There are three kinds of lonely — and I don’t know which this is

By David McElroy · December 19, 2020

I enjoy being alone. There are plenty of times when silence is my friend and other humans around me feel like an intrusion.

But there are times — such as right now for me — when I feel lonely enough that the silence is deafening and the empty space around me feels like a dark and dangerous pit into which I could fall.

There are people I could be with tonight. I could join groups in public. I could spend time with other people in private. But there’s nothing available to me that can put a dent into this terrible emptiness. And that’s hard to explain to others.

There are at least three kinds of loneliness — and I’m not certain which one applies to me tonight. I don’t know whether I can be honest with myself. Or with you.

One is the loneliness of a person who simply craves the companionship of other human beings. I’ve felt that way before, but it’s the easiest to solve. When I feel that way, I can solve it in a dozen different ways. I can see a friend. I can even drop by a restaurant where I know people.

The second is the loneliness for a specific person who isn’t there. I dealt with that in agonizing ways for much of the last six years. I’ve talked about it before, so there’s nothing new to say here.

The third kind of loneliness is for an unknown person — or even multiple people — to fill a specific role. For me, that’s the kind that comes when the gap between the life I imagine — in the emotional sense — is the greatest from the life of love and warmth I imagine for myself.

When something hurts, it’s hard to put labels on it. It’s hard to talk to other people about it. It’s hard to find rational words to define feelings that make my heart feel pain. I can tell you it hurts. I can tell you where my thoughts turn. But I can’t say — not for sure — where it started.

I know it’s not the first kind of lonely. The idea of spending time around most people is far worse than the notion of being alone. I don’t need random human interaction, either from friends or from strangers. I wouldn’t be good company for such routine and shallow interaction tonight.

I know what I want my life to look like. I can picture who I would like to be there. For a long time, I had a specific woman who was part of that picture. I wanted a life with her. I wanted a family with her. I just wanted a normal and loving and emotionally healthy life centered around her.

But then I lost faith in her. I stopped trusting her. I gave up on the words she had said that I had clung to like a drowning man clings to a life raft. She wasn’t going to be there. She wasn’t going to be good for me. I finally accepted that.

So I’m back to that gaping difference between what my life is and what I need it to be. Although I wouldn’t mind being wealthy or famous or successful in a dozen different ways, none of those are related to what I’m talking about.

I imagine someone who loves me. Who wants me. Who believes in me. Who has chosen to build her life with me. I imagine someone who I love and need and trust enough to build my life around her. Someone who I can serve. Someone I can devote myself to — in an effort to make her feel loved and appreciated and valued.

The idea of having that sort of mutual relationship with someone makes me feel right. It instinctively feels like the truth of the life I still want to live. The life that would be worth living.

I’m not a good match for most women — and most women aren’t a good match for me. If I just wanted anybody, that would be easy to change quickly. But the only thing that sounds worse to me than whatever it is I’m feeling tonight is the idea of being stuck with the wrong partner.

I can’t say exactly which kind of loneliness this is tonight. Even though I can try to make it rational — so I can attempt to explain it to you — I don’t have the words for what my heart feels.

But I know I’m lonely. And I know it hurts.

Share on Social Networks

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

Related Posts