4 days ago
22
Lately, life has felt like Groundhog Day: work, gym, sleep, repeat. Between a punishing work schedule, the grim weather and my desire to hibernate, my social life has suffered. I feel dissatisfied, restless and isolated. But I have plenty of friends and active group chats – I can’t be lonely, surely?
Wrong!
I have made a common error, according to Don Martin, content creator and host of the podcast Head on Fire. Even people with busy social lives can feel lonely if they aren’t getting the quality time or intimacy they need.
Like me, Martin felt his needs weren’t being met. Researching the topic for his new audiobook Where Did Everybody Go?, he found that loneliness is simply defined as the gap between the connection you want and the connection you’re getting.
“You can feel lonely in a crowded room,” Martin points out.
Having realised this himself through the pandemic, Martin sought out new approaches to socialising – such as playing Animal Crossing with friends online – and shed other commitments in favour of more meaningful ones.
“I’d confused being really busy with being socially fulfilled,” he says. Instead, we need to be proactive and flexible about our interactions.
Inspired by Martin’s connection experiments, I tried six ways to shake up my interactions for two weeks.
Send a voice note instead of a text …
I live alone and work from home. On a typical day, there are usually four or five WhatsApp threads active on my computer. They scratch the itch for collegial chat. Yet the half-hearted conversations and continual ping of messages can be more of a distraction than a source of connection.
One morning, a friend texts, asking how my day is going. We’ve never done this before, but I reply with a (short!) voice note. She responds in kind, pointing out her status on WhatsApp: “no voice notes plz”. “But I will make an exception for you,” she adds magnanimously.
It’s only a brief check-in, commiserating over punishing workloads, but hearing her voice is a definite boost – more personal and immediate than text.
Or make a video call
In the pilot of Girls, Marnie Michaels ranks the modes of communication, from least intimate (Facebook) to most (face-to-face). After my voice note success, I decide to ramp things up a notch – to the much-maligned video call. I’m sure younger generations are happy FaceTiming away, but none of my friends indulge. Typically, my only video calls are with immediate family or professional Zooms.
But I’m shaking up my social routines, so I spontaneously opt to video-call a friend. She picks up, with a confused “Hello?”
I don’t blame her – I’m not sure we’ve ever spoken on the phone. But we (and her cute dog) chat for about 20 minutes. When I hang up, I’m in a better mood, thanks to the face-to-face connection.
Martin considers video-calling a better approximation of in-person connection than messaging. “Look somebody in the whites of their eyes,” he jokes. “Then you can start picking up on those non-verbal cues … It can be a much more fulfilling conversation, and it takes less time.”
If you feel shy about initiating, make your friends call you, Martin suggests: “When you’ve been scrolling for three hours, and gotten lost down that rabbit hole – maybe that’s a time to text a friend and say, ‘Listen: call me right now.’”
Set up a regular, standing plan
When I feel overwhelmed with work, it often doesn’t occur to me to socialise. This is when standing plans shine. Every Wednesday morning, I video chat with another friend who works from home in another city. I also play a social football game every two weeks and attend a pub quiz monthly.
There’s no effort involved, and I rarely feel like canceling, even at my busiest. I think of them as social scaffolding, load-bearing social routines that withstand even the most hostile schedules.
It turns out Martin has something similar. Three or four times a week, he calls a close friend on his drive to work. These check-ins allow them to stay connected, since they only see each other in person a couple of times a month.
“That regular connection with somebody makes whatever comes next a little easier to deal with … It also doesn’t take anything away from the time when we are together,” Martin says.
To further reinforce my social scaffolding, I propose to another friend that we start a weekly Zoom in the new year. He replies enthusiastically: “Monday is good for me!”
Carve out time to play
One of my favourite ways to spend time with friends is a boozy boardgame night. Unfortunately, few of my local friends share this interest.
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I’m inspired by Martin’s Animal Crossing example. Socialising digitally can be seen as inferior to meeting up in person, but it’s often the only option. Plus it can be fun.
“Where we get social media wrong is vilifying it as a whole,” says Martin. “The screen can be a fulfilling way to connect with people.”
I feel my energy slipping one afternoon, so I text a friend to suggest we attempt the online version of my favourite boardgame, Codenames. Sure, there’s a bit of a learning curve, but also some of the same thrills as playing in person – and it’s definitely more restorative than my usual break activity (making a cup of tea and staring into the middle distance).
Over the following week, I play Codenames with three different people. Some rounds are even nail-biters. (The popular board game Wavelength also has a digital adaptation.)
Send a “thinking-of-you” text …
One of my friends has been juggling parenthood, a chest infection and an intense job. I try to let her know I’m thinking of her by sending the odd text or photo, with no expectation of a reply.
“Consistency is great; constancy should not be a requirement for anybody,” Martin agrees. “It’s too much to put on someone.”
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One Saturday morning, just as I’m about to grimly knuckle down to some work, a photo of a different friend at a mezcaleria in Oaxaca pops up on my phone, reminding me of our backpacking trip over a decade ago. I send her a screenshot and she replies, asking if I’m free for a call. Usually, a spontaneous phone call feels like an intrusion and sends me fleeing offline. This time I instantly call her back – and with video.
We talk for about an hour, our longest conversation in over a year, during which time we’ve both become homeowners. We take each other on a virtual house tour, pointing out where the other will sleep on visits. It’s delightful. I eventually settle in at my computer in a much more optimistic, peaceable mood.
… or ask to text less
While consistency is important, so is a sense of control, Martin discovered – not feeling like “a passive participant in your own life”, he says.
This is why a steady stream of texts can sometimes feel more like a drain than a boost. We might be better off thinking through what we consider “quality time” and seeking that out.
My most active text thread, with a man I have recently started seeing, pings morning to night. I don’t want to stop talking, and I’ve already eased him into voice notes. But I suggest that instead of laboriously tapping out every relevant story from our pasts, we save them up for when we next meet.
Fortunately, he’s not put off by my reference to an “agenda”. At the pub the following week, we get through most of our list – so much more enjoyable than the glancing treatment the anecdotes would have received over text. We’ve already started another agenda for our next meeting.
After two weeks of experimenting, I’m struck by how much I’ve enjoyed it – and how willing my friends have been to join in. Maybe everyone is seeking new ways to stay in touch amid busy lives.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to staving off loneliness, Martin says. “What worked for you last year, last week, might not work for you now.”
We also have more agency than we might think. Martin characterises it as putting together a “toolkit, rather than a map”. We could all benefit from being more proactive in our friendships, just as we’re encouraged to do in romantic relationships: for instance, explaining how much connection we need and how we prefer to communicate, he says.
With that said, my friends can expect more video calls from now on.
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Where Did Everybody Go? by Don Martin is available wherever audiobooks are sold
