Is loneliness a problem really?

I have been exploring for quite sometime what it means to be lonely and why some people are scared of it to the extent they hastily get married and have children regardless of whether they are ready or not to embark on such a demanding and responsible journey.

I plan never to get married and never to have children and don't mind joining an old folks home, if I reach an age and stage where I or my family cannot take care of myself and may need professional help to deal with me. Such homes for the elderly is not a problem actually because you can make new friends and enjoy their company if that's what makes you happy. Or there are other pastimes like reading. But my personal prayer to Allah is requesting Him to bring about my death rather than prolonging my life to a problematic phase.

Last week when I routinely consulted my physician to renew my cholesterol medication for the next three months, the good Muslim doctor asked me whether I have married yet. It's a question I feel rather awkward answering because there are some connotations that are rather embarrassing. So I gave my usual answer that I have not met the right person yet to which he replied that I will always have to compromise. Mercifully he brought an end to that topic by saying that there is still time and that even though I can take care of myself now, when I grow old I would need grownup children to take care of me.

He didn't raise the point that I myself wouldn't have been born if my parents hadn't got married and this is a point some people raise to instill a kind of guilt in people who decide not to get married and have children. I am a person who feels that there are enough orphans in the world without me contributing to aggravate the situation by getting married and creating more children; adoption seems an attractive alternative.

There's also a troubling psychological condition I have which I realized only in recent years: my inability to form in-depth human bonds, connections, and relationships, the nature of which I haven’t found an answer yet. I don’t even know the emotion that results in the feeling of what is referred to in our language Dhivehi as "kulunu" which I am supposing means something akin to kinship love. I have met people who say that adoption is not something they prefer because there is no feeling of a deep connection to a "strange" child while the "real" thing is to have your own biological children because it generates a kind of immense love to feel that you have a child of your own "blood".

Strangely, even if I don’t know the causal factors, I now find that loneliness doesn't trouble me at all. In fact, I rather prefer it because I want to be absorbed in myself and discover aspects of my character and personality which I haven’t explored in depth yet.

A Maldivian writer friend told me that he "lives in his head". He also posed me the question: "Do you want to become friends with everybody?"

There are studies which say that one cannot give attention and quality time to more than around 150 people at any given time - meaning that you cannot give ample attention to more than that amount of people - family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances included.

Subsequently, some companies now compartmentalize their departments to contain not more than 150 employees in each, in order to create social cohesiveness with the objective that it will result in more productivity.

But another Maldivian friend is skeptical about this finding and opined that 150 is still too many people to give attention to. I kind of agree with him because I find that my circle of friends, who I consider as close, now has dwindled to around 20.

And to be brutally honest, don’t take offense if you are one of my friends reading this blogpost, when I say that I am actually reciprocating friendships, not initiating them.

As I mentioned just now, unlike some other people, I don't really know what a human bond is like. Is that a psychological problem I had been born with, or something that twisted my brain’s neuron network during my formative years? Am I irrevocably affected from witnessing a horrific case of domestic violence when I lived among my extended family during my childhood?

I know at least one loved one, who has never witnessed a domestic violence scene like the case of the almost murderous scene I had witnessed, yet, even now entering her 30s, she still haven’t had even one single boyfriend because she says she cannot trust men not to be violent!

In my 20s and 30s, I was quite a conversationalist and a workaholic. I think that was why I could tirelessly endlessly write articles during my then journalism career. For instance, once, there were two days during my time at the now defunct Haveeru Daily when, for various reasons, there was only me and one other single colleague left to write all the content, whether it was local news, politics, business, entertainment, world news, local sports, and even foreign sports. I was at the time a jack of all trades and master of nothing which I guess is not something I should be proud of. Now I can’t see myself going through a tiring and demanding time like that.

My detachment from everyone and everything started when I entered my 40s.

I first noticed it when during hanging out with friends and relatives they would point out why I was so silent and quiet, and therefore asked me whether I was worrying over something even though deep inside myself I was quite content and calm even if I was surrounded by peace breaking and chattering people.

I noticed that I was only listening to people talking about their personal and professional life and problematic issues with long explanations. Without saying anything, and not contributing anything verbally, I would keep smiling and nodding in order to make my companion feel I was present in their presence and really listening to them.

People say that today’s society’s problem is that people don’t really listen. By that standards, people should be really happy that I do listen at length, even if I keep my thoughts to myself. And even though I have stopped reading self-help books because I feel I have read enough of them, due to my inability to understand what actually are human bonds, I don’t know what kind of appropriate advice and solutions I can offer, which perhaps is what my companion would be looking forward to even if I listen to their stories while remaining silent.

Over the past two years, I noticed that I easily run out of things to say unless there is a specific topic or subject to carry on in a conversation. I am not skilled or talented in small talk or idle talk (“vai vaahaka” in Dhivehi) and therefore, even if I got into a relationship, I know it won't last more than about two hours which is my tolerance threshold in anybody’s company. I would enjoy the companionship of a loved one up to a certain time and then I would be looking forward to take refuge in my home until I feel like going out again with another loved one. So my “loneliness” and “companionship” would go round and round in circles.

Hence, I am amazed, for example, how elderly couples have been together for long times and still find things to talk about. I would wonder what romance is, and what sparks it. Although at first I was skeptical about the genuineness of whirlwind romances such as that between Jack and Rose in “Titanic”, the friend who claims he “lives in his head” said that “young love” can be quite “intense” even if it was for a short period such as the three days that took Titanic to sail and sink.

I have lost a lot of friends during the past two years because I am silent. In fact, one of my grade 8 classmates recently abandoned me in the middle of a coffee, saying he was going home because I wasn't talking.

And in another instance while I was riding behind a friend on his motorcycle, he suddenly stopped to say “I thought you fell asleep”, even though I didn’t see any reason to keep chattering when we can do so after reaching our destination.

I suppose some people need a constant stream of noise, however superficial, because they fear that even a few minutes of quiet and silence in their alone time may force themselves to confront the deep disturbing thoughts inside their mind which they have always been trying to suppress. May be they can learn a good lesson by watching the animated movie “Inside Out”.

Since I don’t understand what human bonds are and how they operate, I cannot understand things such as human connections and relationships. In the face of that, can I ever enter a successful marriage? Will there be people who can tolerate my silence for even a few minutes?

My friends say that some people are very attached to me and even (platonically?) love me very much, but I don't understand why because I don't actually make a conscious effort to be friendly as I know it won't last for more than two hours at any given time. I would have to take a break and meet them after a few months to do a “new” catching up and talk about what we missed during that period of temporary “separation”. Thus it obviously means I cannot live with another person because I would go into my silence mode and the bond would get awkward.

I don't even feel any connection with strangers who smile at me: my neighbors and cashiers of shops on my street would pass me by, giving me a smile, perhaps because I am a familiar face to them, but I don’t feel the need to initiate or let them initiate a conversation in order to elevate our non-verbal contact and interaction to a friendship level because there is no point as I cannot meet their expectations of being a good conversationalist. So the only thing I do is smile back because I don't want them to feel ignored or feel bad about my rudeness in not reciprocating their friendliness. Since I would always be surrounded by them, I guess it’s best I force myself to be nice at least on a superficial level in order not to feel awkward every time I meet them. As that Maldivian writer friend once said to me: Do I want to be friendly with everybody? May be pointless, given my psychological condition of not been able to understand and appreciate the bonds between humans.

And relating to politics, which form an inescapable and integral part of our lives because there is the need to be governed as long as we humans live in a society and civilization, I think the reason why I don't want to get involved in journalism again, even if I can get involved in it on a freelance basis, is because I feel so much disappointed and hapless at the way Maldives' politics is continuing its downward spiral into degradation and it is depressing to actually know all about it.

So I decided that I am going to insulate myself from knowledge of all the negativity that is gripping our small community. Hence, I am happy to be occupied with enlightening myself in subjects like the humanities, the social sciences, etc. But that said, can I really insulate myself from the far reaching effects of local politics? And if it comes to a stage where I decide not to vote in any kind of elections in Maldives in the future, would my ballot make a difference?