Is Everyone Eleanor Rigby?

Where are all the not-lonely people?

Deposit

“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

When did everyone become so insanely lonely, and do we have to anchor there? I was introduced to the concept of loneliness through the Beatles’ surprise melancholy hit Eleanor Rigby in fifth-grade music class. We tooted it out of our recorders.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from, all the lonely people, where do they all belong?

Looking back, that’s an intense song for elementary school recorders to pipe out. Did I get that memory wrong? Maybe we played Hot Cross Buns on our recorders, but sang Eleanor Rigby accompanied by a piano.

Doesn’t matter. Because of that introduction, Eleanor Rigby infiltrated my psychic plasma like a virus. That song packed an emotional sucker punch, buzzed like tinnitus, ripped open a scar, and accompanied me for years. I was a sensitive kid. I started to look for lonely people everywhere.

I made eye contact with strangers walking alone, no matter what loony gazes reflected back at me. I see you, I wanted to tell them. You’re not alone. What a chump I was. As if looking back at people sealed their gaping psychological rift.