Why Loneliness is Different for Singles: Part 2

What makes singleness different for singles?

In my last post, I started talking about how loneliness is different for singles. As I was writing, I realized that it was too much for one post. And I was concerned this next point would get missed or buried in the length. In my mind, this is the most important reason why loneliness is different for singles.

(You can read Part 1 here if you missed it.)

The most important reason why loneliness is different for singles has nothing to do with having friends.

It has everything to do with what you do with those friends.

". . . having people to do nothing with is quite important to singles." (Sam Allberry, 7 Myths about Singleness)

When I read that the first time, my response was: Yes! Someone finally put it into words that might make sense to others.

This is a big deal.

Allberry goes on to say:

"There are times when I feel emotionally tired but really want company, so it's great to have friends you see often enough that you don't need to spend your time together catching up. If one problem is friends you barely get to catch up with, another is friends you only catch up with. It's easy for married friends to forget this, because they already have people to do nothing with, and having people to with whom to do nothing is not necessarily a need they're conscious of."

I don't want everything I with people to be about what we do or about catching up. It's good when we don't always have to do that.

The most life-giving memory I have of this is when some married friends invited me to go camping with them for a week with their family. Yes, we did lots of things - hiking, games, cooking, and much more. But, we also did a lot of "doing nothing together." We sat in chairs next to each other and read. We sat around the fire in the evening with no expectation of catching up on what was going on in our lives. We sat at the same table, drinking coffee and reading our Bibles in the morning.

I didn't know how much I needed things like that until I experienced a week of it. I couldn't put it into words that I could explain to someone else until now. The idea of "doing nothing together" almost seems like a foreign concept in our culture. But, it's incredibly important that we pay attention to this - especially when there are single adults in your circle.

Often, I don't need an invitation to do something. I just need to be able to be with people without expectations. I know that being alone at that time isn't a good thing, but I'm not up to doing a lot. I really just need to now I'm not alone.

Why Loneliness is Different for Singles: Part 1

If loneliness is such a big problem in the West, why do I approach it from the perspective of singleness? Is there really a difference?

These are questions I've asked myself as I've looked at this topic. I wanted to make sure I wasn't saying something was a factor if it really wasn't. As I've studied, read, and talked to others, I've come to the conclusion that there is a lot about loneliness that is different for singles. There are things about it that need to be addressed.

Some of these things become even more pronounced the older we get as singles. My own experiences make that clear. When I was just finished college and living with roommates my experience of loneliness was different in some ways than it is now, living completely on my own. And I think that makes it even more important to talk about it from the perspective of a since Christian adult - past college and the first few years after college.

In her book, One by One: Welcoming the Singles in Your Church, Gina Dalfonzo expresses it this way:

". . . single people know a unique kind of loneliness."

So, what is this unique kind of loneliness that we face as singles?

I think the bog difference comes in the priority put on relationships with others. This priority doesn't mean we don't value our friends, or value our family. But, how that value plays out looks different for singles.

As Sam Allberry writes in his books 7 Myths about Singleness:

"As a single person, my friends are a lifeline. They're like family. They are the ones with whom I fell more known and loved. . . . I need them. Hugely. But, the fact is, they don't need me in the same way. Many of them are the equivalent of family, but since they have families of their own, the familial sense that I have toward them is not necessarily reciprocated. That might be both good and right, as far as it goes, but it can also be painful at times."

I have good relationships with my family and I am lucky they live in the same city as me, but that's not the case for lots of singles. I relate to what Allberry writes - even with family in the same city. Other singles, who don't have family nearby, relate even more.

I would never say that your family isn't and shouldn't be important for you. But, it does make it hard for singles sometimes who don't have the same family commitment to fill time. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've sat at home knowing my friends are rightly spending time with their families while I long for that to fill my loneliness.

Another part of loneliness that I believe is different for singles comes when we look at the need to always make plans. In her book Singles and the Church Jana Marguerite Bennett writes:

"There is a difference in having someone constantly present, without having to contact a friend and make special arrangements."

This is something that has become a more emphasized difference as I've gotten older. When I had just finished college and still lived with roommates, there was usually someone present and it didn't take special planning to do something. But, the older you get, the more likely it is that you live alone as a single person. And that changes things.

Sometimes it would be nice to not always have to contact someone to not be alone. It would be nice if it happened more easily, or if another friend would initiate the plans more often. I'll be honest that it gets tiring to be the one who is almost always asking to get together. It makes me feel like a nuisance and like no one would notice me if I didn't ask. I know this isn't the intended message, but it feels like this sometimes.

Why is Loneliness a Problem?

"I submit that fear of loneliness is, if not the driving force of our time, at least one of the greatest forces." (Gina Dalfonzo, One by One: Welcoming the Singles in Your Church)

We know what it means to feel lonely from our experiences. If I asked you to describe it, you could probably tell me about an experience of it. We all do everything we can to avoid it.

So, if we know that, why as I writing a post on why loneliness is a problem?

Going back to the words I quoted at the beginning of this post: if fear of loneliness is a driving force of our time, then we need to take a look at how we deal with the fear.

The problem is that what we often seek as the solution to loneliness doesn't really satisfy. And then the feelings of loneliness we experience drive us to do whatever we think will mean we're not lonely any more. Except that it doesn't fix it. And we find ourselves caught in this endless loop of frantic activity because we fear being lonely.

I know this well. I've lived in this endless cycle before. In fact, the realization I was living in it and a desire to stop prompted me to take a closer look at this.

I've that, for me, usually the best place to start with a topic is understanding what the key words mean. I started with looking up the definition of the word lonely.

Here's what the Merraim-Webster Dictionary had for a definition of the word lonely:
          1.a) being without company: lone
             b) cut off from others: solitary
          2. not frequented by human beings: desolate
          3. sad from being alone: lonesome
          4. producing a feeling of bleakness or desolation

Not a very positive definition. And not words we want to hear used to describe us.

The past of that definition that relates to what I'm talking about here is #3: "sad from being alone: lonesome." In my study and in my conversations that seemed to fit most with what was coming up.

And that makes it something we do everything in our power to avoid, because we don't want to feel that sadness. It also made it interesting to have these conversations with people. We don't like to talk about it in general. But, once I asked the question and created space for it, people had more to say on the topic that I expected.

I noticed an interesting and troubling connection in these conversations. Jana Marguerite Bennett explains it well in her book Singleness and the Church:

"Loneliness is also a problem that people might wish to avoid. One scholar suggests: 'the very word 'lonely' carries a negative connotation . . . signalling social weakness, or an inability to stand on one's own.' So, too, singleness becomes a problem, partly because of its associations with loneliness."

Since we see loneliness as a problem to avoid, the association of it with singleness means we often begin to see singleness as a problem too. We do one of two things because of our fear of loneliness: (1) we push single Christian adults away, or (2) we present marriage as the answer to their loneliness.

As Bennett writes earlier in the introduction to her book:

"No wonder singleness appears as lonely, because for Christians it often is. In addition to the suspicion cast on single lives, church culture promotes marriage and coupledom even to the point that some singles stop attending church."

I talked to many other Christian adult singles who talked about loneliness because they felt forgotten or pushed out by the church; or, when they did say something about their loneliness, they were told to "just get married" as the solution. (Church experiences obviously varied widely on all that I say when I talk about what I've heard - from really good to really bad and everything in between.) This is a huge contributor to the loneliness epidemic in our culture, in our churches, and specifically among single adult Christians in our churches.

The good news is that there is hope for change. As Bennett writes:

"Loneliness need not be a part of the single life."

But for it not to be, we have to understand and do things differently. That's ultimately what I want to write about in this series.