I'm Surrounded by Others, So Why Do I Feel Lonely?

Loneliness is a universal feeling that many of us experience from time to time. It happens when you lack companionship in your daily life, feel left out, cut off from the people around you, or move across the country away from family and friends. 

Biologically, loneliness is part of the human body's function. Like hunger, it makes you pay attention to your physical needs, while loneliness makes you pay attention to your social needs. You may ask, why do social needs matter? According to researchers, about thousands of years ago, loneliness was an indicator of how likely a human could survive. 

Being social is a part of human biology because humans are social creatures. Therefore, Being together with a community meant survival, and being excluded meant death. Because of that, our body creates a kind of social pain. This pain is an evolutionary adaptation to rejection to keep us connected to the community. 

With that being so, loneliness is a warning to stop a person from continuing behaviors that could lead them to be left out or rejected by society. People who find loneliness painful will likely change their behavior to be accepted by society and survive. While those who refuse to change their behavior are most likely to be rejected and die.  

In the modern world, societies are more focused on individuality. It all started in the late Renaissance when the Intellectuals moved away from the collectivism of the Middle Ages. It continued during the Industrial Revolution. People left their villages and fields to go into factories. Now, people leave their social net behind for new jobs, love, or education. This trend supports loneliness and will develop as our world becomes more modern. Most people now experience loneliness because they reach adulthood, become busier at work or university, and don't have enough time to socialize.

Although loneliness is a universal feeling, it is also an individual experience. Not everybody experiences loneliness in the same way. One can have a big social circle but can still feel lonely. At this point, loneliness is a kind of mindset. It has a connection with numerous mental illnesses. Many people with mental illness like depression are prone to feel lonely because their brain tells them that they are a burden and making people's lives harder, so they hide their thoughts and emotions from others. This mindset and behavior make them feel like they are the only ones who think and feel a certain way since many people with depression stay silent. The feeling of being the only one is loneliness.

People who have a quality-over-quantity mindset also feel loneliness daily. These people are the ones who feel lonely despite being surrounded by people. They focused on finding people who provide them value rather than surrounding themselves with as many people as possible. They seek intimacy, but it is challenging to achieve that in adulthood. Consequently, loneliness can become chronic.

Once loneliness becomes chronic, your brain starts seeing danger and hostility everywhere. Some studies show that the brain is more receptive and alert when you feel lonely. You pay more attention to others, but you don't understand them. The part of the brain that recognizes faces becomes out of tune and more likely to classify neutral faces as hostile, making it distrustful of others.

Loneliness makes you think the worst of other people's intentions for you. Because of this, you can become more self-centered to protect yourself, which makes you appear cold, unfriendly, and socially awkward than you are.

The initial feeling of isolation from loneliness usually leads to tension and sadness, leading to a selective focus on negative interactions with others. Which then changes your behavior. You start to avoid social interactions, leading to a greater sense of isolation, making it harder and harder to escape this cycle.

Overcoming loneliness is challenging, but it is possible. The first thing one can do to overcome loneliness is to accept that feeling lonely is normal. Everyone feels lonely sometimes in life. You can't neglect to feel lonely until it disappears magically. However, you can acknowledge that you feel lonely.