Group Therapy - Advice Columns From the Vault: July 07, 2005

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.

What Loneliness Does

This fear is part and parcel of the thing we call "loneliness." It drives folks who don't meet the individuals they'd all like to know to the sad old device of putting up with what they can get. It accounts for the unfortunate straying of many a sweet, wholesome boy or girl into bad company.

Being alone seems a tragedy to so many of us. But, as a matter of fact, being alone offers most of life's opportunities.

Big things are created in solitude. A clever newspaper man may dash off a fine article in the midst of a busy, thronging "city room." But a great book is written in cloistered quiet. All of us must get away by ourselves and search our souls if we want to do anything worth while.

The man who has a big job on at the office may stay after hours and get it out in the quiet of the empty rooms where he can do the day's routine, but where he can't concentrate sufficiently to produce the bigger and better thing he's after. Or he may dope it out while walking through the park, or in the solitude of his room, or even while riding the subway. But he can't dig into the innermost recesses of his mind unless he actually invites "loneliness."

Using Your Time

With congenial companions at hand and all sorts of things to woo human nature to the lure of amusing itself and having a good time, work doesn't get done.

Loneliness means a solitude of spirit which isn't easy to bear. But it offers the opportunity to work toward the big things each of us wants from life. It gives time to read and think. It means growth. It opens the doors to progress.

Suppose you never have anything to do evenings. Or Sundays. Dreadful times those for youth to be alone when all the world seems happily arranged in groups of two. Of course at last half the world is invisible because [it is] sitting in its hall bedroom grieving over its "unique" loneliness.

How about using two of the evenings at classes at the "Y," or some of the many other places which offer youth a chance to obtain some of the world's vast store of wisdom? How about a gymnasium? Or an art school? Or some University Extension lectures? Or a course in good reading? Or sewing? Or studying up for the job two jumps ahead of you?

Why not use your loneliness? Instead of grieving over it, figure that it offers opportunity for growth and progress. Life is short and crowded with duties. There are so many chances crowding about folks that they'd be dizzy if they realized them all.

Beatrice Fairfax is the pen name of Marie Manning, who penned America’s first write-in advice column on July 20, 1898 for William Randolph Hearst's “New York Evening Journal.” The column was an instant success, and in the following decades, both Manning and others wrote under the pen name Beatrice Fairfax.