A plague has been infecting us for a long time now, and no I’m not talking about COVID. Loneliness is one of the most widespread afflictions burdening people today, and this is exceptionally ironic considering the sheer unfathomable amount of human beings alive on this planet. I used to be completely perplexed living in Los Angeles, a region of 12 million people, year after year continuing to suffer from crippling loneliness that plagued my life even as I socialized, dated, and successfully pursued my career. No matter what I did, it seemed impossible to find the kind of fulfilling interpersonal relationships I felt should be possible.

One catalyst of my loneliness, it seemed, was the rejection by my own family, conservative, hateful bigots who kicked me out for being gay. But even though I lived in one of the most politically accepting and liberal regions of the country could not, try as I might, find replacements for that kind of social support. My loneliness was also made worse by seeing other people doing what I felt I could not—starting families, forming fast friendships, and succeeding in professional relationships. I saw people checking the boxes of accomplishment and no matter how hard I tried failed over and over and over.

Now that I am 41 and been through the catastrophic events that have been my life (if this sounds dramatic, you clearly haven’t read my book) I now easily see through the facade of these pretenses, that most people I saw in my orbit were also lonely in spite of their successes, simply hiding the truth for fear of shame and the perception of failure, because loneliness is not a function of success nor those superficial accomplishments as we are lead to believe. In fact, loneliness in active partnerships is one of the most horrible forms of loneliness, feeling isolated even while somebody sleeps in the very same bed as you, and can be indescribably painful, but lacking telepathic mutant powers it is easy as a human being to mistake outward appearances as the manifestation of those things we deeply desire.

One of the biggest problems is that this loneliness often masquerades as other issues—political tensions, relationship problems, employment instability, social media harassment, drug and alcohol addiction, and even committed relationships. My ex asked me to marry him, but told his friends he didn’t really love me and only did so to make me change (lose weight and make more money), and twice when I broke up with him because of the way he treated me he cried and begged and begged me not to even though he didn’t want to be with me. I cannot think of any better demonstration of seeking an antidote to loneliness than staying with somebody you don’t even want to be with just so you don’t have to be alone. I in fact did it myself when I agreed to date this person in the first place, as I had been rejected by a string of men and devastated by my pain and loss settled for somebody I knew to be volatile and uncaring, and while there were moments of joy and fulfillment in our relationship and I did come to love him very much it was mostly a painful exercise in the dynamics of loneliness and the biological motivation of humans to do everything we can to avoid it.

One of the problems we get mired in when struggling with loneliness is that we fail to recognize our emotions as biological instincts which try to motivate social animals into behaviors which benefit us and our species. Loneliness is not some arbitrary, abstract, social construction—it is literally a deficiency of hormones like oxytocin and dopamine caused by social stress, which is also why drugs and alcohol can temporarily treat these feelings. Because we are, as human beings, entirely reliant on other humans for our survival as an individual our biology is hard-wired to respond to the factors which either promote or imperil it, and the dynamics of hormone expression is how our biology facilitates these instincts to motivate our individual behavior. If we did not have instincts and hormones we would literally just sit in place and starve to death. Hormones and the instincts they facilitate are what literally get us up in the morning and motivate us to do things and achieve, or conversely to lie in bed feeling sorry for ourselves.

The seemingly paradoxical motivations of loneliness, isolation, and disconnectedness may appear antithetical to human fulfillment and survival, but in fact serves two important instinctual purposes for individual human survival. The depression and anxiety which catalyzes this behavior may either be motivated by poor health, many times which can also involve pathogenic factors like bacteria or viruses, in which case a person self-motivates their own removal from other humans and thus by instinct reduces the chances of transmission, or other human beings in our environment are actually a threat to our survival and wellbeing and thus an instinctual mechanism to protect ourselves from those potential threats by removing ourselves from them (and even society at large). Because metabolic illness is unfortunately quite common for reasons discussed in my book, Fuck Portion Control, both catalysts tend to be true more often these days to make loneliness more extreme and widespread than is normally the case, and because we as humans do not instinctually recognize the function of our brain and hormones, the despair of loneliness seems senseless, unfair, and frustratingly persistent.

One of the most confounding factors in loneliness is also a concomitant increase in sex drive, as discussed in my book sex addiction is not a real thing but is instead an adaptive survival instinct wherein a metabolically ill human experiences an inexplicable increase in the rate of sexual arousal as well as an overpowering motivation to engage in sex. We experience this because in terms of evolutionary history a human being was very likely to expire as their metabolic health waned, so our biology tries to motivate much more reproduction in this state to increase the chances of fertilization and the production of offspring before the expiry of the adult. Feeling simultaneously lonely yet compelled to engage in sex can drive people insane or cause us to compromise our morals and standards, commit heinous acts, or settle for unfulfilling relationships and thus sustain our own isolation and loneliness through behavior and biology we feel powerless to change.

Loneliness does not need to be endured, however, and there are just a few but major factors which catalyze situations and feelings of loneliness which can be addressed, and pretty easily too with a little bit of effort.

1) SUNLIGHT DEFCIENCY

Sunlight deficiency is one of the biggest catalysts of depression and metabolic disease which underly chronic loneliness. Our bodies respond to sunlight deficiency as if it is wintertime, then to spare nutrients to promote our survival (in evolutionary terms) it then downregulates the metabolic rate. When this is artificially perpetuated year after year by spending all our time indoors and hardly ever going outside the body thinks the sun has never come out and that there is insufficient food resources to risk raising the metabolic rate again, so the body stays suspended in a state of pseudo-hibernation indefinitely which then leads to chronic depression which becomes a vicious cycle of always staying inside because we are lonely and feeling depressed because we always stay inside. It is no coincidence that young men afflicted by despair and loneliness often spend all their time indoors sitting at a computer, especially since online access to other people can sometimes be the only option for human interaction we have. But daily, generous exposure to sunlight is required to increase the metabolic rate and restore vitality and feelings of wellness. Twenty or thirty fucking minutes during your lunch break is NOT sufficient. At least 2 HOURS, every day, is required for sufficiency, and anything less than this is a deficiency. It doesn’t matter if you have a job that prevents this. Your biology DOES NOT CARE. Take up gardening, get a membership to a public pool, go on walks with your dog, play on your iPhone while sunbathing. Do literally anything that accomplishes this.

2) VITAMIN C DEFICIENCY

Very much related to sunlight deficiency is that of vitamin C. During light deficiency our body dumps vitamin C because vitamin C is one of the mechanisms by which the metabolic rate rises, because it facilitates high cellular respiration which in turn consumes more calories and nutrients. This is also why we, as primates, do not produce our own endogenous vitamin C the way that most other animals do. It is a survival mechanism meant to help us persist longer during periods of nutritional scarcity. Because the stress hormones which rise in response to sunlight also cause our bodies to dump vitamin C, we lose vitamin C every night and every winter, and perpetual sunlight deficiency in turn causes chronic vitamin C deficiency. Eating lots of foods which are high in vitamin C, daily, in addition to getting sunlight exposure is one of the best ways to combat feelings of depression and loneliness and help you have the energy to live life.

3) POOR INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN

For most of human history we lived every moment of our lives near many other human beings. Without cars or modern conveniences humans were confined to cohabitate in close proximity to one another. Family groups existing close together was imperative to survive predation, food scarcity, or competition from other groups of humans. This behavior was and is motivated by instincts and hormones, by making human beings feel less safe and secure when we are separated from each other, which is why we feel so lonely without other people around, often especially without romantic partners because reproduction is an important function of human closeness and interaction. Today, our communities are built to facilitate cars and the quantified accumulation of material things (as opposed to quality and the immaterial) and this in turn has the effect of separating us from other human beings in direct opposition to our evolutionary nature. In communities which live in closer proximity to one another we in turn interact with a broad sampling of human beings, but when our daily routes are achieved by car to places we are obligated to travel such as work or grocery shopping we never have opportunity to meet other humans in places which are disarming and affirming. I often go to the grocery store just to talk to another person, but this is not real community since I am essentially paying them for the experience. I once coached a person who was very wealthy, and they often told me of their recreational activities like playing tennis or going to a concert, but it turned out they did these activities with their tennis coach, whom they were paying, and business manager, whom they were also paying, and because of their wealth were never in contact with the general public and thus never in a position to develop real relationships. Even going to parties does not fulfill our social needs because a party is usually an artificial construct in which attendees posture and guard themselves against real emotional connections. Meeting a handsome stranger on the street in New York City while on your way to work is, oppositely, organic and disarming. Parents in suburbs will form “friendships” with other parents but these are hardly ever real friendships. One of my sister’s “best friends” comes to her house to drop her kids off so they can all play, they exchange small talk for about 30 seconds and then part ways, and not once in the several years living near her did I see her even invite her “best friend” inside to hang out and chat. My sister and her husband do have some friends they see in planned gatherings, but they live on the other side of the suburban sprawl in which they live and only actually see those people once every month or two. Because the infrastructure design of our contemporary communities is an active barrier to having real relationships, we spend the great majority of our time living alone, hardly ever seeing anyone we actually care about except when we are not busy, and since most of our time is spent just driving and handling the logistics of moving from one place to another this then hardly ever happens.

This is also not something we can change easily. Except that it is. There is no reason you have to live apart from the people you love or in places which are lonely and despairing. MOVE. Go to places which are lively and inhabited by the kind of people you want to meet or have relationships with. Or live close to beloved family members who allow you into their lives. The only thing keeping you in your stagnant, joyless environment is your fear of change and other people, or waiting for others to come to you. Be an active participant in your life. In addition you can also champion and support public infrastructure which is open, walkable, and accessible. If your demanding job takes up all your time, quit and move somewhere less expensive where you can devote more of your time to developing and growing family and making friends. Our parents and their generation accepted materialism and things as a substitute for fulfilling relationships, not because they had to—it was a choice, and they are miserable because of it. You also do not need to choose that, and putting up with unacceptably isolating infrastructure is also your choice. Choose instead to go somewhere and set up your life which fulfills your needs.

4) SELF-ESTEEM

The last major hurdle to fulfillment and one which promotes a great deal of loneliness is self-esteem. This one is a bit more abstract in concept but not in action. When we have low self-esteem we do not actively build relationships, because we feel like people will reject us, and fearing rejection we then avoid interactions and risking rejection and thus promote our own self-isolation, or conversely we form relationships with people who are manipulative, abusive, or exploitative because we know at least they are dependent on having us in their lives and thus a more secure and reliable relationship even if it is toxic or harmful. Most of my relationships in my life have been this way because I lacked the skills needed to take care of myself to avoid getting into these kinds of dependent relationships with friends or romantic partners (or even other family members). The basis for these kinds of relationships is a lack of self-compassion. Feeling like being alone or lonely is bad we then try to do everything we can to change it, even compromising our own wellbeing by having harmful relationships, or in turn feeling completely depressed, anxious, and frustrated when we can’t resolve our loneliness. Having compassion for ourselves is not really a feeling, it is actually an action—doing things for ourselves which are not reliant on other people is the act of having compassion for ourselves. If you can’t find a friend or a romantic partner, instead of trying to find a friend or romantic partner go make yourself some chocolate chip cookies and sit down to watch a movie you love. Go for a long walk in the sunshine. Write in a journal. Play a video game. Take a shower, shave, and clean up your room not because you should be clean, because you don’t need to be, but because you want to take care of yourself. Our dependence thinking that other people are needed for our own fulfillment is itself a liability which perpetuates loneliness, which when complicated by the aforementioned factors makes the absence of others even more devastating. In reality, we can actually care for far more of own needs than we realize, and we can and should practice compassion for ourselves instead of waiting for other people by doing things for ourselves. Usually we fail to do this because our parents also lacked self-care skills and instead blamed other people for their problems, because their parents also lacked those skills, and their parents’ parents and so on and so on. Nobody can teach us skills that they do not have, but you can teach yourself these skills by practicing self-compassion and actually caring for your needs and wants through action and behavior. Eat lots of good food, get sunshine, masturbate, watch porn, play games, sleep, go to a spa, cut down your cost of living, start gardening (use pots if you don’t have ground), clean up your house, listen to good music, meditate, take a bath or shower, learn how to cook, read a good book, stretch or start a stretching routine (this produces energy and makes your body feel relaxed), go to a relaxing cafe and have a coffee and treats, cultivate friendships and relationships with people you actually like and feel safe with, cut off people who use and abuse you, get a new job even if it pays less if it lowers your stress and frees more of your time and mobility, get a bike, and set up your life so you don’t have to drive for hours every day. Cultivating self-esteem is not a mental exercise nor an attitude, it comes from practicing self-care and compassion through action and taking care of yourself, so make choices, learn skills, and do activities that accomplish self-care and self-esteem will result.

5) RESOLVE TRAUMA

This is not something that is easily done, which is why I write whole books about it. A lot of the things we do which cause loneliness and metabolic illness are driven by unresolved trauma from our pasts and the lack of skills to handle life. Defensive behaviors which instinctually try to protect ourselves from pain and disappointment can also engineer the situations which make us lonely (such as dating people who are not good for us, or offending family members). My book, The Perfect Child teaches you how to develop those skills to resolve trauma and develop real self-compassion and confidence and empower us to navigate relationships, resolve conflict, and to care for our own wellbeing while Fuck Portion Control talks about the biological and nutritional pathways which create depression, anxiety, and related problems that amplify and complicate loneliness. The lack of skills to resolve these problems is the real cause of loneliness and other life problems, and these books will teach you how to learn these skills for yourself. If sexual compulsion is a factor in your frustrations with loneliness, read “No Such Thing as Sex Addiction.”