VIRGINIA IRONSIDE: Could loneliness be contagious?
By Virginia Ironside found at dailymail.co.uk
08th December 2009
Some time ago, I used to attend regular meetings of a self-help group. And
while it was extremely helpful, partly because it taught me a way of coping
with a difficult situation and partly because it passed the time, I could
never return today.
Because when I look back, all I remember is a room full of lonely people.
We sat there in a circle, cheeping and squawking away, like hungry birds in a
nest, waiting for worms. We all felt terrible and isolated. We all
commiserated each other about feeling terrible and isolated.
In order to bond, we tried to identify with each other, comparing notes
about how wretched we felt. But, as a study from Chicago University confirmed
last week, I think we all simply reinforced each other's feelings of
loneliness.
Contagious: Being lonely can be difficult enough, but is is possible to
'catch' someone else's feeling of loneliness?
The research suggested that loneliness can actually be contagious,
concluding that lonely people tend to 'move to the edge of their social
network'. And once they've been pushed to the edge, they lose those few
friends they've got left.
That means that those friends have fewer friends, and so the pattern goes
on unravelling 'like yarn that comes loose at the end of a crocheted
sweater'.
Lonely people - usually women, apparently - can transmit feelings of
loneliness to their remaining friends, who then also become lonely,
destroying social ties and threatening the make-up of the community.
Not only that, a report emerged yesterday which suggested that women who
are lonely have a significantly higher chance of developing breast cancer. In
short, it is a wretched way to be - and it is more common that ever.
We can spot a lonely person a mile off. You see them at parties clinging
to the walls and staring into empty glasses.
Often, I've gone up to them, kindly, to encourage them to join in, but,
however social they try to be, I've soon found myself brought down by their
psychic misery and longing for friendship.
I suddenly get this feeling of wanting to hang on to my bag and my clothes
and my very being, in case they secretly suck it all away, reducing me to an
emotional husk like themselves.
I don't want to sound cruel or patronising, because when I've been lonely
and depressed I've had a real fear that I've been just like these lonely
people myself, even though I've put on the bravest of faces to cover up my
need for company.
Lonely people, because they don't mix with others, often have very
ill-defined boundaries, and if you're struggling with your own boundaries
yourself, it's quite easy to feel you are entering a lonely person's desolate
world.
'We can spot a lonely person a mile off.
You see them at parties clinging to the walls and staring into empty
glasses.'
Being with people and thinking about others, with others dependent on us
and us dependent on them, is what helps us define ourselves.
The attractive person is the one who knows exactly who they are and where
they begin and end, but with enough empathy not to be an island.
Arguing, chatting and discussing with others is the grist to our mills; it
gives us our ideas and our energy. But the lonely person is all empathy and
longing, often trying to seek out the cracks in other, more stable people,
and trying to pull them into their vortex of loneliness.
It's odd, that. It's as if you suddenly find yourself visiting someone in
solitary confinement and finding not that they want to leave their prison for
the outside world, but that they'd prefer to drag you in to keep them company
in their cell.
Lonely people are often frightened of the world, and fear is definitely
catching. If you read enough about people being mugged every time they go
into the street, you can end up walking without catching anyone's eye - and
they, in turn, will feel alarmed and lower their eyes when they meet someone.
My uncle Robin, a painter who lived alone and could get caught up in
catastrophic depressions, could spend days and days on his own - until,
sensibly, he'd suddenly get dressed and come over to our house declaring that
if he continued like that he'd 'Go funny'.
It's not just that loneliness is contagious. It can be
self-perpetuating.
Malcolm Williams, of the School of Sociology, University of Plymouth,
which carried out research into people living alone a year ago, said: 'All
the signs are that the trend towards living alone will continue.
'But even more socially important is that once people have gone solo, they
are more likely to continue to do so.'
Self-perpetuating: Lonely people are often
frightened of the world, and fear is definitely catching.
Indeed, in four years, it's estimated that 40 per cent of us will be
living alone. And often loneliness can become habit-forming. It may not
be a very comfortable state to be in, but it's what lonely people know best.
And the prospect of relating to other people can be frightening if we're
out of practice. Which is why so many clubs for lonely people don't deliver
the companionship that so many of the members crave.
What lonely people should be doing is seeking out the company of happy
people with lots of friends; not marinating in a gang of the emotionally
desperate like themselves.
If you find yourself disenchanted by some ghastly cult - like Scientology
- the way to get out of it would not be to surround yourself with more
disenchanted Scientologists. No, it would be to leave the whole process
completely, and step into the outside world.
Of course, it's comforting to find others who feel as cut off from the
world as you do. But, at the same time, the feeling of being dislocated can
be increased when you're in a group of like-minded people.
What's interesting is that it's possible to be lonely even in a marriage.
If you are married to someone who is fundamentally anti-social, it's very
difficult not to become the same way yourself.
I've often had letters from men and women who've complained that their
partners don't ever want to go out to parties or films and, because they feel
anxious about going out on their own, or because they can't drive, they
themselves slowly become more and more cut off. If that partner dies,
the survivor is, of course, completely ill-equipped to face the world
outside, with few friends and a solitary mentality that's been hewn out of
habit.
And if you have parents who are essentially anti-social and lonely, it can
be difficult, as a child, not to inherit some of their tendencies. To become
social and not lonely takes a great deal of non-stop skill and experience.
It is loneliness, not sociability and connection, that is always waiting
outside most of our doors - unless we make a positive effort to keep it at
bay. My view is that loneliness stems from birth. In other words, from the
moment we emerge from our mothers' wombs, we are constantly trying to get
back to that blissful feeling of unity.
Deliberate
Orgasm Duet