Living now in a small farming town in New England after being a global nomad all my life, I realize that lots of Americans have had that stable interconnectedness of community that I never experienced in cities and suburbs. Town government, church, volunteer Fire & Rescue, annual festivals etc all require hours of interaction with fellow townsfolk. A barn fire or loose animal rallies neighbors' help and covered dishes are brought to the sick or grieving. Problem is, not many people under 70 are carrying on any of this. The younger generations have moved out or do not participate. It took a few years but now I know that behind the Norman Rockwell scenes, a lot of these folks despise each other. They smooth things over and show up to the raffle or the funeral anyway because of a sense of duty and fear of social censure, sentiments lost in more individualistic, anonymous cities and suburbs. I admit to plunging in as a newcomer only to find that the busybodies who run everything want my labor, but have their own friend and family circles and are not open to outsiders for close friendships. They bonded long ago over babies and can't understand my life. Conformity seems to be the entry fee for most communities, always a challenge for free thinkers. No tidy lesson I'm afraid, just another perspective on the struggle for connection in our atomized times. Thanks for your thought provoking piece!
This was so relatable. And having it put so poignantly makes me realize Iām not the only one who is experiencing this - which then gives me the encouragement to work through the apathy and try to rekindle connection. Thank you.
I canāt tell you how timely this newsletter is for me. Today is my birthday and I turn 29 in a new-ish city in a foreign country, craving that low-stakes intimacy you speak of. But on the other hand, I find it incredibly hard to let people in because of the fear of rejection, which is very real. Iāve been crying for days about how lonely I feel about a day thatās supposed to be all about me. So thank you for helping me feel a little less lonely!
Absolutely loved this! You got me at the end with āI miss the adult version of playing out on the streetsā. I never thought about it like that. But I recently deleted my IG and have been focusing more on the grounded relationships that I have, and I find I have more desire to ask the smaller details about a friendās life. I want their depth. And I want them to want mine.
Fascinating and concerning post. My wife and I are 75 and disabled. She was disabled at 16, me at 52. She has no close friends, always obsessed with hiding her disability. I have an abundance of them, though mostly can only communicate with them virtually, indeed via email ot text since I have severe hearing issues. But we both āplayed in the streetā as kids, and there was a time before we moved that we both had close friends we saw often and shared our lives with in numerous ways.
We have a network now of friends in the form of my wifeās wonderful extended family here and our church. An atheist for over half a century, I was called to Greek Orthodoxy five years ago. (I am a white make of Southern U.S. Anglo-Saxon ancestry, not remotely Greek, though my wife is Greek Orthodox but had not been active out of respect for my atheism). So our parish has become another source of budding real friendships, where people do the casual things you mentionādrop by for coffee, help each other out with their kids or emergencies or fixing a gutter on their house. Our church covers a huge age group, from infants to oldsters, with a surprising number of Millenials.
I think joining something, a church, a volunteer group, a book club, some other affinity group where you live, is a great way to find and develop real friendships. It takes commitment but the human connections are worth it. Limiting non-essential screen time helps too. Meaning social media, TV and other world ānewsā which is designed to agitate, anger and annoy us. Not sticking your head in the sand, because our world is a mess and needs our help, but not letting all the badness overwhelm you or paralyze you in terms of getting involved in the real world.
A final note from an old codger to you Millennials. A number of our Millenial relatives are afflicted with what I will call chronic sensitivity, alert to every imaginable slight in perceived gender or racial references and a variety of other āmicro aggressionsā and ātrigger wordsā. Yes, some things people say are rude, uncaring-seeming, even bigoted. More often they are unconscious, a reflection of their upbringing, even a joke. To relate to real people you need a bit of a thick skin or you will lose valuable relationships over what are, bluntly, trivial things. Accept imperfection, recognizing the old adage that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I have many differences, especially political, with friends and loved ones. We accept that, because life is more than that. Being there for one another is what counts and keeps friendships going. Like anything else worthwhile, it takes some work and a good deal of judgment.
I hope this is of help to some of you. Negotiating life today is infinitely harder than when I was the age of your average Millennial, and technology is largely to blame, nor did the pandemic help. Do not let those things deprive you of the rich life we humans, as social beings, can and should have. All the best to all of you.
I could not have related to this more. I live in South East London and when I became pregnant, so many people from outside of London responded with 'I wouldn't want to raise a baby in London.' I live on a terraced street and even before having my baby, there's a sense of 'playing in the street' because we're all in such close quarters to each other. We joined an NCT group (parenting classes) and the group of eight couples have now formed such an integral community for me--honestly a lifeline--especially in the newborn days. I've never been able to make plans so spontaneously. This compounded when we had a devastating flood a few months ago and had to move out - we've lived in three of our friends houses, all with small babies. I cannot imagine calling on help like this before. I felt great friction in asking for help, even when it was freely offered, but it made me realise how often I avoid it and as such, avoid a real sense of understanding and belonging within a community.
Iām going to need to read this again. And again. Because you have perfectly described what has been like an itch for years now that I cannot seem to reach. There are so many layers to this, too many to put in the comment section but here is a prime example. I have long time friends who it is impossible to get a phone call with, never mind meeting in person. We are scheduling our calls, yet they wonāt hesitate to sit and have deep life conversations with me over text for an hour. And it was so great to catch up, love you, xxoo afterwards. This leaves me feeling a bit sad sometimes afterwards... and never quite satisfied. I miss my people!
Holy moly this is a great article. Hits home in so many ways.
There is one other phenomenon Iād add, though I certainly canāt express it as eloquently as this author, so Iāll just puke it out without editing.
Itās something to do with the combination of polarization of ideas, the lost ability to discuss nuance and the social consequences of not saying quite the right thing, or even saying the right thing in not quite the right way.
Real life exists in nuance and exceptions, and the only way to understand it is to explore confusing things in a genuinely safe discussion. You canāt do this if youāre worried that the unformed opinion that youāre trying to form is going to get your friendship cancelled.
Worse still, as the author touches on, we are expected to navigate this while grappling with issues that maybe our brains were not designed to. Our parents had to discuss local issues within a community they knew, or global global issues with local friends. They were not expected to have a perfectly formed opinion about remote local issues like who can or canāt use which bathroom in a small town thousands of miles away.
One result is that I never feel I can have a lean-back relaxed, cathartic conversation with anyone that I havenāt already known for 20 years.
This makes social engagements with new friends stressful, lean forward, cognitively taxing affairs that are rarely restorative. So the opportunity to have such a chat ends up being less appealing staying at home alone with a device, and so the cycle continues...
This was so good for many reasons. I had my second right at the beginning of the pandemic and am an introvert. I actually felt good for a while, but then I began to struggle with identity, missing out feelings, and even lost how to carry a conversation well. It was then I realized the normal parts of life that mattered to my social life were dramatically distorted and lost. We live in a small tourist town on the shore of Michigan. Itās booming with new people mostly mid-30 to 40s moving here now. Now that the pandemic has faded into the distance the connecting has returned but almost too much. We have a tight knit community here and I have realized how amazing it is now that it felt lost in the pandemic. I joined some small groups of things like a cohort about farm/climate minded work and a writing group. We also have made many neighbor intergenerational friends and they are some of the most important parts of social life and other friends I have say the same.
I started making a point after the pandemic to be more curious about people the way I wanted people to be curious about me. I asked questions I wanted to talk about other than the weather for instance. As an introvert I desire and need deep conversations. I have met and connected with so many people at places like the farm market and even school drop off. Being curious is underrated in building connection is something I have learned even just this last year.
As an older reader, I would just like to encourage youngers to persevere. True friendship is founded on shared experience and history, both of which take time and some of those shared experiences will be challenging! Sometimes you have to just keep showing up.
This struck such a chord with me. My husband and I recently moved because I desperately wanted to interact with people more regularly. In our new home I know the mail man's name, my building manager's name. I interact with my local barista. I strike up random conversations with people at the grocery store. All things that felt unwelcome where we moved from. It feels like such a relief.
I've also been having a thought that I'll probably write about at some point, but it's given me some hope when mulling it over in my brain. In the world of late capitalism where branding ourselves and needing to constantly be selling ourselves exist, there are obvious pitfalls (many of which you've pointed out in your essay). But I think eventually we'll get to a point where it will start to circle back to how things used to be where there was one local tailor, your town blacksmith, the community "healer" or therapist, etc etc. It will just look different with different roles (website developer, social media manager, yoga teacher, etc). As you've pointed out through Bill McKibben's words, we'll eventually return back to creating smaller groups where we are valued for the gifts we have to give to our people. And in this way, friendships will begin to look very different. It's easy to get in a doom and gloom mentality around the self-branding I see out in the world today, but I'm hopeful that we will all find our communities where we are valued for the thing we are promoting about ourselves and feel fulfilled and purposeful.
I just ran across this and signed up to receive your newsletter. I really enjoyed this and you are an excellent writer. Iām an outlier here, as Iām 76. But much of what you say, I can still relate to and itās not much different than we all feel, no matter our age. But there are differences and you will feel them change as the decades go by. My life became calmer, less hectic once I retired and more time to spend on the things you love and the value of a few friendships over many. Iām also a widow and with that, came a freedom to develop who I really am.
I'm 80. Looking back, the "friends" count has shrunk continuously from say high school. I'm down to 2 "friends", known for over 50 years. They're mostly internet connections now. The fact is, "friends" are not important, only family is. Even family must bow to the ultimate truth, we are alone in life. It's you, and only you. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
A wonderful outline of how "social isolation" is somewhat self-designed by ourselves. As an extremely driven individual that wanted so badly to be in the professional fields of science, human performance, health and wellbeing, and sports, I have chased that over everything else way too much.
This meant going to many different countries, sacrificing a lot of "friend" time for personal development, internships, and much more. Yet, I finally came around back to my childhood friends, and although I live in New Zealand, while they are in Germany, I cannot underestimate their value. This is also what made me realise that I am exactly in that boat of "30+ and hard to make new connections".
Our social wellbeing is such a crucial part of our fundamental health that we need to happen every single day - yet, we do not really understand the value of even the smallest interactions. As someone who grew up in Germany, where it is said "German do not do small talk" (and I think this extends to the all generations world wide post gen-x unfortunately), I am also guilty of completely ignoring these type of interactions - hell, even feeling "uncomfortable" about them.
Yet, the science on this is outrageously clear: even the smallest interactions, the simplest gestures, the most basic social connections, are massively beneficial for our social health. And from there, you can then "build" that muscle again, and grow more in-depth relations. Start with asking "how is your day going?", and have a conversation.
At first I thought āThank God itās not just me.ā Then I was stricken with the next thought āOh God itās worse than I thought.ā I have lived in Colorado Springs since 2014 and Iāve yet to make a single friend. Itās not like Iām unable to make friends. Iāve had great friends over my entire life. But not here, not now. At the age of 71, single by divorce it has become seriously lonely for me. I was lonely in my marriage but I was confident that I would be meeting new women who would be articulate, funny and curious. Two years later Iām no closer to being in a friendship. I can and do quite a lot of things by myself and enjoy the interactions I have with other women. But coffee dates or a meal out are not fun by myself. At least now I see the problem is bigger than I ever imagined.
Youāre so right, loved reading your post...unfortunately, there is a general loss of kindness, caring, boundaries accentuated by the fact that people became very self-centered, almost selfish. I generalize because that is what I generally notice around me wherever I go. I mostly have professional friendships, real ones at least on the surface...but we need to live with purpose, help people and reach out to them, put boundaries to what takes us away from connecting with them, basically lead the way...and they will notice...keep trying to schedule the coffee time or the walk...until it happens...hopefully...thatās what I try to do and insist to make it happen.
Living now in a small farming town in New England after being a global nomad all my life, I realize that lots of Americans have had that stable interconnectedness of community that I never experienced in cities and suburbs. Town government, church, volunteer Fire & Rescue, annual festivals etc all require hours of interaction with fellow townsfolk. A barn fire or loose animal rallies neighbors' help and covered dishes are brought to the sick or grieving. Problem is, not many people under 70 are carrying on any of this. The younger generations have moved out or do not participate. It took a few years but now I know that behind the Norman Rockwell scenes, a lot of these folks despise each other. They smooth things over and show up to the raffle or the funeral anyway because of a sense of duty and fear of social censure, sentiments lost in more individualistic, anonymous cities and suburbs. I admit to plunging in as a newcomer only to find that the busybodies who run everything want my labor, but have their own friend and family circles and are not open to outsiders for close friendships. They bonded long ago over babies and can't understand my life. Conformity seems to be the entry fee for most communities, always a challenge for free thinkers. No tidy lesson I'm afraid, just another perspective on the struggle for connection in our atomized times. Thanks for your thought provoking piece!
This was so relatable. And having it put so poignantly makes me realize Iām not the only one who is experiencing this - which then gives me the encouragement to work through the apathy and try to rekindle connection. Thank you.
I canāt tell you how timely this newsletter is for me. Today is my birthday and I turn 29 in a new-ish city in a foreign country, craving that low-stakes intimacy you speak of. But on the other hand, I find it incredibly hard to let people in because of the fear of rejection, which is very real. Iāve been crying for days about how lonely I feel about a day thatās supposed to be all about me. So thank you for helping me feel a little less lonely!
Absolutely loved this! You got me at the end with āI miss the adult version of playing out on the streetsā. I never thought about it like that. But I recently deleted my IG and have been focusing more on the grounded relationships that I have, and I find I have more desire to ask the smaller details about a friendās life. I want their depth. And I want them to want mine.
Fascinating and concerning post. My wife and I are 75 and disabled. She was disabled at 16, me at 52. She has no close friends, always obsessed with hiding her disability. I have an abundance of them, though mostly can only communicate with them virtually, indeed via email ot text since I have severe hearing issues. But we both āplayed in the streetā as kids, and there was a time before we moved that we both had close friends we saw often and shared our lives with in numerous ways.
We have a network now of friends in the form of my wifeās wonderful extended family here and our church. An atheist for over half a century, I was called to Greek Orthodoxy five years ago. (I am a white make of Southern U.S. Anglo-Saxon ancestry, not remotely Greek, though my wife is Greek Orthodox but had not been active out of respect for my atheism). So our parish has become another source of budding real friendships, where people do the casual things you mentionādrop by for coffee, help each other out with their kids or emergencies or fixing a gutter on their house. Our church covers a huge age group, from infants to oldsters, with a surprising number of Millenials.
I think joining something, a church, a volunteer group, a book club, some other affinity group where you live, is a great way to find and develop real friendships. It takes commitment but the human connections are worth it. Limiting non-essential screen time helps too. Meaning social media, TV and other world ānewsā which is designed to agitate, anger and annoy us. Not sticking your head in the sand, because our world is a mess and needs our help, but not letting all the badness overwhelm you or paralyze you in terms of getting involved in the real world.
A final note from an old codger to you Millennials. A number of our Millenial relatives are afflicted with what I will call chronic sensitivity, alert to every imaginable slight in perceived gender or racial references and a variety of other āmicro aggressionsā and ātrigger wordsā. Yes, some things people say are rude, uncaring-seeming, even bigoted. More often they are unconscious, a reflection of their upbringing, even a joke. To relate to real people you need a bit of a thick skin or you will lose valuable relationships over what are, bluntly, trivial things. Accept imperfection, recognizing the old adage that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I have many differences, especially political, with friends and loved ones. We accept that, because life is more than that. Being there for one another is what counts and keeps friendships going. Like anything else worthwhile, it takes some work and a good deal of judgment.
I hope this is of help to some of you. Negotiating life today is infinitely harder than when I was the age of your average Millennial, and technology is largely to blame, nor did the pandemic help. Do not let those things deprive you of the rich life we humans, as social beings, can and should have. All the best to all of you.
I could not have related to this more. I live in South East London and when I became pregnant, so many people from outside of London responded with 'I wouldn't want to raise a baby in London.' I live on a terraced street and even before having my baby, there's a sense of 'playing in the street' because we're all in such close quarters to each other. We joined an NCT group (parenting classes) and the group of eight couples have now formed such an integral community for me--honestly a lifeline--especially in the newborn days. I've never been able to make plans so spontaneously. This compounded when we had a devastating flood a few months ago and had to move out - we've lived in three of our friends houses, all with small babies. I cannot imagine calling on help like this before. I felt great friction in asking for help, even when it was freely offered, but it made me realise how often I avoid it and as such, avoid a real sense of understanding and belonging within a community.
Iām going to need to read this again. And again. Because you have perfectly described what has been like an itch for years now that I cannot seem to reach. There are so many layers to this, too many to put in the comment section but here is a prime example. I have long time friends who it is impossible to get a phone call with, never mind meeting in person. We are scheduling our calls, yet they wonāt hesitate to sit and have deep life conversations with me over text for an hour. And it was so great to catch up, love you, xxoo afterwards. This leaves me feeling a bit sad sometimes afterwards... and never quite satisfied. I miss my people!
Thanks for a great read!
Holy moly this is a great article. Hits home in so many ways.
There is one other phenomenon Iād add, though I certainly canāt express it as eloquently as this author, so Iāll just puke it out without editing.
Itās something to do with the combination of polarization of ideas, the lost ability to discuss nuance and the social consequences of not saying quite the right thing, or even saying the right thing in not quite the right way.
Real life exists in nuance and exceptions, and the only way to understand it is to explore confusing things in a genuinely safe discussion. You canāt do this if youāre worried that the unformed opinion that youāre trying to form is going to get your friendship cancelled.
Worse still, as the author touches on, we are expected to navigate this while grappling with issues that maybe our brains were not designed to. Our parents had to discuss local issues within a community they knew, or global global issues with local friends. They were not expected to have a perfectly formed opinion about remote local issues like who can or canāt use which bathroom in a small town thousands of miles away.
One result is that I never feel I can have a lean-back relaxed, cathartic conversation with anyone that I havenāt already known for 20 years.
This makes social engagements with new friends stressful, lean forward, cognitively taxing affairs that are rarely restorative. So the opportunity to have such a chat ends up being less appealing staying at home alone with a device, and so the cycle continues...
This was so good for many reasons. I had my second right at the beginning of the pandemic and am an introvert. I actually felt good for a while, but then I began to struggle with identity, missing out feelings, and even lost how to carry a conversation well. It was then I realized the normal parts of life that mattered to my social life were dramatically distorted and lost. We live in a small tourist town on the shore of Michigan. Itās booming with new people mostly mid-30 to 40s moving here now. Now that the pandemic has faded into the distance the connecting has returned but almost too much. We have a tight knit community here and I have realized how amazing it is now that it felt lost in the pandemic. I joined some small groups of things like a cohort about farm/climate minded work and a writing group. We also have made many neighbor intergenerational friends and they are some of the most important parts of social life and other friends I have say the same.
I started making a point after the pandemic to be more curious about people the way I wanted people to be curious about me. I asked questions I wanted to talk about other than the weather for instance. As an introvert I desire and need deep conversations. I have met and connected with so many people at places like the farm market and even school drop off. Being curious is underrated in building connection is something I have learned even just this last year.
As an older reader, I would just like to encourage youngers to persevere. True friendship is founded on shared experience and history, both of which take time and some of those shared experiences will be challenging! Sometimes you have to just keep showing up.
This struck such a chord with me. My husband and I recently moved because I desperately wanted to interact with people more regularly. In our new home I know the mail man's name, my building manager's name. I interact with my local barista. I strike up random conversations with people at the grocery store. All things that felt unwelcome where we moved from. It feels like such a relief.
I've also been having a thought that I'll probably write about at some point, but it's given me some hope when mulling it over in my brain. In the world of late capitalism where branding ourselves and needing to constantly be selling ourselves exist, there are obvious pitfalls (many of which you've pointed out in your essay). But I think eventually we'll get to a point where it will start to circle back to how things used to be where there was one local tailor, your town blacksmith, the community "healer" or therapist, etc etc. It will just look different with different roles (website developer, social media manager, yoga teacher, etc). As you've pointed out through Bill McKibben's words, we'll eventually return back to creating smaller groups where we are valued for the gifts we have to give to our people. And in this way, friendships will begin to look very different. It's easy to get in a doom and gloom mentality around the self-branding I see out in the world today, but I'm hopeful that we will all find our communities where we are valued for the thing we are promoting about ourselves and feel fulfilled and purposeful.
I just ran across this and signed up to receive your newsletter. I really enjoyed this and you are an excellent writer. Iām an outlier here, as Iām 76. But much of what you say, I can still relate to and itās not much different than we all feel, no matter our age. But there are differences and you will feel them change as the decades go by. My life became calmer, less hectic once I retired and more time to spend on the things you love and the value of a few friendships over many. Iām also a widow and with that, came a freedom to develop who I really am.
I'm 80. Looking back, the "friends" count has shrunk continuously from say high school. I'm down to 2 "friends", known for over 50 years. They're mostly internet connections now. The fact is, "friends" are not important, only family is. Even family must bow to the ultimate truth, we are alone in life. It's you, and only you. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
Bravo!
A wonderful outline of how "social isolation" is somewhat self-designed by ourselves. As an extremely driven individual that wanted so badly to be in the professional fields of science, human performance, health and wellbeing, and sports, I have chased that over everything else way too much.
This meant going to many different countries, sacrificing a lot of "friend" time for personal development, internships, and much more. Yet, I finally came around back to my childhood friends, and although I live in New Zealand, while they are in Germany, I cannot underestimate their value. This is also what made me realise that I am exactly in that boat of "30+ and hard to make new connections".
Our social wellbeing is such a crucial part of our fundamental health that we need to happen every single day - yet, we do not really understand the value of even the smallest interactions. As someone who grew up in Germany, where it is said "German do not do small talk" (and I think this extends to the all generations world wide post gen-x unfortunately), I am also guilty of completely ignoring these type of interactions - hell, even feeling "uncomfortable" about them.
Yet, the science on this is outrageously clear: even the smallest interactions, the simplest gestures, the most basic social connections, are massively beneficial for our social health. And from there, you can then "build" that muscle again, and grow more in-depth relations. Start with asking "how is your day going?", and have a conversation.
At first I thought āThank God itās not just me.ā Then I was stricken with the next thought āOh God itās worse than I thought.ā I have lived in Colorado Springs since 2014 and Iāve yet to make a single friend. Itās not like Iām unable to make friends. Iāve had great friends over my entire life. But not here, not now. At the age of 71, single by divorce it has become seriously lonely for me. I was lonely in my marriage but I was confident that I would be meeting new women who would be articulate, funny and curious. Two years later Iām no closer to being in a friendship. I can and do quite a lot of things by myself and enjoy the interactions I have with other women. But coffee dates or a meal out are not fun by myself. At least now I see the problem is bigger than I ever imagined.
Youāre so right, loved reading your post...unfortunately, there is a general loss of kindness, caring, boundaries accentuated by the fact that people became very self-centered, almost selfish. I generalize because that is what I generally notice around me wherever I go. I mostly have professional friendships, real ones at least on the surface...but we need to live with purpose, help people and reach out to them, put boundaries to what takes us away from connecting with them, basically lead the way...and they will notice...keep trying to schedule the coffee time or the walk...until it happens...hopefully...thatās what I try to do and insist to make it happen.