Group Therapy - Advice Columns From the Vault: EVERYONE IS LONELY

Thursday, July 07, 2005

EVERYONE IS LONELY

IT'S A TROUBLE YOU CAN'T ESCAPE

By Beatrice Fairfax

The Mansfield News, Sunday, July 4, 1920

There's no way out of it. You simply can't get away from it. Everyone is lonely, and people have to find a sort of "companionship" in that fact and to get a whimsical "misery loves company" satisfaction out the fact they aren't alone in their loneliness.

At least five per cent of the letters which come from me every day are from boys and girls (men and women, too) who long for friendship--for companionship, for someone who will "understand." Loneliness exists out on the farm twelve miles from anywhere, and it also thrives in the midst of thronging humanity. It comes less from not knowing folks in general than it does from not knowing the one "right" person.

When statisticians are making up lists of the why and wherefore of falling in love, they don't lay enough stress on loneliness. Everyone longs for someone to whom he can talk frankly and freely--someone to whom he can confide his hopes and aspirations and fears, someone who will feel that his interests are all important, someone who will console him in grief and share his joys. And not having that "someone" is loneliness.

Of course, with our conscious minds we all want to be happy here and now. We hate to be left too much to ourselves. Most of us hate to go to the movies alone night after night--or always to run out to lunch without a companion. It looks queer. Unpopular, unattractive. No one wants to be set down as a "pill." Everyone is self-conscious and dreads being eyed askance by his mates.