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On Aging Alone (2021)

thewalrus.ca

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Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#91

Post by qgin »

Loving families are easy to idealize from afar.

How many families actually fit that profile? I’m not entirely sure.

This is not a jaded attempt to say the pursuit of relationships or family aren’t worthwhile. I just want to set some context here for those feeling lonely, for those who feel like they are standing outside in the cold on the street looking through windows into warm living rooms full of people with warm feelings toward each other.

I’m the only one of my siblings who has consistently been on speaking terms with either of my divorced parents. Both of my divorced parents consistently tell me they wish they could get away from their current spouses but feel it’s too late start over. Only one of my 3 siblings isn’t currently fantasizing of leaving their spouse. The mix of who in the extended family is currently speaking to whom is always in flux. Of my friends in very long term relationships that I know well enough to know if they are happy or not, about half are somewhere between resentful to outright miserable. My grandparents divorced when they were in their late 60s and went on to live much happier separate lives. In the hospital before my grandfather died, he insisted my grandmother should absolutely not visit him.

Again, I am not saying seeking loving relationships and building a family isn’t an extremely worthwhile goal for everyone. Even given all I’ve said so far, I hope I can build one someday. It just bums me out to see people in threads like this idealizing what it means to find a partner, to have a family. It can be extremely good. It can also be extremely bad. Joining with others is not a magic spell that, on its own, fixes your life.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#92

Post by weakfish »

jazzythom wrote: post #5
majormajor wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think dating is off the menu? I know almost-40s that are actively dating. Maybe it's harder in certain areas? I could see this being an advantage of cities...

my tinder has been quiet for years. I’m looking for an attractive mate and I’m 1) not that attractive 2) fat 3) bald(ing) 4) old enough to be the father of those I consider 5) not rich or successful (yet) and worst of all if I got the pretty girl I wouldn't know what to do with her. I don’t want to be that guy. What I want is to go back in time to when I was young. I guess dating just wasn't in my lot. Everyone gets…

I think your problem is setting your standards unreasonably high. It may be time to focus your energy inward on exercise and self-care, as a confident and well rounded man is far more attractive to many.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#93

Post by ldd »

As I get older (30 now), and perhaps spend more time alone, I feel that I do not mind this process as much as I thought I would.

Just as usual, I am able to read books and spend time with my dog. I'm only weary of the fact that I do talk to myself out loud every once in a while and there is the possibility that in due time, if it is not already the case, my lonesomeness may eventually be misinterpreted as madness.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#94

Post by weakfish »

openknot wrote: post #63
RichardHeart wrote: post #8

Go to gym. Do an activity with other people. Be kind. Lot's of other people would die to have your attention. Symbiosis.

For guys, martial arts is a pretty good activity for creating relationships with others. The downsides are that it can be expensive for membership fees, take a lot of commitment and time, and also be a competitive, high-pressure environment. Each of these can be mitigated to some extent, but it takes effort and independent thinking (especially when resisting the social pressures to be competitive). Other activities c…

+1 for rock climbing. It’s an inherently social sport with the Belayer relationship, I’ve made many friends in college through just asking random folks to belay.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#95

Post by throwaway892238 »

Do not try to fight loneliness. It is a natural part of life, like thunderstorms. You can try to tease it apart, understand how it works, where it comes from, try to predict it, come up with coping mechanisms. But the storms still come regardless. They are here for a reason, with their appropriate place in a natural system. But we don't need to understand the reason to accept it. Acknowledge the feeling, sit with it for a little while. Eventually the weather will change. Learn to enjoy these changes in the weather; each has its ups and downs and is interesting in its own way.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#96

Post by walleeee »

sbf501 wrote: post #86
walleeee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imposition and compromise need not derive from a transactional relationship model One can just as well feel compelled to constantly compromise if one's acquaintances don't share one's needs and values, for instance

In my 30's my therapist called that "being a doormat."

my sense is there are defensible reasons you might not want to be assertive or entirely transparent to everyone around you

doesn't necessarily mean you're letting yourself be trampled

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#97

Post by agumonkey »

techer wrote: post #78
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #73

Focus on what you can do for others, not what others can do for you. Activities will gradually lose their luster as you age, if you are focused on what you get from them. In Buddhist terms: cultivate mudita, sympathetic joy in the joys of others. It is nigh impossible to make yourself happy, yet seemingly trivial to make others happy, if you are keeping an eye out for the opportunity.

Confelicity: Pleasure in another's happiness. Antonym: schadenfreude

I have something slightly different thing in mind: a balancing act between your ideas/needs and others.. and a joy in negotiation. With freedom to evolve or quit the game. No obligations. Basically kid's play. I think it's a saner form of interactions. Lighter, deeper, more vibrant (well, in theory).

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#98

Post by charlie0 »

Being alone and feeling lonely aren't the same thing. As someone who prefers solitude, I have often felt more alone around others than just being alone by myself. I have also realized that not fitting in can be turned into a strength. It provides a freedom of sorts to live outside the rules established by society. I can live my life how I want and don't have to worry about what others think. Of course, a modicum of civility is always required when dealing with others, but nonetheless, very freeing to come up with my own rules.

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#99

Post by throwawaylonely »

NalNezumi wrote: post #45

I was expecting some wisdom, at least some insight or sympathy from the article, supposed to be written by 80 year old. All I now feel is pity for her; early in her essay she snobs on "people feeling lonely around loving families" - comparing them to orphans that know true loneliness (and by the tone, she too). Then just a paragraph or two later she reveals she had a family; husband, kids and grandchildren. A couple…

Yea, I get upset at my mom who whines about being lonely. She was married for 25 and then 35 years. So from my POV she got 60yrs of companionship. Mean while I've had 4. So when I can get another 56yr of companionship then I'll start not being upset at her whining.

Obviously I feel sympathy for her, I'm not as rotten as my previous paragraph sounded. But I can't help but think "Now you know what it's been like for me nearly my entire life"

Re: On Aging Alone (2021)

#100

Post by openknot »

vinceguidry wrote: post #67
openknot wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Is my soul yearning for spiritual connection? I've got a good friend for that. My libido looking for an exhilarating one? There's bars and the ubiquitous 'more-than-friend-but-not-quite-committed' friendship we all seem to have but never seem to really look to for that sort of thing. The least lonely person I know is in his late 70s. He's always talking to someone whenever I see him." Academic research may be a goo…

> I never once had a "'more-than-friend-but-not-quite-committed' friendship." Did you really never have ongoing romantic tension with someone you interacted with regularly? It seems rather inevitable for young people to find themselves in one of these. Even the loneliest people I know have mustered up some kind of tension with someone, even if they were never able to act on it.

While respecting ethics (e.g. never asking someone where I was in a position of any power over, even if it was a volunteer student club), I respectfully asked out the people where I did feel that kind of tension (in other words, I always asked out the people who I had a crush on when I was a teen, except when there were professional boundaries).

Unfortunately, I got turned down several times. One initially said yes, then quickly changed her mind within the hour, saying she wanted to avoid getting distracted from academics. So, I never had the opportunity to date in high school or my late teens, though I did have the chance in my early twenties.

As an aside: From a research perspective, I'm unsure if the feelings were mutual in many of these cases. As the Scientific American reports [1]: "Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief. In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends."

I suppose that if my current partner were to tragically and unexpectedly wish to break up, I may be able to enter a new relationship after being very sad for a while. However, learning from my teenage years, I would likely avoid dating friends even if I perceive tension (to avoid changing the friendship, as I have in the past), as I don't think there is a reliable way to figure out if someone is interested according to research.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/men-and-women-can...

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