Book #13 - Lonely, A Memoir

One afternoon while playing around on the piano, my daughter Kate (7) walked up to me, head down, shoulders slumped, crying softly. 

“I’m having a problem with my homework.”

Stepping away from the piano, I walked into the kitchen and picked up a page of her 1^st grade homework that read,

“Write a constructed response to the statement:  Friendship is important because________.”  Kate had written in large, bold pencil down the center of the page:

“I do not have any friends in my class!”

My heart sank.  Kate put her head in my lap and cried.  I’ve had many conversations with Kate about school friends.  I often ask who she sits with at lunch or who she plays with at recess.  I know the girls she likes and the boys she thinks are annoying.  Sadly, I know that sometimes at school Kate feels lonely.

In the book Lonely, a Memoir, author Emily White attempts to bring attention to an experience  she believes most people dismiss:  loneliness.  In her childhood, White spent a lot of time home alone.  Into her twenties, White suspected she would never marry, never have kids, and always be lonely.  A former lawyer and zealously analytical, White decides to study every aspect of loneliness.   She tries to find the answers to questions like:

Is loneliness an ailment or a flaw?

What’s the difference between loneliness and depression?

How is loneliness cured?

White starts a blog for lonely people, conducts a study, and ultimately writes a memoir of her experiences and findings.

Someone suffering with chronic loneliness would probably find this book deeply comforting.  For the non-lonely, it’s a long, difficult read.  White takes you through 263 pages of analysis, studies, and commentary before she hints at any solutions.  I reluctantly stuck with the book to the end mainly because the topic of loneliness seemed relevant to my study of friendship.

This book made me reflect on times in my life where I’ve felt lonely.  I can easily recall the houses, apartments, and bedrooms where I sat alone, the various model cars I drove around a new town alone, and the anxiety of attending social functions alone.  It was hard.  While the obvious solution seems to reach out to other people, White points out, when you feel down, empty, and isolated, motivation is difficult.

The author defines much of what I have experienced as “situational” loneliness.  In situational loneliness, circumstances such as moving, the death of a loved one, or a health crisis have caused a temporary state of isolation.  However, some people, like Emily White, experience “trait loneliness.”   They just always feel left out.  They are not socially backward, unreasonably unattractive, or intentionally anti- social.  In trait loneliness, people feel like their social relationships lack real closeness.

White tries psychotherapy, prescription drugs, herbal remedies, and self-hypnosis.  She takes art classes, volunteers at a soup kitchen, and spends a week cycling with a group of young, educated, professional women like herself.   For White, none of the remedies proved to be a cure.  Some even made the loneliness worse.  White believes that forcing a lonely person into social situations and “getting out there” is not the cure to loneliness.

I disagree.

While I sympathize with White’s analytical method of coping, I found myself wondering,  

“Is her loneliness really just an unhealthy preoccupation with herself?” 

Marinating for years in the “why is this happening to me” phase of a challenge is an uncomfortable place to be.   I know.  I've been there.  However, I’m not sure if it’s a wise course of existence to wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and ask,

“Am I happy?”

It’s a reasonable human question, but for me, infinite introspection is a certain course to misery.  Focusing your energy on other people is a valuable principle of life I call the “Blessing of Distraction.”  When you are busy getting to know other people, inviting them into your life, and actively seeking to relieve the burdens of others, by default, you become distracted from your own problems.

Despite her opinions to the contrary, after four years of painful, emotional struggles, White reluctantly joins a basketball team, makes some friends, falls in love, and slowly emerges from her loneliness. 

A few wildly gregarious exceptions aside, I think most people have to work at friendship if they want it.  That’s what I explained to Kate.  Sometimes, you have to test people out to see if you’re a match.  In the end, working at friendship, the successes, rejections, quarrels, mishaps, foot-in-mouth episodes, is completely worth it.  This world is full of some absolutely amazing people and sometimes it takes a little work to find them.

I asked my husband,

“If one of your friends told you he was lonely, what would you say?”

My kind, good-hearted man replied,

“I would say, ‘How can I help?’”

That’s the cure to loneliness.