Now I see the mystery

Of your loneliness.

— Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

LONELINESS is an emotional state in which a person experiences a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation, of being cut off, disconnected from and alienated towards other people. The lonely person may find it difficult or even impossible to have any form of meaningful human contact. The first recorded use of the word ‘lonely’ was in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. “Believe’t not lightly, though I go alone, like to a lonely dragon, that his fen. Makes fear’d and talk’d of more than seen…”

Now, that’s quite a mouthful defining loneliness, but the sad truth is, many people are lonely – even when they’re immersed in a crowd. Being lonely is really a sad state to be in that can lead to all sorts of emotional and mental issues, sometimes with the person going as far as committing suicide. It really is that powerful.

Our new normal because of this coronavirus has brought even more to the fore how alone and lonely many people are. This new age has resulted in many folks being alone for longer than they’re used to. It’s affecting them very badly.

But even before coronavirus there were people who either chose to be alone or had loneliness thrust upon them. We’ll find out more, right after these responses to ‘Unrequited love’.

Hi Tony,

Having had unrequited crushes in my very young days, I can relate to unrequited love. The best cure is just to ‘rip the band aid off’ and move on. If one fails to move on they will never find true reciprocated love, even if it takes time and several prospects. Staying with someone who does not return the love you have to give, for any reason, is just torturing yourself with no good outcome. As someone once said, “Don’t make someone your everything, if they’ve already made someone else theirs.”

Sharon

Hey Tony,

Unrequited love can be the most hurtful, painful, destructive form of emotional torture that anyone can experience. Ironically I have been both victim and perpetrator of unrequited love. Yes, I have been burnt by the cruel flame and I have inflicted it on someone who loved me deeply. In both cases it was beyond my control, as I couldn’t make the person love me and neither could I force myself to love my then partner. It’s simply one of nature’s cruel games that we have no control over.

Janice

Nobody likes to be alone for an extended period of time. Even people who purport to be loners crave occasional contact with others, even briefly. I had mentioned in a footnote how the COVID-19 lockdown had impacted negatively on people who experienced terrible bouts of loneliness.

“I’m just here stuck in the house for days, not being able to go anywhere or see anybody.”

In prison, one of the worst punishments that an inmate can experience is to be placed in solitary confinement. “No, please, no. Not solitary, I’ll take hard labour instead.”

But even before COVID-19 people have been experiencing loneliness. Now, there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. Being alone is having no one else present. This can be by choice, “I’d rather be alone now, if you don’t mind.”

Being lonely though, is another matter, and is a sad state to be in, as it means having no friends or company. There have been so many songs written about this situation. “ Lonely, I’m so lonely, I have nobody to call my own, oh I’m so lonely, I’m so lonely,” sung by Akon, and “ Hey there lonely girl, lonely girl, let me mend your broken heart like new. Oh my lonely girl, lonely girl, don’t you know this lonely boy loves you,” by Eddie Holman.

Oh, how can we forget Alone Again by Gilbert O’Sullivan. “ My mother, God rest her soul, couldn’t understand why the only man she had ever loved had been taken, leaving her to start with a heart so badly broken…and when she passed away, I cried and cried all day, alone again, naturally.”

Loneliness affects both genders, but I do posit that it impacts more heavily on women than it does men. Quite a significant percentage of our population lives alone, with many being women. Some are seniors who have lost spouses, while others are younger women who just cannot get a man. They really have no choice.

For many men it’s a choice as they relish the cowboy life, while for women it’s often a situation that they have no control over. Many, after experiencing years of loneliness, pull up roots and venture to foreign lands. This usually doesn’t solve the problem, as they’ve left behind whatever small circle of friends they had and now live in the cold, uncaring big city of a foreign land.

Now, they have migrated to foreign shores where their loneliness has reached almost unbearable proportions. I remember speaking to one such lady a few years ago, and her very first words to me on the phone were, “I’m so lonely; really, really lonely.” Sure, they have the job and the nice house, but nothing else, as American big cities can be extremely lonely places, despite the fact that they’re teeming with millions of people. Is it any wonder why those dating sites are so popular?

Sadly, many of these lonely women are outside of the dating bubble, as the years have caught up with them. But I’m not even referring to lonely women looking for love, but women who are simply seeking some sort of interaction with someone, or something, anything. That’s why many of them acquire dogs or cats and get so attached to them, interacting with them as if they’re human.

I know of instances where their telephone answering voice greeting actually said, “Poochie and I aren’t here right now, please leave a message after the beep.” If she neva shame she woulda have said ‘please leave a message after the bark’. That’s a result of extreme loneliness and it’s really tragic.

These women see their daily jobs as more than just work as it gives them an opportunity to be around people during the day, bringing some sort of normality to their lives. But then they have to go home in the evening and face the emptiness of their house that holds no joy except for perhaps the little rat dog that brings some mirth to their melancholy.

For many persons, the prospect of being alone is the worst thing ever. For this reason, many women will tolerate and accommodate men into their lives just to ward off a life of loneliness. Many times their lives are living hell, but they still choose that devil over the deep, dark sea of loneliness.

“Just the thought of being lonely is frightening, I’ll take the crosses any day.”

Do you remember the phrase, “Better to be alone than to be badly accompanied?” Well, many women throw that out the window and will opt for a man, any man, to fill their void.

But even in relationships people are lonely, and there are many couples who are physically together, even married for years, but are experiencing a loneliness that burns to the core. It was the late Robin Williams, American actor and comedian, who said, “I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.”

Robin committed suicide.

Being alone isn’t all bad though, for there are people who actually relish their solitude. Just recently I heard this elderly lady on a radio call-in show telling the host that she has lived alone for years now and wouldn’t have it any other way. She wants no man to come and complicate her life, she concluded.

She’s a good example of being alone but not experiencing loneliness. Being alone can have its benefits as it gives time to reflect and get your thoughts together. It was Winnie the Pooh who said, “Sometimes I sits and I thinks, sometimes I just sits.” Neal Cassady took it further by saying, “Sometimes I sits and I thinks, other times I sits and drinks, but mostly I just sits.”

What’s devastating though, is abject loneliness, which can tear out the soul of many people. I focused mostly on women and their loneliness only because lonely women are at a distinct disadvantage. A lonely man can easily hit the road and seek companionship, even if it means going to the corner bar every night.

A lonely woman has no such luxury and that’s why loneliness often weighs so heavily on them. Loneliness can be a curse.

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: Footballer Junior Flemings, who plies his trade in the USA soccer league, has found himself in a spot of bother as he’s been accused of uttering homophobic epithets to an opposing player. He’s been suspended for six games and has to pay a hefty fine. Ironically, he won the Golden Boot for being the leading goalscorer. What’s bewildering to me is that the recipient of the Jamaican verbal phrase is an American player who is openly gay and admitted this publicly. So why take offence? If someone called me ‘P_ _ _y bwoy,’ or ‘P_m p_m bwoy’, I would not be offended. But I tell you, gays are ultra sensitive and that’s why I do not broach that subject. Many years ago I was cussed out by members of the gay community for a column I wrote. That being said, our athletes must learn cultural differences and that the gays in the USA are extremely powerful, so please do not step on their rights.