july 22 mle
I make fun of the MaLe LoNeLiNeSs EpIdEmIc for the obvious reasons, all of which revolve around it being a self-caused/created problem that's wildly easy to solve unless you are a self-pitying dummy who can't muster up the resolve to give a single solitary fuck about other people without an ulterior motive.
Sidebar: this Reddit post about the MaLe LoNeLiNeSs EpIdEmIc articulates things better than I can in this moment.
That said, loneliness is definitely an issue in our culture. It's actually one of our culture's main exports. Loneliness, isolation, lack of community —— call it what you want, it's all different shades of the same colour. And while I can't talk about why people en masse are lonely, I can offer a very specific kind of advice.
I'm 48. Most of my friends are between ~35 and ~55. Outliers exist, of course —— my friend/son R is 28 and my friend/mentor J is 59 —— but for the most part, 35-55 seems about right.
Over the course of the last 10-15 years, most of the friends I've personally "lost" were "lost" for one of a small handful of reasons, including but not limited to:
—— someone moved (no more proximity)
—— someone's politics changed (no more shared values)
—— someone had kids (no more time for non-essential people)
—— someone was doing a PhD (school precludes personal life)
—— someone was doing law/med school (school precludes personal life)
—— someone was climbing the ladder (career > personal life)
There were also friendships that simply ran their course and ended somewhat natural ways, evaporating slowly over time and then disappearing all at once. Regular readers may recall that in January I wrote about the end of my friendship with a guy I referred to as B like this:
Beautiful Losers was a favourite of a former friend of mine. I say former because even though I'm sure he'd take my call and I'm sure I'd take his call, I know we won't ever call each other again. Ours was a weird, prolonged falling out that happened slowly over years and then very quietly all at once. I don't have any hard feelings about it anymore, but I did for a while.
It was an important friendship for me. B and I were close for over 20 years and he contributed to the person I was and the person I ended up becoming in both good and bad ways. We went through some stuff and he taught me a lot but I also picked up some of his worst habits and one or two of his more retrograde beliefs. When I look back at those years with clear eyes I can see all the times our friendship fell, got cracked, and never got repaired —— giving it an expiration date. That's how it is sometimes. With some friends you just innately know that certain cracks need to be attended to with speed, seriousness, and attentiveness. You will have to use "I feel" statements and clarify a lot of positions but you will also have to concede many points and make actual grown-up apologies. With others you know the way to pave over a crack is to leave them alone for a while because you know it will 100% absolutely and totally be fine but only if you know exactly how long to leave it alone.
This said, a thing I've noticed more and more in my own life is the friendship that ends because it wasn't a friendship in the first place.
I still find out way, way too late that people I thought of as friends were just people who liked keeping me around because I am useful and because I am good about calling, texting, inviting, and making plans. This kind of person enjoys my energy and/or affection and/or support, but doesn't care to return it. For the most part, this kind of person was happy to receive my energy and/or affection and/or support without offering something commensurate back because to them I was found money. A useful idiot. I misunderstood certain friendships for ages because of insecurity and low self-esteem, which is to say that I thought they were doing me a favour just by humouring me enough to tolerate my presence. I know that's both sad and pathetic, but I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't that person for a long while. I was. It sucked. It's a trauma response. The end.
I'm writing all of this today because I saw an old friend —— a different B —— for the first time in about 12 years this past afternoon. He and I never really grew apart as much as we were never in the best place to hang out regularly. We never lived in the same city at the same time, have never been regular texters, callers, or social media taggers/DMers. More than anything else, our friendship that had the makings of something awesome but lacked appropriate venues or occasions to grow and blossom properly.
A few months ago B and I chatted on LinkedIn about something or other, and in that chat he apologized for being a bad friend because I had been giving him gave him low-key shit about it. I also told him that I understood it was circumstance than anything else.
He has and has had a pretty big job for a while; he's married; he has kids. I built my life to have lots of time for projects, interests, adventures, and friends I see and/or talk to regularly because I'm not particularly close to my family (even though I love most of them), don't have kids, don't have pets, and used to do things like move to Los Angeles or Copenhagen at a moment's notice.
Anyway, in that chat I said the following things, in order:
I mean, I was upset about it. But that's a convo for another day.
No, that's disingenuous. I am upset about it. Bc I thought we were boys.
I was let down, and disappointed, and I've told you, and we can work on that in our off time.
I was being honest. He was being honest. And today we hung out and picked up like it was 12 days since we last hung out and not 12 years. At the end of the hang, I told him that I was so happy to see him, and that I was proud of him for making the effort to close the gap, making time, making some plans, and following through. And I am. And I'm looking forward to seeing him again soon even though he's a Celtics fan.
There's no real point to this post other than to say that if you are lonely, I feel you. This world is a tough unfeeling place a lot of the time. But nothing is going to happen unless you make it happen. If you miss a friendship that's fallen by the wayside, and you would like to get it back, be brave and proactive. Make the call or send the email or the text. Show that you are interested in closing the gap and see if they are too. And if you need to make new friends, the same ideas hold. Be proactive. Find people in your existing communities where maybe you already have an in via a mutual interest or whatever else.
I never mean to be preachy, so if this is coming across like that I apologize. I'm just pretty tired of reading and hearing about this so-called loneliness epidemic when common sense and my lived experience has taught me that you get out of relationships what you put into them.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch watch
🌳 grass WNBA
🌷 now highlights
Be good to yourself.
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