Being “outed” as lonely
Was at a large meeting with my boss this week (yes, I have a day job), and we were doing introductions around the table, and my boss was introducing me and she said, “Emily just wrote a book on….” Silence. I could see my boss panicking slightly, not knowing if it was OK to “out” me as lonely. Apparently not, since she settled on “social isolation.”
I found this interesting. It was a lot like watching someone try to figure out whether to out someone as gay. I wouldn’t have minded if my boss had said, “Emily just wrote a book on loneliness,” but Susan was clearly unsure about what to say. So she equivocated, to protect me. I found this sweet, but unnecessary. It hints at how much stigma attaches to loneliness. After all, I just put my name and photo on a book called LONELY, but people are still uncomfortable describing me this way. My sense is that they feel they’d be saying something damaging about me if they used the word, as though knowledge of my loneliness might hurt me in the workplace. I don’t think it will, but others are clearly not convinced. We have a long way to go, people.
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 at 10:31 am and is filed under the category Stigma of Loneliness.
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2 Responses to “Being “outed” as lonely”
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I’m eighteen and have always felt a sort of dissociative feeling with everything around me. I try to explain my loneliness and I am told that I’m young and in a difficult period of my life as I am in between high school and college and around nobody who truly fits into my maturity and age range. However, I know that this is something that has always been with me and always will. I get very sick of hearing “get involved” which I am and “it will pass” which it won’t. People have flinched when I said I am lonely. I have two people, a best friend and a boyfriend, who I am very close with. However, when not in their presence the feeling creeps in and grabs hold.. I find I never feel quite attached to life in general unless one of them is present. I feel I am relying and depending on them too much and it is causing disruptions in both relationships. Which is even more terrifying to me. I guess this probably isn’t the right blog, but.. hello Emily. I have yet to read your book I picked it up in a Barnes and Noble yet let that best friend borrow it first.
WOW. Emily, that must have been so strange for you. I’m wondering what kind of reaction and response you got.
Did your boss try to make it sound like your book was a sociological study rather than a memoir?
I’m sure loneliness, the whys, is complicated. So much of mine seems self-imposed in the sense that I am so ashamed of who I am or rather who I am not. Stigmas cripple me. I feel certain many people feel they are shy, socially awkward, and feel unconnected…but they often do connect. They get married. They have jobs and activities where they have to interact. So I wonder if in the end some of us who are so lonely and isolated are ones who just have an extremely thin skin and worry too much what others think?
I’ve avoided social interactions just because I’m embarrassed to admit or reveal to people how threadbare my life is. When people find out I have no spouse or spousal equivalent, no children or ties, it really does bring the conversation to a grinding halt or else it turns into a situation where I am the audience listening to them describe all the facets of their life.