We’re living in lonely bubbles and it’s bad for our health

All we’re ever connected to is the internet or our phones,

I’m 42 years old and I have one friend who lives in Toronto and I know I’m not alone. It’s just me most of the time and yes, I’m very lonely, but the numbers don’t lie.

Data from Statistics Canada shows that six per cent of Canadian adults report having zero close friends.

I read ad after ad on Kijiji, saying “I can’t believe how hard it is to meet friends” or “meeting friends is impossible.” And it is.

We live our lives almost entirely in social bubbles. We only talk when necessary. We barely even know our neighbours, and living in a condo or townhouse won’t matter. I walk to my car in my condo parking lot and say hi to others and they just remain silent, looking lost in their problems. Maybe — just maybe — I’ll get a nod or a wave, but it’s ever so reluctant.

We are a generation that doesn’t acknowledge others, our problems and stress buzzing so loudly in our heads, we have no time for any other noise. We squeeze past people in crowded store aisles, often not even saying excuse me or sorry. We tailgate the heck out of people and feel no shame at being a menace on wheels.

And I notice pedestrians are getting pompous: gone is the “thank you” wave that used to be obligatory when crossing in front of a car. Now it’s “who cares, I’ve got to get going and I don’t know that person.”

We have lost what it means to have connection because all we’re ever connected to is the internet or our devices. We just don’t want to get involved, don’t want to to get into a conversation with some rogue person in a grocery store. Because who starts up a convo in the grocery store? I do, well, short ones, about a product or a price or I tell someone where to find what they’re looking for — but I’m one of those strange people who tries to break social bubbles by being bubbly.

But bubbly scares the hell out of people.

We’re adults yet we’re still following the old adage of “don’t talk to strangers.” You have enough texts to reply to, enough expectations to meet, enough bills to pay and life only gets harder and you don’t need to add another friend to add to the mess.

But every time we give in to this I’m-too-entitled-to-talk-to-anyone mantra and put on the people-cancelling headphones, we shorten our own lifespans.

Loneliness can have a greater impact on lifespan than obesity, concluded a study led by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University in Utah. Researchers looked at more than 200 cases and found that, while obesity increases a person’s chances of an early death by 30 per cent, loneliness can increase it by a whopping 50 per cent. Forging strong, meaningful relationships is what this doctor orders.

I too am at fault. I have been a hermit for far too long now and am too afraid to venture out and meet others, knowing that that effort will most likely result in rejection.

When I start interacting with someone in public — and I talk to a lot of people in my day to day — they’re all social for five minutes and then that’s all; they run back to their car or zoom to the other side of the store, all socially tapped out for the day, maybe week.

If it’s this hard in this age of distraction to sustain a conversation with a stranger past five minutes, how the heck does anyone make a relationship work? I’m going to try to teach the world to talk again, one diffident person at a time, and call it a success when I can get someone to have a 20-minute conversation with me, no phubbing allowed.