Being lonely is not the same as being alone. I am almost never alone. I am always around people, making conversation, being a friend, a student, a kid. I spend lots of time talking - to my family, my friends and my mentors - but it is very hard not to feel lonely. When you are alone, it is because of physical proximity - when you are lonely, it is because of emotional proximity. Most of the time, I just don’t feel understood. I feel disconnected. I feel distant. I feel sad.
But I want to create a conversation without shame about this. Loneliness is hard. So let’s start with what this feels like, and end with some ideas for what we can do to limit the loneliness as best we can. So for everyone in college right now, for everyone at Stanford, for everyone in my dorm - here is what it’s like to feel lonely.
I feel exhausted.
Sometimes I stand in the middle of White Plaza and I’m caught in a whirlwind. People getting lunch, talking to friends, going to class, picking up packages - it is so overwhelming to see all this activity happening, and you are just one person in this sea full of people. It takes so much energy to witness all this motion around me that sometimes I forget what I’m doing. But back in my dorm room, when my roommate is out and I’m all alone, the inner peace I thought I would achieve isn’t there either. Instead, there’s an aching to be doing something - I just don’t quite know what that something is. This process is tiring for me. It wears me out to constantly feel like the world knows what it’s doing, but that I’m out of sync. I’m dancing with a partner that I can’t see, and our signals are all messed up.
I feel uncomfortable.
As I stood at a rally at Stanford the other day, I initially knew no one. They all knew each other. They all knew the vocabulary. They all knew how they felt. But I was confused. All I knew was that I cared. But they didn’t know I cared. They didn’t know about me at all, and I didn’t know them. And for a split second, when I caught the gaze of one person, I felt so unwanted there. I felt like they saw inside me somehow and disapproved so strongly that it was palpable. I felt so out of place, so anonymous that my presence was not only unnecessary, but unwanted. I felt lonely, and that grew from a place of discomfort.
I feel sad.
Loneliness isn’t romantic. Loneliness is really sad, and my heart feels a dull hurt. This dull pain is what makes me cry sometimes. It’s what makes me put on my brother’s sweatshirt to feel close to someone. It’s what makes it hard to go to the dining hall sometimes and fake being fine. Because sometimes I’m just too exhausted, too uncomfortable, too sad to say “Actually, dude, I’m NOT fine." But when I don’t say that, it perpetuates this cycle of loneliness that makes me feel these things.
Okay, so let’s back up. Maybe you could relate to what I just wrote. Maybe you’re shaking your head furiously, saying “YES I feel this way!” or maybe you’re looking at the screen, and in a numb, defeated sort of way are agreeing by pulling your blanket up onto your chest some more. Or maybe you don’t feel this way at all, ever - but you know a friend that you suspect might. Read on for some things that make me feel happy, grateful and connected. I’m not saying I never feel lonely after I do these things, but I know trying to do them makes me more likely to feel a little more okay. These baby steps add up, and lead to okay days, to good days and to amazing days.
As hard as it is, reach out a little.
You don’t have to give your whole life story or all of your struggles. Sometimes calling my parents and my best friend from home is enough to feel very loved, without getting into whatever pain I’m feeling. Sometimes texting an RA here to say, “Hey, can we grab breakfast together and chat?” and having that time to connect does really amazing things for making me feel cared about. And sometimes, if I’m in a place to dig deep, walking down the hall to tell my friend I’m really struggling in math gives me someone to relate to. Sometimes calling home to say how inadequate I feel gives my family a chance to reassure me that as hard as it is here, that I’m capable and that I belong. These connections, big and small, really do help me. But I understand how difficult even the shortest text can be sometimes. I know that just because you’re lonely doesn’t mean it’s easy to reach out. Advice I’ve gotten recently about trusting your friends to be there and allowing yourself to feel vulnerable is helpful in overcoming this hump. But I acknowledge that sometimes that is too hard for me to do, so I do some other things, like…
Take care of yourself in small (or big) ways.
Sitting in my favorite coffee shop or bookstore makes me feel happy. Walking or running around the lake makes me feel happy. Folding warm laundry makes me happy. Sometimes, to be in a place to make myself feel less lonely, I need to show myself some love. These are ways that I try to show myself some more love, but I’m always trying to bring myself back to that place when there are so many things in the world to bring my morale down. Despite it being super difficult, I think doing small things for your own happiness could be an important thing to try if you’re feeling particularly lonely and it’s hard to reach out.
Take things slow.
For me, this could mean walking to class instead of biking. It also could mean allowing myself to enjoy the reading for my class for an hour, instead of trying to cram as much reading into that period as possible. Or it could mean spending an extra 20 minutes at breakfast when you wrote on your schedule that you wanted to start working at 8:00, but one of your good friends showed up and you enjoy their company. As a student, there is a lot of work to be done, and pressure to do it all as quickly and efficiently as possible. But sometimes it gets me trapped in this bubble of isolation. When I need to move so quickly, it makes me feel like I don’t have time for the things and people I care about, which makes me feel very lonely. So sometimes it’s helpful for me to slow down for a minute and enjoy what’s around me, and then I can begin to feel more connected.
Loneliness is not easy to admit, or to combat. It’s not something that just goes away one day and never comes back. It’s something I work on every day, and I Iearn how to better take care of myself and other people through the loneliness that I work through. I hope it helps to know that other people feel this way, too.
