When we are lonely we not only react more intensely to the negatives; we also experience less of a soothing uplift from the positives. Even when we succeed in eliciting nurturing support from a friend or a loved one, if we are feeling lonely we tend to perceive the exchange as less fulfilling than we had hoped it would be.

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection

While the objective in going to certain bars and dance clubs appears to be getting drunk and hooking up, how many of the people crowding in are actually driven by a deeper craving for human connection that they simply don’t know how to pursue?  That they might fail to find truly satisfying connection amid blaring noise and shouted conversation—often interrupted by someone’s cell phone—is not entirely surprising.  Unfortunately, their failure to find what they need then makes them all the more susceptible to the slightly out of control behavior that often begins in bars and dance clubs.

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection

“Introverts don’t get lonely if they don’t socialize with a lot of people, but we do get lonely if we don’t have intimate interactions on a regular basis.”

—Sophia Dembling, The Introvert’s Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World

Whenever you feel lonely, do you ever stop to think that your heart is calling out to God, who is its creator? Or do you think God places that feeling to get you to talk with Him?

whiskeyismylover

I began to realize it wasn’t those quiet moments alone in my apartment that I dreaded, it’s that moment on Monday morning when my coworker asks what I did over the weekend.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Spending Time Alone on Weekends

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

Being alone can be the most empowering experience of your life. If you let the loneliness consume you, you’re going to lose that rare chance to figure yourself out. You can always find company in yourself. Loneliness is going to try to force you to find that company with another person. Everyone has a place in the world, though, and yours shouldn’t be inside someone else.

The Difference Between Being Alone And Being Lonely

“The greatest paralysis – the greatest form of being paralyzed – is loneliness.”

—Fr. Daniel Fanous

I kept noticing a self-help cliché that people say to each other all the time, and share on Facebook incessantly. We say to each other: “Nobody can help you except you.” It made me realize: we haven’t just started doing things alone more, in every decade since the 1930s. We have started to believe that doing things alone is the natural state of human beings, and the only way to advance. We have begun to think: I will look after myself, and everybody else should look after themselves, as individuals. Nobody can help you but you. Nobody can help me but me. These ideas now run so deep in our culture that we even offer them as feel-good bromides to people who feel down—as if it will lift them up. But John has proven that this is a denial of human history, and a denial of human nature. It leads us to misunderstand our most basic instincts. And this approach to life makes us feel terrible.

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions