Remember the Lonely

Every couple of weeks I get a reminder of one of the lowest moments of my life. It comes in the form of an email asking me to rejoin an online dating service. I could just label it as junk mail, but I never do. Allow me to explain.

For nearly my entire life up until about two years ago I was single. Not entirely single, certainly there were flings here and there, but still I felt very single. And with being single comes the inevitable struggle with loneliness. When I went away to university this was intensified as I no longer had my best friends to curb this loneliness. Instead I found myself spending a lot of time alone, and the feeling of loneliness soon became unbearable. At my lowest point I snapped one night. Crying and short of breath I couldn’t handle the thought of being alone any more. It is the worst feeling I have ever felt.

Movies often try to portray this moment of loneliness in romance films as the main character is profoundly lonely just before meeting their true love. This attempt doesn’t even come close to what it feels like to be single though. It is a terrible burden that cannot be explained, only experienced, and I was experiencing it. It was very real, and it sucked.

At my lowest point I sunk to searching online dating services. I spent a few hours searching online profiles and trying to contact people in hopes of ending my loneliness. I also joined a few of these sites in hopes that I would get noticed. Even in the midst of it, I felt so pathetic. And yet this is what I had sunk to. I would do anything not to be alone anymore.

Perhaps the worst part of this feeling was the seeming ignorance of my state to everyone else around me. Nobody saw it. And if they did, they didn’t want to deal with it. No one ever wants to take on someone else’s problems. And so, the lonely are left to deal with their loneliness, alone.

I said earlier that every couple of weeks I get an email from one of the sites I had joined that night when I was at my lowest and was desperately crying out for any companionship. This email used to come as an embarrassment. A ‘rubbing it in’ if you will of how low I once stooped. I don’t see this email the same way anymore. Now, it comes as a potent reminder of the horrible loneliness that I went through. Every time I see that email I am forced to ask myself if there are people around me that I know are lonely and am intentionally neglecting. If there are, this email is slap in the face, followed by a “How dare you!”

I could easily just label this email as “junk” and never have to be reminded of it again. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. I don’t ever want to forget how I felt that night. I don’t ever want to forget that there are people, every night, who feel that way.