lonely

lonely \'lōn-lē\ adj 1 a : a sickening soup of sadness and isolation, simmered with a dash of disconnection, a dollop of wallowing self-pity, and a pinch of poor-me b : feeling lonely does not require being alone. I am often alone but don’t feel lonely, yet I have felt terribly lonely when surrounded by people. Loneliness is a consequence of feeling alone, different from actually being by oneself 2 : I would bet a bottle of wine that lonely is in the top five most frequently felt emotions by most human beings. The high level of activity on sites such as facebook and myspace, supports this estimate; so many souls searching to make a connection. Thousands of people in one location might be called a community if they weren’t all talking about themselves, see PROFILE 3 a : I hold a strong contempt for loneliness. It opens the door to a closet full of sinister emotions that never look good on my figure - scratchy wool of unworthiness, washed out pathetic, torn useless, holey desperate. A heavy hooded robe of depression completes the outfit. When I leave the house wearing all this, I look like a wraith pretending to be human. Not the most attractive company, extending my periods of loneliness considerably b : The most common response to feeling lonely is to seek out company, though this has not been a successful strategy for me. Apparently loneliness has a scent, attracting those most likely to leave me feeling lonelier than before, see DOG. Being in the company of women seems to help somewhat, so long as we’re not talking about men; a subject that invariably leads me to remember why I am alone to begin with c : Being lonely is not dysfunctional in and of itself. Avoiding the feeling is. I’ve invited bodies to take up space where loneliness would otherwise sit. I’ve sat at bars long after last call, sipping on melted ice in wait for someone to sit down and talk to me. I’ve gotten all dressed up to drive miles of streets aimlessly, roamed isles of bookstores with no intention of buying anything, gone grocery shopping for a can of black beans at one o’clock in the morning. The amount of time I’ve wasted to avoid feeling lonely is sinful. I could have been volunteering somewhere, helping someone else feel less lonely. That’s what a functional person would do. Or they’d pick up a hobby. But I’m not bored, which is what hobbies serve to cure. The only cure for loneliness is good company, see LOVE.