Healing Space | Live a lateral, less lonely life

Finding new groups helps you build a variety of communities around you, each at differing levels of social intimacy. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Note to readers: Healing Space is a weekly series that helps you dive into your mental health and take charge of your wellbeing through practical DIY self-care methods.

South Korea, after countries like Japan, the UK and Denmark, has been mulling combatting loneliness at the governmental level. One in three South Koreans live alone, recent research has found. A recent study of loneliness amongst household heads in Mumbai found a 7 percent prevalence of chronic loneliness and 21 percent reported feeling lonely sometimes. Recent research by the International Longevity Centre, Pune, also found loneliness rising among those above the age of 55. Kaamna Chhibber and Samir Parikh’s book Alone In the Crowd is a great overview on loneliness in urban living, how it evolves and how to counter it. Among other things, going inward and listening to your body’s signals on stress and anxiety, are important changes to make.

However, here’s the thing, the solutions to loneliness rarely come when we are already feeling the isolation of the loneliness. We have to build in solutions to prevent it from creeping up on us. While a certain amount of loneliness is built into our daily lives no matter how well-connected we are, looming isolation that comes with specific life events, such as empty nesting, or retirement, mid-life slumps, the post-divorce phenomenon of losing couple friends, can be warded off by building a more lateral life consciously.

In order to do this, we need to first recognize that we each have the potential to be lonely. While we may have a lot of activities, from work to family to socializing, at some point, our work becomes more routine, friends relocate, marry, get busy in their own lives, and we lose family members, connections as life goes on. We will all face the dip at some point. Loneliness is not a personal failing. It does not mean that you have not lived well, or are not loved. It is a part of growing up. When we’re younger we just call it ‘being bored’. When we are able to accept this inevitability of loneliness, we can become comfortable enough to ask for help with it. Often, we hide our loneliness, avoiding updating our social media, calling friends on a weekend, because we would rather let them think that we have been busy. We don’t want to ask if people want to hang out because they will assume we don’t have anyone else to be with. When we see that loneliness can happen to anyone, even in a crowd, even people with family around them, even very well connected people, we understand that it’s okay to reach out when we are lonely.

Often, we fall into loneliness because we have expectations about who will alleviate our loneliness. We are looking for deep emotional bonds when impersonal companionship will do. We believe we can watch a movie only with our partners, but they are busy with work. We used to go as a family but now the kids watch movies with their friends. The group of friends we usually have brunch or dinner with are travelling. Or worse, you’ve become lonely in the routine long-standing relationships you have. It’s important to release expectations of the kind of people you want to associate with. While old friends and family are great, it also places a burden of expectation on them that can sometimes become unfair. Dispersing expectations of social fulfilment widely allows you to choose what fulfils you instead of what you ought to do. If the same old Saturday night hang out feels pretentious now, feel free to join a film club.

New friends lend you a different kind of association. Maybe they are just people to watch films or read books with. Everyone doesn’t have to be a best buddy who knows your deepest darkest secrets, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be around, supportive, and interesting. Sometimes the people whom you love the most don’t get your need for company. That’s okay. Different people relate in different ways. Once you let go of the expectation of deep friendship as a requirement to alleviate loneliness, you can try to enjoy the associations you do have access to. You might find a neighbour a willing morning walk companion. You might find a group, like a running club, or a gardening group, is a great stress buster. Sometimes the impersonal association allows us to dissolve our loneliness for a while. You don’t always have to know the people, or even the skill, required for a class. From baking to football to Korean drama, getting out and about can give you a range of people to share interests with. Finding excuses to bond, finding new groups, helps you build a variety of communities around you, each at differing levels of social intimacy.

Curating your time and interests such that you remain connected in various ways broadens your connections, but also allows you to keep discovering new interests and express emotion through them. A group that supports your team in a match is a great bonding spirit, even when impersonal. You could suggest your workplace or housing society has a screen for the match in the garden, or a local bar, where it could become a group event.

Living laterally also satisfies a need for people that then allows you to enjoy your alone time much more. Living expansively, widely, rather than narrowly offers you a range of solutions for your life that will be in place when you need them most. Sunday morning football may not mean everything to you now, but one day when you’re feeling a bit low and someone calls you to come play or referee, even when they can’t see your loneliness, it will mean a whole lot more.

Building in loneliness counter-measures

1. Release one or few people, a partner, or family, from being responsible for your loneliness.

2. Recognise that even the most well-connected people experience loneliness, it’s not personal, it’s not a measure of social failure.

3. Give yourself permission to reach out and connect when you need it.

4. Find a variety of groups, however impersonal, that you will be able to connect with when you need to.

5. Build in routines, participate in various forms of community, however impersonal.