Do any of these strategies involve your computer or your phone?
• Which relationship in your life — new or old — needs to be taken off-line?
• In what area of your life could you start creating opportunities for more closeness?
Pick a way to limit your device time that still works with your lifestyle. Some ideas include “device bedtime” — turning your devices off after 9:00 each evening; “device Sabbath” — turning your devices off on Saturdays or Sundays (or any other day that feels right to you); and “device sabbatical” — taking a full week off from technology once or twice a year.
Chapter Summary
We are not lonely because we are flawed; our tech-centric environment is working against us in three specific ways:
1. It promotes mediated access, not direct access. More and more, interacting with other people through a device is becoming the norm and is replacing in-person interaction. This poses a problem because it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to access each other’s inner worlds through a device.
2. It is teaching us new and unhelpful lessons about how to interact. Tech products value efficiency above all else. Because we interact with tech products so much now, we are learning to believe all interactions should be efficient above all else — a technology mind-set that does not lend itself well to creating closeness.
3. It is reducing our natural opportunities to get close. Technology has made it so that we no longer need people the way we once did. We no longer need to be in our physical communities the way we once did. This reduces spontaneous opportunities to get close to others.
Now you understand the basic framework for reducing loneliness: closeness is what you’ve been craving, you can attain it through increased mutual knowing and caring of others, and your technological environment is getting in your way. Before we move on to the practicalities of creating the closeness we all crave — starting with how to pick partners — we need to let go of some outdated ideas about what “should” alleviate loneliness. These myths will trip you up along the way if you don’t first work to dispel them.
Most of us grow up believing in certain “solutions to loneliness” that we know from experience fail as often as they succeed. And when they fail, we blame either ourselves or the other people involved. . .when in reality, we should be pointing a finger at the solutions themselves.
This is a new kind of loneliness that requires a new solution. In this chapter we will work to dismantle the top three outdated myths about what we should be doing — and to whom we should be looking — to feel less lonely.
1. Love is a reliable solution to loneliness. You may be wondering why I maintain that the antidote to loneliness is closeness and not love. Yes, love is a powerful, ecstatic force that brings people together. Love is one of the highest highs human beings can experience. But can you be in love with someone and still feel lonely in your beloved’s presence? Absolutely.
2. Some types of relationships are inherently closer than others. Most of us believe that some relationships should feel close — particularly family relationships. But is believing this a reliable solution to the problem of loneliness? Someone can have two living parents, three siblings, and a spouse — and still feel desperately alone.
3. If you’re lonely, just be around people. It sounds so simple. Just put yourself out there! Can it feel refreshing to work from a coffee shop instead of at home, alone? Of course. Does it feel great to work on a team of smart people? Yes. . .usually. Does a rapid hiring spree at work make you feel less isolated? Not really. Could any of these situations actually make you feel lonelier than you feel just being alone? They definitely could.
All these myths contain a grain of truth and a mountain of misinterpretations. I’ll show you how to unlearn the useless parts and grab hold of the stuff that works. Let’s get started.
Myth 1: Love Is a Reliable Solution to Loneliness
You may have been wondering why I have yet to mention love in our discussion of loneliness. Isn’t love a perfectly good solution to loneliness? Isn’t love the deepest, strongest bond we can have with another person? Isn’t love the basis of all relationships that matter?
The answer is the same to all these questions: yes and no. Love absolutely brings people together. When someone who’s been a stranger becomes a lover, in our eyes he becomes infused with an almost surreal importance. It can be hard to tell where you end and he begins. . .and you both like it that way.
But the majestic, heightened state of love has a flip side, one with which we’re all too familiar. Love is fickle. You could fall in love with someone who’s completely inappropriate for you. You could fall in love with someone who’s not available. You could love someone who doesn’t love you back. You could love someone passionately for a short period of time and then watch the relationship fizzle for reasons you don’t fully understand.
And it’s not just romantic love that’s largely outside of our understanding. Expectant parents will attest to the fact that we can love someone before he’s even born. We can love people after they die. Whom we love (and for that matter, when, where, how, and why we love) is largely outside our control. The notion that love is a reliable solution to loneliness is a myth because, simply put: love is a mystery. Closeness, however, is not.
We can pick up methods for creating closeness because we know what generates closeness between people and what doesn’t. I don’t think anyone can say the same about love. Love certainly reduces loneliness, given the right circumstances, but it also increases loneliness under unfavorable ones. Closeness, unlike love, always works toward reducing loneliness. Closeness is useful in a way that love is not. If you do certain tangible things with a receptive partner, you will see tangible results. The more effort you put into it, the more you will get out of it.
There’s also a specific way in which closeness is a handier solution than love: it opens up the possibility of less loneliness at work. It’s generally deemed inappropriate to love anyone at work. Even if you do have a strong connection or friendship with a colleague, it’s easy to see how calling it “love” makes the relationship instantly sound unprofessional.
But most of us spend a great deal of time at work, and there are likely lots of people we know professionally with whom we could build a meaningful relationship. Closeness gives working relationships the opportunity to matter as much as strictly personal ones.
The fact is, you don’t have to be lonely just because you’re not in love. And if you are in love, closeness makes that love that much more stable and reliable.
I see evidence for this point in the ample research that’s been done on marriage and divorce. The overwhelming majority of people who get married, at least in Western developed countries, say that they are doing it for love. In our culture marriage is seen as the ultimate expression of committed love. Most who commit to marriage also expect that the love that brought
