The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic
We’ve been conditioned to view loneliness as unreasonably scary, dramatic, and negative. It’s time to change that.
On May 1, 2023, I woke up to a news headline I’d been yearning to see for years: We Have Become a Lonely Nation. It’s Time to Fix That. It was a guest article by the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in the New York Times. In it, he announced his new report to tackle the loneliness epidemic, which he later declared a “public health crisis.” News outlets picked it up and ran with it, regurgitating various dramatic aspects of loneliness.
At the time, I felt beyond grateful to see this buzz around loneliness — mostly because I finally felt heard.
You see, I had been experiencing my own little loneliness epidemic. For most of my adult life, I rarely “clicked” with people. Loneliness grew inside me like rampant weeds. But the worst part was that I couldn’t understand my feelings of loneliness. I mean, how the hell are you supposed to identify, let alone voice, a phenomenon that is so stigmatized, so rarely discussed?
Today, loneliness is still a big part of my life. Yet, after many years of feeling lonely, researching, and writing about loneliness, I arrived at a perspective that may seem counterintuitive:
