Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Lonely is such a common term, one we first hear in childhood and then continue to hear throughout our adult lives. Even Elvis Presley crooned about it with his number one hit, in 1960 with, “Are You Lonesome Tonight”. Do we truly know what loneliness is? Webster’s defines the term loneliness as affected with or causing a depressing feeling of being alone. Huh? Psychology books have described loneliness as social isolation, or the failure to have intimacy in your life. Um okay…
Can People in Relationships Still Be Lonely?
Recently, I spent the day with four girl-friends. Three are married, and one is in a monogamous one-year relationship. All of which are lonely! They all have intimacy in their lives, they would deny that they feel affected by a depressing feeling of being alone, and none of which are socially isolated. Yet, they all described different forms of loneliness in their lives.
“Married Monica” talks of a separation with her family, specifically her siblings and parents. Her parents are aging and have become ill; mentally her parents are no longer the parents she grew up with. She is in the middle of conflict with her siblings.
“Married Stephanie” feels alone in her marriage. She feels like a single parent having lost almost any aspect of romance or passion in her marriage. She often feels alone, even when her husband is around.
“Married Rachael” no longer feels a desire to be intimate with her husband. The marriage is consists of trying to cope with the marriage and family life than with living and enjoying life itself.
“In a relationship Tabitha” has overlooked the idea of marriage and settled for a casual sexual relationship, placing the emphasis on sex and avoiding her deep desire of marriage and commitment.
So how are the women lonely? They are all in a relationship, have friends, engage in social activities with coworkers and friends, and they volunteer. The women would deny Webster’s definition that they are affected by the depressing feeling of being alone, as they are not alone. Loneliness is not the act of being alone, for these women loneliness is a feeling of not feeling connected. The feeling of being connected provides the feeling of happiness and of belonging. Loneliness has denied them the feeling of happiness; however, a feeling of dissatisfaction is identified with more than one of depression.
What is Loneliness Then?
Mary Ellen Copeland, Ph.D. describes loneliness using words like despair, emptiness, hopeless and longing. Copeland also provides a listing of the terms that people use to express loneliness and sites the following as ways to relieve loneliness; work on liking yourself, plan ahead, join a support group, go to meetings/lectures/concerts/readings and other events and activities in your community, volunteer, reconnect with old friends, strengthen your connections with family members, make sure that the relationships you have with others are mutual — that you are there for them as much as they are there for you, and if feelings of loneliness still persist, seek professional advice.
Perhaps loneliness is as minimal as the feeling of being left out of a decision or it can be as complete as being alone and not comfortable being with yourself. Because if nothing else shouldn’t we be comfortable with ourselves?
Loneliness and Mental Health
There are varying degrees of loneliness. Loneliness can be detrimental to our mental and emotional health. The degree of loneliness may have an impact on other aspects of your life both the physical and emotional. John Cacioppo, PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago found that effective interventions are not about providing others with social interaction, providing social support, or teaching social skills. Effective intervention focuses on changing how people who feel lonely perceive, think about, and act toward other people.
As our lives continue to get busier and busier and more gadget integrated, will the sense of loneliness only increase? What about the generation of “TEXTERS” or the “FACEBOOK ADDICTS”? Is the ability to communicate via Facebook, email or by text causing the inability to develop and maintain relationships? These relationships provide people with the capability to fight feelings of loneliness. Whether we decide to get involved or to change the way that we are feeling toward other people, it is essential to our physical and mental health to fight feelings of loneliness. Maybe it is time that we put our gadgets down and reconnect with our friends and family, or we find another activity that sparks an interest and join in.
Related articles
- Why Loneliness Matters (webmd.com)
- Loneliness. Alone. Solitude. (foodforme207.wordpress.com)
- How to Get Rid of The Loneliness (socyberty.com)
- Restless sleeper? You could be feeling lonely (news.bioscholar.com)
- The Roots of Loneliness (Psych Central)
- Easing Your Way Out of Loneliness (Psychology Today)
- Are You Lonely? (Psych Central)
- The Lonely Screams Understanding the Complex World of the Lonely (Psych Central)
In my opinion texting is robbing us of human interaction which I believe is causing this feeling of “loneliness.” We live in a fast-paced society where we have to schedule in time to socialize. With texting we make matters worse, because at times instead of dialing a number and talking to someone, we prefer to send them a message. It seems that though technology advancements are great, our dependency on cellular phones is depriving us of an essential aspect of humans—our interaction with each other.
I believe that at least one time in our lives we experience a sense of being loney. It is a way to express ourselves when we feel that something just isnt right in our lives right now. Human beings need connection whether it is face to face or through technology does not really matter. In fact I believe that technology has given us more ways to reach out to people that we would normally not be able to. I believe that the topic of when is technology enough is when it starts to enable us to reach out to people. Technology isnt always the bad guy. In the end finding ways to connect to people whether it be in a intimate relationship, friends, or family is what will keep us from being lonely. Where we fail is the innability to know how to communicate or realize when we already are. When we enter into a relationship we find excitement and adventure and through time this starts to fade and we forget to talk to eachother, but what we fail to realize is six years down the line, 2.5 children later, mortgages, bills to pay, after school activities, and complete end of the day exhaustion; the ability to stay connected to that one person through all that is not loneliness but in fact the complete opposite and it is something we should not take for granite.
I found this article to be very well written, interesting, and made me think critically. Although I found the characters in the beginning of the article very depressing. I honestly think that there are greater things in their lives that they can concentrate, which will help them pull away from a depressed situation. In other words, thinking optimistic can help them feel better. I read an article by Lyn Abramso , where according to the cognitive perspective ( the way a person thinks), reflects the way people normally explain the event in their lives. I guess what Im trying to say is that why not think positively? It will normally reflect to how people live.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=123&sid=ffcbfdef-4325-4568-a980-db47496f8881%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=psyh&AN=2001-16094-004
Alfredo.
I think that everyone reaches a point of loneliness; in this tough economy people feel like that all the time. I think that in this world, loneliness has become an outlet in many people’s life’s; which has been the cause of many suicides. In addressing your point of how people even though being married for different reasons other than love can cause or lead many of married couple to end up lonely. The cause of technology has destroyed many of married people’s lives, boyfriends, and girlfriends. Do to the cause of Facebook, twitter, text in and emailing is another reason why most people end up lonely. So the cause of technology is what causing people to end up loneliness.
I agree for the most part what your friends are going through, I had it happened to a close friend of mine.
“The cause of technology has destroyed many of married people’s lives, boyfriends, and girlfriends. Do to the cause of Facebook, twitter, text in and emailing is another reason why most people end up lonely.” Can you support this statement?
I found an interesting journal on the implications Facebook has on relationship satisfaction. I requested it a week and a half ago and it was sent to me finally!
http://sequoia.csustan.edu/illiad/illiad.dll?SessionID=Y213229750W&Action=10&Form=75&Value=92817
Please let me know if you cant view the link.
Enjoy!
~Lila~
Good topic, I enjoyed the blog. I noticed the blog focused on females in general, though loneliness in a relationship can affect males also. I think that loneliness has little to do with being with others and more to do with our sense of worth and belonging. As your blog points out many in a relationship feel lonely even with someone. Is it that the relationship has become stagnate or the novelty has worn off? Are we to quick to jump into relationships for fear of being lonely… only to be lonely? I think it is the responsibility of both partners in a relationship to keep things interesting and try avoid loneliness in a relationship.
Todd,
I agree, I think that it is important to maintain independence while in a relationship. I think that when our entire world revolves around only one other person it prevents new and different experiences. For example, my husband and I have a group of friends that we met through our children’s sports activities, we have friends that we do things with as couples, and we also have our own set of friends (from work or hobbies)that we try to get together with also. Granted, we are busy and do not always get to spend a lot of time with our friends, we are able to incorporate all of those people into our lives and it allows us to have a full social life with a variety of different people. However, it also allows us the opportunity to do things that we like to do.
We have seen other couples that only do things with each other, or more often that one spouse will follow the other around. Often that spouse has lower self esteem and tends to lack a sense of belonging, sometimes, it is a stay at home mom that is busy with the kids all the time and has forgotten to take care of herself, forgotten to find things that are enjoyable for her. It can create problems in their relationship.
I don’t think that there is any true set of rules to follow to make a relationship work, but I think that it is important to know that other relationships are important too. I know that there are times that I have been grateful for our friends, if for no other reason they provide us with an outlet, to laugh, to golf, to shop, to gossip, which are all huge stress relievers! They also provide us with the total package. I can’t be everything to my husband all the time, and he can’t be everything to me. I can’t always make him laugh, but we have others in our lives that help us laugh at and with each other! I think that it helps!
Consequently, I think that if you are lonely before you get into a relationship, you will be lonely while you are in the relationship. I feel that it does start with us and ends with us. We have to be content with ourselves to find contentment with others…..