Loneliness must be one of the worst emotions a man can feel. The feeling of having nothing, having no one, it really can dig into someone. To wonder where this emotion comes from is something I have been thinking about more and more. Working more than half our lives away, just to make a living, how do people find the time for themselves? Find the time to find someone, and to give that person everything he/she deserves. It seems to get harder and harder the more “advanced” we get as a people. Hence loneliness sets in on people. So with this I want to talk a little about society related to “loving partnerships” and why loneliness is something that is felt today but will be felt tenfold in the future if we keep down the path we are on.
Society in general tells us that we must be coupled with someone, but doesn’t give us the time we need to nurture those relationships correctly. Society then reacts to this foreseen consequence by making the divorce socially correct. Over the last 30 years the divorce went from something that was shunned from society to something that we deal with on a daily bases. The average time span for an American couple lasting is at the lowest it has been in the countries entire history. This is something that is not seen just in America but in most industrialized countries. Is it the freedom of choice now that we choose more than one “permanent” partner?
Of course this is not the reason but if we look deep into our society the reason that divorce has moved into the mainstream is because the time is not there, the time to spend building a true permanent relationship. Some say that humans were not built to be monogamous creatures but this is something that has been overstated and for the wrong reasons. For all the science stating that humans are not meant to be monogamous something quite important is missing. The human brain. We are self aware creatures who think very logically and who have the ability to do whatever they set their minds to. We choose to build relationships with people; this is something we have moved to from thousands of years of evolution. We no longer are driven totally by instincts, and with this gift we have choice. The real underling reason for issues points back to society. So when we build a relationship that will not last we then feel an emotion that no one ever wants to feel…loneliness.
Humans in general are social beings but with that our social behavior is shaped by other social beings. So society plays a huge part pointing us in certain directions, even partnering up. In general social beings will pair up, but will not always stay partnered up. Humans though, being aware, make long term, strong, partnerships and bonds, and in our current environment this is a very good thing. It is much easier to get through issues with someone rather than alone. Something that society is, again, familiar with and has pushed partnering up as the general solution to problems. Something is wrong with a person if he/she does not get married. Society has been putting more and more emphasis on this practice. In the mean time society has also been taking personal time away from these people so that they can do more work, ask fewer questions, and become “droned”. The side affect of all of this is that we as humans can no longer make strong bonds with other humans. No longer can true partnerships be made so partnerships break up and people start to feel lonely.
When humans make poor partnerships, or partnerships that will not last, the human is apt to make mistakes in future partnerships or will choose not to make new partnerships in the future. When a person does not make new partnerships loneliness will slip into that person’s life. With the emotion loneliness comes other emotions as well. The emotions of depression and self hatred can follow loneliness. These emotions can have terrible side effects on the person feeling them. The worst of these are suicidal thoughts for the extremely depressed person. When a person acts on suicidal thoughts they push the proverbial game over button. Studies have shown that when depression sets in based off of loneliness suicidal thoughts skyrocket. And a society of depressed, lonely people cannot be good for our future. Along with the emotional problems that loneliness can cause, children born into bad partnerships are apt to have just as many emotional problems as the partnership they come from. Those children, if they get out of the partnership unscathed, are likely to make poor partnerships in their own lives and the cycle continues. Only second generation issues tend to be worse than the first generations. This can point us in the direction that after many generations of poor decision making and societal pushes toward bad relationship practices we may come to a point when the human race no longer makes partnerships. Losing some of the best and worst of the “Human” way. Society pushes partnering and then breaks the partnership, only to push another partnership. To compare this to metal if a piece of metal is bent back and forth over and over sooner or later that metal will finally fall apart the same can be said about our society.
Humans cannot get as close to other humans and loneliness begins to set in. Even humans in partnerships based on “less free” time feel this loneliness because they cannot bond with their partners correctly. So our current way of life can only point us to being a “lonely” society, among other things. Unless society changes its way and gives people a better quality of life, being that it gives people more social time to make the correct partnerships, we will be a very lonely society, or possibly a society of broken people.
BIGFIX01
Hollow Earth Philosophy 
Why restrict loneliness to couples. I was lonely tonight: starting life over at a late age, in a single room in a ‘share house’ with only one other person who is rarely here. In a country where I might know thirty people as acquaintences, have one ex, one friend and two adult children.
I don’t know anything about blogging. I simply was lonely and found myself here. But I am not lonely for a partner, rather for the sound of voices, exchange of thoughts, the clink of glasses and clatter of cutlery. I am lonely for human interaction. And the structural forces that are hampering couple relationships are doing far more damage hampering human relationships generally.
I did not want this post to come across as restricting loneliness to couples, or partnerships. That is what I wanted to focus on in this post. I agree with you that structural forces are hampering not only couple relationships but also most if not all human relationships. It is must easier to show damage and get my point across using couple relationships. This is the reason I focused on couples rather than human relationships in general.
Thanks for the comment.