Eleanor Rigby

Almost two years ago I wrote a post that was a sad analogy of my own life and today I was told a story that made me realize with great clarity that there are a lot of people in that same situation. What’s more, they are the least deserving of that situation of us all. Sadly, the details of this particular situation are not mine to tell but it did make me think about the complex interactions between people and the reasons why they sometimes fail.

There are a lot of really lonely people in the world who, for whatever reason, just fail to connect with those around them. They find themselves isolated and alone in the world despite the fact that they’re very giving people who have a lot to contribute to the life of another yet nobody comes to their door to accept that gift. Worse than a man in solitary confinement, walking through day-to-day life looking at other people interacting with one another while you feel connected to no one is akin to emotional suffocation. The human animal is a social one and denying them that outlet is as dangerous as withholding food or water. But the question arises, why are people lonely in the first place? How can it be that someone can fail to connect when there are six billion people out there to connect with? Clearly it’s not the fault of the six billion if this connection fails to occur, so the fault, if there is a fault, must lie with the person who is lonely.

It would seem that the underlying causes for failing to connect personally with others fall into three broad categories. The first is simply that the person in question fails to actually make emotional contact with anyone. Typically this is because of some level of shyness or personal reserve. They avoid social situations altogether or when they do, they don’t actually approach anyone. Often this can be caused by low self-worth, the thought “why would anyone want to talk to me?” being a common thread or the idea that others won’t want to be disturbed by whatever they have to say. When someone is repeatedly in social situations and fails to make contact it builds cumulatively and reinforces the idea that their presence and participation is not welcomed or wanted.

The second category is simply a failure to recognize the outreach of others. Social interactions are two-way streets and as much as the shy person may stay couched in their safe corner there are always others in the group who are reaching out. Unfortunately, just because the outreach is made doesn’t mean that it’s recognized as such and reacted to appropriately. Often, if the person is isolated enough emotionally the interaction with someone else may actually come as a huge shock and make it difficult to react to. Like a person awoken suddenly from a deep slumber, it is sometimes hard to shift gears quickly between the sum of one’s inner thoughts and interacting with someone else. By the time this shift occurs, the other person has moved on. The result is one person who becomes even more shy and reserved out of embarrassment and another who won’t reach out again because the results were so poor the first time. Like the first category, this issue is cumulative and over time the results can completely tear down one’s self-esteem.

The third part of the problem is the most complex and the most difficult to remedy. Even in the case that contact has been made and recognized this is no guarantee that any relevant interaction will actually take place. Symptoms of this include the blank stare one receives from a joke that absolutely nobody “got” or long periods of non-participation because the topic at discussion just doesn’t appeal to one person in the group. Often the only cure for this particular ill is to find a different crowd altogether that does share more common interests. Fortunately for the vast majority of people, this isn’t a problem. Given an interest in sports you can have a conversation with just about anyone. Woe though to the non-sports fan. This does, however, bring us to an interesting subset of the problem. In many cases there develops a situation in which the only relevant contact between people happens to revolve around their shared workplace. They can chatter along all day work but any interaction outside of that fades rapidly because there’s just not enough common ground. While work-based interactions can be satisfying to a point, they don’t have the real power of a truly personal connection. They are a starting point rather than an end point.

So now that I’ve blathered on in a most clinical manner for a couple of pages, where does that leave us? What do we do about this or do we even care? What would be lost if some part of the population just stayed off in the corner out of the way and let the rest of us talk about the “big game”? Is it worth fostering relationships of any kind with the oddballs of the world? I leave that question as an exercise to the reader, but personally I’d like to find a few of these people and dig about in their heads for a bit. I find it utterly impossible to talk about sports or video games or lawn care or whatever the plebian masses banter on about for any length of time at all and as a result I don’t tend to make a lot of personal connections with people. The story I was told last night though assures me that they’re out there. The interesting masses live quietly at the fringes of our society and lack only an invitation to dinner. (or perhaps twenty invitations if they’re shy)