Out of Loneliness

A story about sharing yourself

You ever heard that joke: no one talks about Jesus’ true miracle—having twelve close friends in his 30s. I want to laugh, right, but this one hits uncomfortably close to home.

See, my parents still hang out with their high school friends. My grandfather (at ninety-one) still sees his elementary school friends, at least those still around . . . 85 years of friendship! But I have been more, uh, transient in my relationships over the years.

It’s not like I’ve left a path of burnt bridges in my trail (at least I hope not). Whenever I see friends from childhood and college and my particularly-roaming twenties, we jump right back in. But nevertheless, I can pretty much count on one hand the number of close friends I have at a given moment.

The difference between my generation (millennials) and my parents / grandparents has got to be the pervasive relocation. While they’ve all stayed in St. Louis their entire lives, I left as soon as I could. My siblings split town, too. Most of my friends from high school left, as well. And nearly everyone I met in college had transplanted from elsewhere. I think it’s fair to generalize and call mine a generation of transients.

Calling someone transient is not exactly a compliment. But here we are, untethered from our roots by the promise of a technology making it possible to work from anywhere. “Digital nomad” anyone?

I build houses for a living, so what do I know? It’s literally the antithesis of a nomadic life. But I stare at my computer enough to know that it can be a lonely place inside this screen. And while this technology is a relatively recent phenomenon, loneliness is not.

Though the idea of “sharing” has been co-opted by guys like Mark Zuckerberg for their own purposes, I still believe sharing is the cure for loneliness wholesale (just not in the way he wants us to do it).

A story to illustrate:

I used to live next to this guy who I’ll call Alan. His family has lived in the same house since the 1940’s. First his grandparents, then his parents, and for the last twenty years, him. He’s a sweet guy, lifelong bachelor, and he liked to poke his head over the fence to show me his winning scratch offs, give an update on the cornhole world championships. I think I might still be his closest friend.

I’m certain Alan has gone days on end without speaking to another person. But his isolation is purely analogue. Alan once told me, “I don’t have any of that newfangled stuff” (referring to the internet). Yes, he said newfangled.

I went into Alan’s house every now and then, which is still decorated circa 1972. Every time he wanted to share: his photos, his stories, his antique Christmas ornaments. He had a picture of the six-foot diameter willow tree in his backyard when it was still a sapling, and I couldn’t help thinking about John Prine’s lyrics on Hello in There: “They say that old trees just grow stronger. Old rivers grow wilder every day. But old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say ‘hello in there.’”

What’s John Prine asking of us in “hello in there” but to invite a lonely person to share themselves? It’s certainly what Alan wanted more than anything. And I think his analogue ways are a better answer for curing our digital loneliness than anything Zuck can spit out.

Sharing yourself isn’t just about the best parts, the highlights, the cliff notes that might go on the socials, though. That’s like screaming into the void. Every time I’ve done that I come away feeling even more alone than before.

No, the point of sharing yourself is to have it reflected back at you, so you’re reminded who you are, where you belong. The other day I read that kids who grow up in houses with lots of family photos are better off. It’s because they know where they belong.

Someone hitting the “like” button is hardly reaffirming who you are. Much better is talking to real people, friends, looking them in the eyes over a cup of coffee or a plate of lunch.

You ever go into some greasy spoon diner and see a table of old guys sitting around drinking coffee, shooting the shit. That is the real life equivalent to sharing on the internet; but instead of random videos and status updates it’s an imperfect bank of memories to be kicked around, perhaps reshaped, but enjoyed and appreciated nonetheless.

I wish Alan had a crew like that to hang with. It was his birthday last week. 73 years old. I keep the date in my phone so I don’t forget to call. We ran back the same old stories and I gave him an update on the kids. He told me about the latest in the world of competitive darts. We shared a small slice of our respective lives and I think we both felt better for it.

In the end, I don’t think it’s about the amount of friends you have but enjoying the ones right in front of you. And remembering that your very first friend is yourself.

I’ll wrap this up with a quote from Dr. Seuss in Oh, The Places You’ll Go: All alone! Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

This is true, no doubt. But that doesn’t mean it has to be lonely.

-Martin