports where my friends and I poured our (literal) blood, sweat and tears into building three electric racecars. I’ve found that mutual suffering towards a creating something meaningful together is a fantastic way to make friends. In Aliveness and where to find it, Ben James writes that creating things together, is where the greatest memories are made.⁷

Creating together doesn’t happen by default because society has evolved towards convenience and consumption. It requires effort, social risk, and inconvenience, but this is part of the necessary struggle to traverse the Meeting People Valley and get to Mount Meaning.

But I found myself wanting more. I didn’t just want people to make things with, I wanted friends who really listen. This kind of friendship doesn’t happen overnight; it requires emotional bandwidth and connection at a personal level.

This loneliness became existential and crippling, and I struggled with depression for a year. The sadness and negativity was addictive. This is a evil form of loneliness that grows on self-hatred and self-pity. I was romanticizing my melancholic solitude.⁸ Eventually through therapy and reflection I was able to escape the vicious cycle and developed a healthy attitude towards my loneliness. Listening to better music helped.⁹

It took me multiple years of evolving friend groups before I found people who I really felt I could have truly satisfying late night honest and vulnerable conversations with. Finding people has been hard and the best approach I’ve come up with is going to boring parties and events, getting people’s contacts, getting to know them 1:1, and eventually getting introduced to their friend groups.¹⁰ But despite having tried hard meeting people over the years, I still get much more enjoyment and human connection through remotely spending time with my oldest friends. The weekends when we visit each other are still 10x more fun and memorable than the weekends without them. But I have faith that if I keep working at it, meeting new people with an open mind, I will find more of ‘my people’ on the trek to Mount Meaning.

Since high school I’ve learned that some amount of loneliness is healthy. Running, writing, work, and many other things which hurt are good for us. Being a loner is easy for introverts like me, but if you eventually want special friends and memories, you must traverse Meeting People Valley. It’s okay to be lonely, but it’s up to you to turn that loneliness into something meaningful.