Embracing Solitude or Seeking Love? A Middle-Aged Reflection
My birthday is approaching next month, marking another year of aging. I will be, by my count, even older than I was last year. I am now far enough from 40 that it would be irrational to lie and claim I am in my late 30s. I am solidly, unequivocally in middle age.
When you reach middle age, you engage in a lot of looking back, soul-searching, and other highly unproductive activities. I have been doing that even more since my girlfriend dumped me a month before my birthday. Yes, I am a 41-year-old man who uses the term 'girlfriend,' a word that feels infantilizing just to type. What am I, a teenager crying to a Smiths song? In spirit, yes. I am.
At this age, I have a litany of failed relationships behind me, including a failed marriage that produced my eight-year-old son. I have experienced two breakups just in the last 365 days. These were not fleeting whims. They were serious, involving various 'I love yous,' plans made, and trips taken. I am the king of serial monogamy, a sensitive nerve ending that sincerely tries to make it work even when it definitely is not.
The Appeal of Loneliness Influencers
In light of my latest 'intimacy fail' and my looming birthday, I find myself wondering if solitude might be the solution for all this personal chaos. Yet another obnoxious social media trend catching our idle attention is 'loneliness influencing.' This involves TikTokers posting videos of themselves drinking Diet Coke at home alone on a Friday night, telling the world that this is actually great.
A recent article in the Atlantic shed some light on the phenomenon, describing videos where people take walks, stare out the window, or bake a frozen pizza alone. If none of that sounds exciting, that is because that is the point. It is supposed to appeal to viewers who aspire to such heights of banality, while not feeling guilty about it. Thankfully, lonelinessmaxxing videos only show the positive parts of being by yourself. I have not personally found any TikToks of people clipping their toenails or drooling after falling asleep at 8:30 PM. Part of why these videos are circulating so much is, I think, because culture has enforced the idea that being by yourself is socially maladjusted behavior, that you are a bad day away from becoming the Unabomber and fleeing to a cabin in Montana. The videos offer an alternative view: it is OK to be alone.
I see the appeal in embracing solitary life, especially past 40. How many more times can you open yourself up to another person before the inevitable crash, the painful separation, and the necessity of starting over again becomes too overwhelming? Maybe some of us are nostalgic for Covid lockdowns, when the anxieties of other people were a distant memory. Plus, we now have all these tools for interaction that do not require us to actually try to love and be loved. We can just post a video of resolute and admirable aloneness and be rewarded for how little we need other people. Of course, by reaching out digitally, we are reaffirming that we do actually need validation. It is just that it is easier if the need only goes one way.
Choosing Hope Over Isolation
I am not here to tell anyone what they actually require to function. I have no idea what goes on in anyone else's head. If I did, I think that might be a tad overwhelming, like Superman when he flies up into orbit to listen to the agonized screams of global victims of injustice with his hypersensitive ears. In fact, I applaud anyone who feels like they need to be by themselves. I think that is really wonderful, especially because if they stay home, that is one less person on the road at rush hour or trying to get a table at the trendy restaurant I want to go to. Thank you for your service.
But for me, that is not what life is about. It is about being stuck in traffic, going to the busy restaurant, and sharing feelings that are uncomfortable. I could sit behind my phone and soak up praise. I could work myself to the bone, then celebrate with a bad movie I pass out to on the couch. I could force myself not to cry. But then I am not me anymore. I am someone I think I am supposed to be. I am 'fixing' myself by being shut off.
I do not want that. I want to be appreciated for the things I do well, but I also want to be understood for the things I do not. It is fine to need, normal to want. I want to be loved for the entire human being I am, not the show I put on for the world. Maybe that is too much to ask for in a society that prioritizes aesthetics over honesty. Still, no matter how old I am, how many times I fail, I remain hopeful that I can accept and give actual affection.
If I die tomorrow, please be sure to inscribe this on my tombstone: 'Here Lies Dave Schilling. He Had Unreasonable Expectations About Life.' I cannot think of a better way to be remembered than that.
