4 Symptoms That Tells You Have FOBA
FOBA — Fear Of Being Alone
FOBA (noun): A feeling of anxiety or emptiness felt when you are either too far away from your family/friends or they are just too busy for you.
Yes, I coined this term on the lines of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and YOLO (You Only Live Once), which are the popular internet jargons to express one’s feeling.
Usually, I believe(d), people who are highly affiliation driven may suffer from FOBA. Theory of Needs proposed by McClelland in 1988 says that humans are motivated by three driving factors — achievement, affiliation or autonomy. People who are affiliation oriented enjoy the company of others, like to be in groups, work collaboratively and despise uncertainty or risk. Being alone is a situation that is a perfect opposite of what they look for.
You could find out your driving factor by attempting this questionnaire. (Note: Do not look at the second page before answering the questions, as it will affect your response and the results may be biased)
Recently, something happened that made me think — it’s not only me who has the fear of being alone but there are other people too. I quickly googled to find out if there is something called ‘FOBA’ — but couldn’t find anything on the first page and I was too lazy to go to the second page.
On finding nothing, I thought, let me pen down some symptoms (listed below) that I feel are not normal, but I suffer from it on usual basis even though I am not affiliation oriented. Wondering what an affiliation oriented person might be going through in similar situation. There is a possibility that my earlier hypothesis is not correct; that all types of people could suffer from FOBA; or no one suffers from FOBA and it’s just a ‘made up term’ to seek attention.
Symptom 1: Skip meals if there is no company
If no one is available to join for lunch/dinner you just skip it. You dread the thought of sitting alone with everyone staring at you while you eat. It reminds me of a F.R.I.E.N.D.S episode where Rachael is trying to have a lunch by herself in a fancy restaurant and all her thoughts are narrated aloud in the background. We go through some similar thoughts on encountering such situation. Although, we know no one actually gives a f**k, our mental block keeps us from eating out alone.
Symptom 2: Text/Call more often than received
You can’t stand having no one to talk to, and start dialing your friend list more often than you receive their calls. Same goes with texts. By doing this, we have at least having some conversation going on, even though meaningless, it helps us feel that we are not alone. I admit I suffer from this symptom and am trying to control it from last few days since I had this realization. Not sure how the people who are on the receiving end of this undesired calls/texts feel, but am hoping some of you will tell me after this.
Symptom 3: Almost never say ‘No’
A colleague asks for a break — its a ‘Yes’ even if you have lots of pending work, a friend asks for a movie — its a ‘Yes’ even though you hate the genre, roommate wants to have chinese — it’s a ‘Yes’ even though you are not a fan of it. You get the gist. FOBA makes us want to fit in. There is a fear that if we do not accept these invitations we are going to end up alone in the room without having anything fun to do.
Symptom 4: Highly active on social media
Your social media activity is much higher than people around you. It could be any social media activity like — you may be sharing lots of memes on Facebook, numerous selfies on Instagram, sarcastic tweets on Twitter, or as in my case, meaningless blogs on Medium. It’s all in the hope to get ‘likes’, ‘attention’ or ‘fake appreciation’. It helps us fill our empty bubble for few hours or a day but the need for affiliation rises again as soon as the post goes to the bottom of the news feed.
I’ve been reading in numerous blogs about how accepting yourself or loving yourself will help you get rid of your fear of being alone (FOBA), but I haven’t able to practice it very well yet. However, I am trying. Hope I will be able to write about that also someday.
PS: This post is straight from the heart and a first step towards self-acceptance.
