I’m currently sitting alone in my NYC apartment, after four months of quarantining with my parents, wondering what the future of social interactions will look like. I feel a nervousness being back here to keep up the facade of having endless social obligations, while recognizing the new normal of face masks and social distancing. As some friends start to navigate back to the city and others go back to their respective locations, I think back on the friends I’ve stayed in touch with during quarantine, the ones I reconnected with digitally, the ones I plan to see now that I’m back, and others who I wonder when I’ll talk to or see again.
Since moving to NYC nearly a year ago, I’ve been attempting to reconnect with old friends and find a sense of belonging in this concrete jungle. However, contrary to the lifestyles glorified by Sex and the City and Friends, I’ve found this city of ten million to be extremely isolating and lonely at times. For a bit of context, I moved to Chicago and lived there for a year after graduating college. I hardly knew anyone in the city, and although I’m grateful for the friends I made throughout the year, I constantly felt like I was lacking the connections I wanted. Whenever someone was busy or plans fell through, I suddenly found myself anxious and filled with doubts about my relationships. I was embarrassed to admit when I didn’t have plans on a Saturday night and watched on social media as friends in NYC were all hanging out without me. Between constantly traveling for work and a long-distance relationship at the time, I struggled to build new relationships and maintain existing ones.
After a year in Chicago, I packed up my apartment and moved back to the East Coast to be closer to family and friends. I want to say that moving to NYC fixed everything for me, and while having a network of pre-built friends in the city has made things easier, I’ve still found myself feeling unsatisfied in my relationships. At times that feeling goes away, catching up with friends over dinner or on video calls for hours, but other times I’m surrounded by surface level conversations and feel an inability to connect.
People often think of loneliness as the physical state of being alone, but oftentimes, it is more of a mental state. During college, I packed my schedule with club meetings, group study sessions, weekend brunches, and frat parties. However, I often felt like a lot of my relationships were formed out of convenience and ultimately replaceable. I shuffled through different friend groups and my network constantly changed based on housing situations and overlapping courses. When the summers started, I hardly felt inclined to keep up with most people and when we got back to campus, we’d run into each other and mention how we “have to catch up” but never actually make the time to. Although I seemed busy and surrounded by friends, I often felt extremely lonely. Recently when I mentioned that I was writing about this to a friend, he told me that when he first knew me, he would’ve never gotten this impression of me because of all the circles that I was involved in. On the surface, it may have seemed like I was thriving and I alway tried (and still try) to maintain that image, when sometimes, it’s far from the reality.
The summer after my sophomore year, I spent two months interning in LA and then bought a one way ticket to Milan for a course that I got accepted to at the last minute. During that time, I formed connections with people from around the world and had one of the most amazing experiences of my life. After the program ended, I had a couple extra weeks left in the summer and didn’t want to leave Europe yet. Everyone I knew had return tickets to go back home and a few friends convinced me to solo travel instead. Initially, I was terrified about spending so much time with myself and I often have other friends tell me that they would “feel too lonely” to ever do it. However, although I was physically alone, I felt a sense of wholeness knowing that I had found meaningful relationships that I could depend on even when they weren’t physically there. Everyday I would put in my headphones and backpacked around Budapest, Vienna, and Copenhagen, meeting people on walking tours or texting / calling someone when I needed to talk.
“Loneliness is the state of distress or discomfort that results when one perceives a gap between one’s desires for social connection and actual experiences of it.” – Psychology Today
Psychology Today defines loneliness as “the state of distress or discomfort that results when one perceives a gap between one’s desires for social connection and actual experiences of it.” One of the key aspects here is perception. We often idealize what relationships should be based on the curated social media content to tv shows we consume centered around everlasting friendship dynamics, but these images don’t always align with the complexities of relationships that we actually experience. Over the years, I’ve had relationships fall apart as interests have changed or petty boy drama has gotten in the way. In a recent conversation on the topic, someone mentioned to me how it’s interesting that we normalize romantic relationships ending but never talk about friendships ending. It feels taboo to admit that you’re lonely – an indication that your social life is lacking and ultimately, a fear that it’s something wrong with you. However, once you start to admit it and confront these feelings, you may realize that you’re not so alone in feeling this way (cue the irony). The State of Friendship in America study reported that 75% of Americans are not truly satisfied with their relationships and 63% are not confident in their friendships. Heatlh insurer Cigna also conducted a study where 54% of respondents said they feel like no one actually knows them well and approximately 40% said they “lack companionship,” their “relationships aren’t meaningful,” and that they feel “isolated from others.”
A couple of months ago, I attended an event called Get Smart, involving 15 minute presentations on a variety of topics from urban design to live coded music. The event was hosted by Nikhil Krishnan and based on his article How To Make Friends 2.0, with the idea of sparking relationships over common interests. During the event, I started talking to some people at my table and got into a conversation about the whole concept of meeting people in the city and the fear of admitting how challenging it can be at times. It was eye-opening to realize that others had felt the same way that I did and we got to thinking that maybe a lot of times when we look on Instagram and assume everyone else is thriving, they might actually be feeling the same way as well.
The other key aspect of feeling lonely is the gap between expectations and reality. In order to bridge that gap, you can either bring your expectations closer to reality or your reality closer to your expectations. Some ways to do both:
Define what your expectations are in relationships. What are you seeking and is it realistic? What do you need in the short term and what do you want in the long term? Sometimes I get hung up over not having constant deep, meaningful conversations with friends or being alone in my bedroom without any plans. However, some of those expectations aren’t necessarily reasonable. Robin Dunbar, Oxford anthropologist and psychologist coined the term the Dunbar number, representing the number of relationships humans can physically have based on average brain volume. Dunbar stated that “The amount of social capital you have is pretty fixed. It involves time investment. If you garner connections with more people, you end up distributing your fixed amount of social capital more thinly so the average capital per person is lower.” Ultimately, you are physically limited in the amount of deep, meaningful relationships you can have in your life. Letting go of some unrealistic expectations of relationships can improve your satisfaction with the connections you already have.
I used to play this game called “hot seat” with friends, where someone sits in the “hot seat” and has to honestly answer questions from anyone in the room. One of the first times I played this game, I got asked “what is your biggest fear?” and responded “that no one will ever really understand me.” As a follow up, someone asked me “why do you think no one understands you?” After giving it a second of thought, I answered “because no one ever will know all of my thoughts and experiences and can never truly know me.” Although this is somewhat true, it’s also an unreasonable expectation to have friends who relate and connect with me in every facet.
Relationships require effort. Be willing to put in what you want to get. Some people may know that I can be terrible at texting. I try to focus on in-person interactions, but sometimes wind up ignoring my messages and forgetting to respond after a day or two. While I’m not condoning my lack of responsiveness, it’s important to acknowledge how much effort you’re willing to put into relationships and use that to assess what you expect in return. Sometimes I get disappointed when I reach out to someone and don’t hear back for a while, but in reality, I would probably do the same. It’s the Golden Rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. If you want people to respond instantly or check in on you or invite you to hang out, you have to be willing to do the same. Otherwise, reset your expectations of others to align with the level of effort and actions that you’re willing to put in.
Recognize what is out of your control. Relationships may change and evolve and dwelling on what’s lacking in your life takes away from appreciating what you already have. Over the years, I’ve lost touch and bonds with people as our interests and life situations have changed. Many of these people will always be important to me, but may not provide me with the same level of social connections that they once did. It’s important to recognize that you cannot always fix these feelings or situations and accept this part of reality. Relationships may not always be perfect or what you envision, but that’s okay.
It’s never too late to form new relationships. If you’re seeking more connections in your life and willing to put in the effort, then start working to make it happen and be patient with yourself through the process. Reach out to old friends or seek digital communities and organizations to find people with like minded interests. I’ve recently reconnected with friends that I hadn’t seen in years and started volunteering with organizations to meet people who are passionate about the same things I am. Continue to explore what communities you want to tap into and form the connections that you’re seeking.
If you are feeling lonely at times, know that you are not alone in these feelings, especially during this period of isolation. Recognize ways that you can align your expectations with reality and your reality with your exceptions and push your boundaries to make it happen.
Love always,
