Letter to the Lonely

Attention

This is a message to those who are ALONE:

Studies indicate that social isolation poses a legitimate risk to YOUR physical and mental health

Now,

If you feel isolated this news may read as cause for alarm

But please remain CALM

You may not be as lonely as you think you are

Or rather

Some of your loneliness may be contrived

Or manufactured

That is to say: artificial

Now, it’s true that we Homo sapiens are social creatures

We fail to thrive if we are put in isolation

So if you are yearning for

Contact

Those feelings can be

Valid

And

Natural

They may manifest in many ways and range in intensity,

From general malaise

To full blown depression

(With moderate to severe horniness sprinkled in)

But your loneliness may be manageable— with one minor lifestyle change!

Start by taking stock of the feeling itself

Where is it coming from?

Because, again, much of our modern loneliness is manufactured

Reading this PSA on the internet, you are

For the moment

Immersed

(Caught)

In a web

There are whole industries here that pretend the noble goal of wanting to help you get/ stay/ feel

connected

But they are quite literally designed to profit off your presence

So they will never offer anything that will result in your absence

No cures here

Only glowing blue bandaids

Shimmering facsimiles of human contact

But never one so satisfying as

Proximity

These online industries

Will slap a few endorphins

On the neural hotspots of your brain

To get you

Behaviorally

Addicted

To a digital life

The following are openly built to manipulate your psychological dependence:

All social media

Dating apps

Message boards

Online gaming

The adult film industry

These fields of entertainment offer socio-digital approximations of:

Conversation, romance, belonging, play, and sex

But for them to profit, you must stay online

So…

They employ teams of psychologists to maximize engagement

(Not fulfillment)

This social engineering makes the user experience more… fun

(What a rush)

But never more worthwhile

And

When these sprawling tech domains want more traffic

They remember

The deepest fundamental truth of advertising:

To get people truly hooked they must market a cure,

And if there is no illness, then a sense of hypochondria must be manipulated

Every beauty supply company in existence boosts sales by making consumers fear that they are

Unbearably foul

And then they offer the cure: makeup to mask the ugly

Likewise, online entertainment industries

Needle in on your insecurities

To make you fear that you are not enough

These parasitic companies know that when the dopamine floods recede,

And the chats go quiet

Your moments of solitude are no longer moments of peace

But instead: moments of aching isolation….

The real cure?

Embrace some quiet.

Solitude is not a scary word

If you feel lonely,

DO. NOT. FLEE. TO. THE. INTERNET!

Rather, let the drive to connect pull you back into the real world

Where you can open and receive

Real

And

Actual

Eye contact