Loneliness, friendship and the human need for connection
“When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside world which is like the cold space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly.” —Hillair Belloc
How many close friends do you have? Let’s define a close friend as someone you would invite to a family dinner without first having to make any excuse for them (or some aspect of them); someone you can accept without compromise or condition; someone you can share your most intimate thoughts and feelings with.
Research indicates the average American has two close friends. Yet, twenty-five percent of people say they have no one with whom they can be authentic; no one with whom they can discuss deep personal or emotional issues.
Without true friendship, what remains is loneliness. In its most serious form, loneliness is considered a serious, even life-threatening condition, heightening the risks of heart disease and depression. Tough, stressful times usually make it worse.
Connection isn’t the same as closeness
In many ways, our times are more ‘connected’ than ever before. People engage within huge networks, online and off. We have more means to stay in touch over remote distances. We live in a time when people feel a kinship with TV stars like Oprah; when they engage in non-stop communicating with folks on My Space and Facebook; when people vent and emote on the talk shows and cozy up to watch re-runs of Friends—even if they don’t actually have many friends themselves, or any at all.
From a mental-health standpoint, what’s striking in all of this is the rise of depression in our society. Depression is rising in geometric proportions in every demographic sector. In spite of the quantum growth of connecting through online and off-line networks, people are isolating themselves emotionally and psychologically at ever increasing numbers. We have a pandemic of loneliness.
Who loves ya, baby?
Who supports you—really, really supports you—when you feel lonely, stressed or sad? What’s the difference between connecting online, or with local business or social networks, and the true, deeper connection of genuinely close friendship? The sad truth is that the frequency of contact and the number of contacts in our network does not necessarily translate into the quality of contact.
For a start, we’ve come to expect things instantly, and aren’t willing to spend the time it takes to develop real intimacy with another person.
Take the phenomenon of Facebook.com, the social-networking Web site where members proudly announce their huge numbers of friends. Some members say they have 1,000 friends. The pity is that they probably don’t even know half of them in any measurable way. They are simply contacts—and not very significant contacts either.
Some people thought going to their local Starbucks was a solution—a Marshall Plan for creating connections and finding new friendships. Have you sat in a Starbucks, or any other coffee shop, lately? People come in, get their lattes to go, or sit around ‘connecting’ with their laptops. You can bet that those who are talking to one another arrived as friends.
What’s going on?
We are becoming ever more insular. People spend thousand of dollars on home entertainment centers to fill their time, instead of devoting themselves to connecting with anyone else. They watch TV and don’t speak to one another. Everyone has a meal at a different time. They may live in the same house, but they aren’t a group or a community in any other sense of the word. Family time for many has become an event focusing on doing things rather than a deeper process of sharing and truly being with one another.
If there’s a Church of True Friendship, very few of us show up at the services. We say friendship is important to us, then choose lifestyles that make us too busy and distracted to cultivate or preserve it. It’s no different from the people who agree with their doctors that they need, say, a hip replacement, but never find the time to have the procedure.
So many of the major disconnects we feel in today’s culture—disconnects driven by fear, anger, hate, isolation, insecurity, and the like—are a function of loneliness and the lack of true and meaningful friendships. As Carl Jung wrote:
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”
Our $10 food-for-thought questions this week are:
- How do you define friendship?
- Would your friends describe you as a true and real friend, or more as an acquaintance? Would you feel comfortable asking them?
- Do you feel safe disclosing your innermost thoughts and feelings to your friends? To your partner or spouse? If not, why not?
- Do you ever feel alone or lonely when you’re in a group—or even at home? How do you deal with that?
- Does your lifestyle exclude time and room for developing meaningful friendships? When was the last time someone referred to you as a “real friend”?
- Do you pride yourself on amassing a huge number of social-network friends? How many of these “friends” do you really know and trust enough to share your true feelings and secrets with?
Technorati Tags: friendship, connections, social networking, support, closeness, trusting others
December 12th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I see daily in much of my work that individuals have become isolationists. Considering that we work with computers, people don’t require (or desire) personal contact with customers. It is frequently that these very same isolationists send information back to me to contact the customer instead of them contacting the customer directly!
I have been advised to send the request BACK to them and instruct them that they have the responsibility to contact the customer. I get these type of requests/response on a daily basis and usually from the same people!
It is my opinion that with the Internet, e-mail, and texting, personal contact is not a requirement to do some jobs. The result is more isolationists are being created as time passes.
December 12th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Hello, CK,
I hear this from many folks…how folks begin to isolate themselves from the world at large, including their clients and customers. Curious if their becoming isolated leads to anti-social behaviors…and in some cases, it does…a type of (self-destructive and self-limiting) learned behavior.
The isolation might support folks on the inside (i.e doing their job) but pose hurdles on the outside, i.e., actual voice or F2F communication with others.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.
December 12th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I pose some questions … When was the last time you received a hand written ‘Thank you’ from a boss or customer for a job well done? Would it be something to proud of? Would you feel good inside? And it you haven’t received such a ‘thank you’ letter, would you still feel good inside if you did recieve one?
There is nothing that beats the personal touch! My suggestion that if you are a manager or leader, make the time. It would means so much to them and you will benefit in it resulting in a great employee, happier customers, and a more business! And what did it really cost you? Not much!
December 14th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Effective and useful questions, CK. These days many have tried to make the impersonal, personal, not understanding or appreciating how the impersonal can erode once solid relationships and friendhsips. In the immediate, the e-card substitutes for hand written holiday cards. Quick, easy, impersonal, quickly forgotten and lacking an honest and real human touch. The microwave approach to expressing “humanness” during this season. Seldom works.
Thank you for your comments.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I believe that people like me who work from home, can find appropriate socialization from the web. I have been applying “Thoughtleading” into my business outline, an amazingly strategic and practical way to be successful. I have found many others who also use and apply the same or alike tools to their lives within their business. We support one another and it has been very helpful. Thoughtleading has changed my whole attitude, and outlook. I highly recommend it. An easy way to get more information on it is by going right to Ken Lizotte’s site. “The Expert’s Edge” at http://www.theexpertsedge.com/
December 17th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Congratulations! I chose this post as one of the top five posts from the business blogs for this week on my Midweek Look at the Business Blogs. You can check out my comments on this and the other four posts at
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2008/12/17/121708-midweek-look-at-the-business-blogs.aspx
Wally Bock
December 17th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Thanks Wally for stopping by, and for highlighting my piece on your blog.
December 18th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Superb article on what I would call a “fundamental of living” topic.
I have been luckily blessed (for I can find no other phrase explaining it) with a few close friends, including–I daresay–my wife. I have often wondered at how such people, with whom one feels comfortable sharing any thoughts, play an important role in subtly moulding one’s life.
Based purely on anecdotal evidence I believe that friendships formed during the teenage years are more likely to be lifelong ones.
A few more observations on friends and friendship:
-While my close friends and I are quite different personalities with divergent life paths, we are constantly discovering an underlying sameness in terms of shared values–even after 25 years!
-Occasionally a friendship of convenience may cement into a genuine bond
-With real friends, years of lack of contact makes no difference to the sense of closeness; we are able to simply pick up threads of conversations and quickly establish a deep connection
Friendship is a fundamentally important type of relationship governing how we view our lives and a key determinant of our sense of well being. The research on this has been covered well in Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Happiness Hypothesis.
“We say friendship is important to us, but increasingly choose lifestyles that make us too busy and distracted to cultivate or preserve it.”
I loved this statement and have quoted you at http://itftd.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-tftd-178.html
December 19th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Hello, RG,
Thanks for sharing your wisdom. It seems your experience with friendship has taught you much.
Having true and real friends is, indeed, a blessing. True friendship nourishes the soul. It’s especially supportive when one’s partner/spouse is also one’s true close friend…an anomaly it seems these days. Growing together as friends is what keeps the relationship fresh and alive….prevents evaporation and erosion of the bond that was initially present when the relationship began.
The notion that true friends can be separated by time and distance and then pick up where they left off is one of the hallmarks of friendship…it’s always fresh.
The thread that runs through true friendship is not superficial, material, surface and that’s one reason friends can manifest vast differences in character, personality, profession….friendship is deeper, it’s truly “personal” from a deeper “soul” perspective.
I appreciate your stopping by and your thoughtful comments.