Lean into your loneliness
After graduation, when your friends are scattered around the world, the loneliness is real. Lots of my friends set up many calls, but it becomes a big responsibility and distracts people from engaging with the real world. I observe that some other people solve it by finding romantic relationships. Make sense. Because it’s a strong bonding, easier than building up a new community.
However, this is a no for Esther. Esther doesn’t want to be with someone who is not healthy, nor does she believe she will be a good partner when she isn’t sustainable herself. Then, what can I do?
A lot of time, we want to escape loneliness by constantly hanging out with people, regardless of the quality of the hangout. However, I want to propose myself something quite the opposite. When I feel lonely, I don’t try to escape from it, I lean into it and listen to it.
I hear that my loneliness comes from the desire to love and to be loved, the desire to feel connected, and the will to support and be supported from the fear of living in a whole new world and figuring everything out myself. And that might be also part of the reason that moving on is hard at this moment. It’s a matter of anchoring and fulfilling in multiple dimensions of life.
Hmm…that’s interesting. Because it says that loneliness doesn’t really come from a lack of people but from a weak foundation of understanding life and work too. In this case, that search for romantic bonding, especially with the intention of settling somewhere with my partner, is an irresponsible act for my own life. I can now compartmentalize that sense of loneliness into the life+work aspect and relationship aspect, and work on it independently.
Another observation after leaning into loneliness is, I’m actually not lonely. I have a very good relationship with myself, a healthy routine to sustain my daily life, and the ability to enable my existing network if I need it. On top of it, I’m often told that I’m really good at making new friends, and I’ve already made quite a lot even without the intention to. I realize that spending time with comfortable friends from university has been an easy but lazy shelter from building genuine relationships in the city.
So the question now shrinks, decoupling from the life+work confusion, I can now ask, how can I create better connections with old and newly established relationships, or even create a strong community out of it?
My friend S and I co-host lots of events, ranging from drawing Christmas cards to reading papers together. The only thing is that most of the connections aren’t strong and solid, and the sense of belonging hasn’t started. I can wait for time and destiny to ferment it, but I can also take action to create it myself.
Now I find “the loneliness problem” a very interesting question to explore. I think the social norm, “It will be hard to find real friends out of school” is a constraining thought with strong assumptions from in-group bias. Hence, I will start with a list of questions to ideate.
- What kind of friends I’m interested in making? Or do I even need to limit it at this moment?
- How do I imagine my community to look like?
- What kind of activities/events can foster genuine connection but don’t cringe people out? Or does cringe people out okay too?
- How can I establish an environment that people feel comfortable to share?
- How to retain new relationships in a comfortable way?
- What can I learn from relationship building from people who have been out of school for a long time?
I know I’m handling this loneliness problem in the slowest way possible. Merely leaning into existing relationships or a romantic relationship is a faster solution than leaning into my loneliness. Well… Esther is a learning person who is curious to explore anyway, and slower solutions might be better in the long run. You never know hehe.
Note: I talk about my loneliness problem like a serious philosopher hahaha. Greatly entertained by my serious tone, and feel unreasonably smart hahaha.
