Loneliness comes in many forms. In many cases, you can be lonely while you’re surrounded by people. Sometimes, you may find yourself in the wrong social settings or with the wrong people who make you feel isolated and alone. And sometimes, the way we move through the world can create loneliness instead of inviting and reinforcing connection.
These dangerous forms of loneliness are often more insidious than just being by yourself. Besides, being by yourself isn’t always a bad thing; it can have many benefits. As such, be wary of these circumstances that can fuel loneliness, even when you’re surrounded by others.
1. Only being valued for what you provide.
Givers are often unappreciated for all of their hard work and sacrifice. Worse still, takers just keep taking and may eventually grow to resent it when a giver can’t meet all of their demands for time, care, and attention.
Not only that, but the relationship will ultimately suffer from a lack of reciprocal care and attention. It’s painful to have your hard work and sacrifice overlooked. What should be seen as a gift of love and effort instead goes unappreciated because there was no real connection there.
As a man, I grew up with the toxic notion that a man’s job was to find a wife and be a provider. What they always left out of that narrative is what happens when you stop providing. What happens if you get injured? Are disabled? Or get sick?
I’ll tell you exactly what happens – the person who only valued you for what you provided disappears. They move on because they never really valued you, the real you, in the first place. They only valued what you can provide. That is a lonely place to be, and a stark realization to have when you’re already low.
2. Only being known for who you used to be.
People are supposed to change with time. As you learn new things and grow, your attitudes and opinions should shift with that new information. You may choose a new direction for yourself or your life. You may change up your style, personality, or break bad habits that were holding you back. Unfortunately, not everyone is so forward-thinking or accepting of this.
Some people will cling to this past image of you, an image they can understand or accept. Consider the woman who decides that she’s tired of being a people-pleaser and being taken advantage of. Once she stops being agreeable, she’s going to find that several people drift away. She’ll probably get messages like, “I liked you much better before.” That just means she was not valued for who she is, only for what she can do.
The same goes for things like improving your health or breaking bad habits. Those who still have those habits or who aren’t looking to improve their health will likely cling to your old ways, maybe even trying to encourage you to slip up because they “don’t get you” anymore. Or it may be that they don’t want to get you, since that would involve them looking at their own behaviors too. That can be a pretty lonely place to be.
3. Being perpetually misunderstood.
This is a more pervasive problem than many people realize. Consider the black sheep of a family. When I was younger, I would often wonder why that person was an outcast within their family. I grew up in a fairly tight-knit family that loved one another and got along well, despite our differences. I couldn’t understand it because I was seeing the world through my own eyes.
I came to find out later in life that many of those black sheep were “misunderstood” because they spoke up about the bad behavior they were subjected to in their families. There are a lot of people who will make every excuse for the bad behavior of friends and family to forgive them. I can’t tell you how many survivors of child abuse have been subjected to being around their abuser because their family refuses to see their predator for what they are. Instead, the survivor becomes an outcast in their own family.
Of course, being misunderstood happens outside of family situations, too. Sometimes people in your social circle just don’t understand you because you’re different from them, and they aren’t willing or able to connect with you across those differences. That can be one of the loneliest places to be, especially when you’re desperate for connection.
The unfortunate reality is that sometimes you can’t be understood in the group that you’re in, so you have to find or create a new group.
4. Only having superficial conversations.
Superficial conversations are alright when you first start to connect with someone. Personally, I used to be one of those people who didn’t see the value in small talk. What I didn’t realize at the time is that for neurotypical people, small talk is like greasing the wheels of conversation.
It can help the conversation go more smoothly, for you to feel one another out, and then you can progress into a deeper subject. But if you never progress past that small talk, your connections will remain shallow, and that’s a lonely place to be.
It’s building up to the deeper stuff that forms a more intimate connection. I find that after I vibe well with someone, I’ll ask them a question with a bit more substance to see if they want to take it deeper. Something like, “Tell me about something that interests you?” I find that question to be a good bridge.
5. Being the “strong one” that everyone else relies on.
There are few things lonelier than being the strong one. What you come to learn in that position is that people are either extremely emotionally unintelligent or they don’t care about you as much as you care about them. People tend to assume that just because you’re not having a mental breakdown in front of them, that you’re not suffering alone in your mind or doing it behind closed doors.
Instead, they keep heaping expectations on you. Then they ask you idiotic questions like, “Oh, that still bothers you?” or say things like “I thought you’d be over this by now.” When, in reality, you haven’t been making any progress because you’re being crushed by the weight of the load.
6. You are trapped in a role that you can’t get out of.
Many people can only see other people in one role that they hold. For example, one thing I’ve noticed is that once a woman is given the role of “mother,” she is expected to sacrifice everything else about her personality. I’ve been privileged to know several strong women who resented being crammed into that one role once they decided to have children.
All of their other interests are supposed to be put to the side, and their sole focus is supposed to be on their children at that point. That’s a weird way to think. Why would anyone choose to sacrifice their entire sense of self for the rest of their lives to be pigeon-holed into one role? To be unseen as a person? And only seen as a mother?
It happens to men, too, to some degree, but nowhere near the degree it does with motherhood.
7. Being surrounded by people who don’t challenge you to grow.
Life should be about growth. You learn new things, have new experiences, and you should evolve along those lines. Being around people who make you feel safe and comfortable is good, but that can also enable bad behavior. It can stifle personal growth because they aren’t all that interested in growing themselves. Instead, they stagnate, and you stagnate with them.
Life can get incredibly boring if you don’t ever challenge yourself. Not only that, but you may find that you fall behind where you want to be. Sometimes, you just have to look around and decide that you’ve outgrown the situation you’ve been in and choose to take a new direction. If the people around you aren’t interested in growing, then maybe it’s time to find new people to be around.
8. You are performing instead of being vulnerable.
As a person on the autistic spectrum, I have come to understand that my ability to mask is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, in public, I can pass as neurotypical with no one noticing. Any time I’ve revealed that I’m on the spectrum, I’m met with surprise. On the other hand, that’s been a big problem in my personal relationships because masking takes a lot of mental energy.
Not only am I listening to the people around me, but I’m also looking at their body language, listening for their tone of voice. I am controlling and projecting my own body language, ensuring I make eye contact when appropriate, but not for too long. And that’s all well and good when you’re just at work or around people for a few hours.
But in intimate relationships where you’re in close quarters with someone for long periods of time? It’s a much bigger issue because I’m not actually that person. My brain just doesn’t work that way. I don’t speak much, I’m not all that social, and I keep to myself. It’s jarring when I get in a relationship if I have to keep that up, and it can be a lonely place to be.
Final thoughts…
As you can see, there are a lot of different types of loneliness. As Robin Williams’ character once said in the film World’s Greatest Dad, “I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.”
That is such a profound, unfortunately true statement. If you’re surrounded by people who make you feel alone, it’s probably not your fault. You may just be in the wrong group of people. The good news is that there are billions of people in the world. There are people who will love and accept you for who you are.
