Robots for the lonely? Oh no!

Saw an article recently about a project aimed a creating robots for the lonely. I’m not making this up! On one hand, the notion that someone is taking loneliness seriously and thinking of responses to it is encouraging. But, a robot?

I had the opportunity, a few years ago, to interview Dr. Aaron Katcher, an American psychiatrist who’s been at the forefront of developing animal-assisted therapy techniques. This was right when little robots were being marketed as possible helpers and companions for the elderly. I asked Katcher what he thought about this development, and he was horrified. He described it as pushing the aged and the sick “into the matrix,” away from the life-giving people, animals, and natural settings we all need.

This is how I feel about the idea of developing robots for the lonely. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong! Lonely people need other people (and pets!). To think that we can substitute technology for human warmth is a bit terrifying. If someone had given me a robot during the years of my most intense loneliness, I would have thrown it across the room. I wanted human companionship, not technology.

If any lonely people out there would entertain the notion of interacting with a robot, let me know. Right now, I’m not sure where the researchers will get their experimental lonely subjects. I can’t imagine anyone signing up for such a loneliness “cure.” Would you?


April 8, 2011 | Category: Animal Assisted Therapy, Dealing with Loneliness | 6 Comments »

Where has she gone?

Greetings, folks. I realize I’ve been silent recently, but there’s a reason for this. Two weeks ago, I submitted a book proposal (yes, sticking with the program), and I’m waiting to hear back from my publisher. This means I’ve been in a state of something resembling suspended animation…just waiting to hear, thinking through the next book, and keeping fingers crossed. There’s something sort of mesmerizing about waiting to hear from a publisher…you wait, and talk to the cats, and wait some more. (The cats, by the way, have been very supportive.)

Am now snapping out of my reverie, and will start blogging once more. Also, if you posted to the blog and wondered why your message didn’t appear, there was a technical glitch — I wasn’t receiving notices that new notes had been sent. I was wondering where everyone was! I now know that the glitch is there, so messages will be posted once again. Thanks for your patience!

April 3, 2011 | Category: First Time Writer Stuff | 2 Comments »

Sticking with the program

Hello! I received some messages after my last post that made me realize my ironic tone might not be carrying through the blogosphere. No, I won’t be writing about kittens or cakes in my next book. I’m sticking with all of you, and with social isolation and loneliness, for my next book project. That’s my life. That’s my work.

Actually, and this makes me grin, there will be kittens in the next book. One way that I’ve responded to social isolation is through fostering animals (at this stage, one cat, four kittens, two dogs). I also have four cats in the house. Cuteness aside, I’m actually really interested in the role(s) that animals play in the lives of the lonely and socially isolated. I know that my eldest cat, Hodge, who is now 15, has seen me through more solitary times than I can remember.

Feel free to write with your own stories of animal love or comfort. If you post a message to the blog, everyone will be able to see it, and I’m sure many will be able to relate.

 

March 13, 2011 | Category: Long-term Loneliness, Stigma of Loneliness | 26 Comments »

Struggling with stigma

So, the “new book” has been kicking around in proposal form for a little while now. I haven’t, until today, been able to really articulate the problem I’ve been having with it. I think I’ve known for a while now what I wanted to write about, but I’ve been struggling with stigma.

It’s because I would so much love to write about a subject that’s socially “easy” that I keep changing the pitch. I’m reading The Happiness Project now (it’s good, but a bit uninformed when it comes to the subject of sociability). And I think about writing a book about happiness. How flippin’ fantastic is that? You could go to a party, tell someone what you’re writing about, and a cheerful, easy conversation would ensue.

You have to understand what I went through with Lonely. I’d say that I was writing about chronic loneliness, and people would freeze. Or walk away. Or laugh in this nervous, high-pitched way. They would clearly not want to have a discussion about the subject. The topic made people uncomfortable, and I was often viewed with outright suspicion for being interested in something so taboo.

The thought of sticking with loneliness and putting myself through that once again is a bit exhausting. I’d love to write a book about something non-stigmatized, like kittens, or interior design, or cake recipes. But–as I think I just realized today, while I was sipping tea in my office–I also have to understand my own life, and the lives of people I hear from. And if loneliness and isolation characterize those lives, then that’s what I have to address, right?

Thanks to all of you for your support of my odd writing projects. Hearing from people helps me handle the stigma. I’ll post again soon, with more details about the next book, after I talk to my agent, which should be some time next week. Keep well!

March 8, 2011 | Category: First Time Writer Stuff, Social Isolation, Stigma of Loneliness | 11 Comments »

Waiting for a reply? A technical glitch…

If you’ve written to me and haven’t heard back, it’s because there’s a technical glitch with my email program. I can read emails, but I can’t reply to some addresses.  I’m sorting this out, and will get back to you soon!

March 8, 2011 | Category: First Time Writer Stuff | 1 Comment »

Me, the music nerd

One of the main comments I received after Lonely came out was, “Wow, you didn’t mention any musicians in there.” The truth is, I’m a bit tone-deaf. I don’t think in terms of music. The only song I included in the book was John Prine’s “Unlonely,” and I’d been introduced to that song years ago, by the musician I used to live with.

For the past year, whenever anyone has said that there wasn’t enough music in the book, I’ve secretly thought, “Well, what difference does it make?” I spent my years of loneliness listening to the radio, but that was almost entirely talk radio or big band shows–not the sort of thing you’d download on ITunes. And I didn’t think I was missing anything. It didn’t seem to me as though listening to music was going to affect my loneliness one way or the other.

But I recently had a birthday and was given the very surprise gift of an IPod Nano. At first, I didn’t know what to make of it. I couldn’t figure out how to plug it into my computer, or how to download songs (in addition to being a music nerd, I’m a bit of a tech nerd). The first song I downloaded was, yes, “Unlonely,” and then I started flipping around, listening to songs from Fred Eaglesmith and the Canadian folk singer Sarah Harmer.

And it was interesting. Maybe it was the quality of the sound (excellent) or the freedom of choice (apparently unlimited) but something sort of clicked for me in terms of music and loneliness. I got why people were asking me about songs. Because the music I was listening to was making me feel slightly less alone, more connected, more in touch with an emotional experience.

I don’t think that music cures loneliness, and I will never be a full-fledged music lover, in the way that I am a committed lover of books. But I see the point that music lovers have been trying to make, which is that music can be a source of comfort and connectedness, and that you can lose or buffet your emotions with a song in the same way that you can with a really good story.

So many thanks to the people who have sent me their favourite loneliness songs — they’re much appreciated. I’m very slowly stocking my IPod with songs, and listening to my favourite CBC radio show (music, not talk), and thinking a bit more carefully about what music, as opposed to silence, might be able to do.

February 27, 2011 | Category: Dealing with Loneliness, Social Isolation | 10 Comments »

Loneliness and Valentine’s Day

Hey, peeps. Due to popular demand, I am writing a blog post on Valentine’s Day. I had to be encouraged to do this, because I seem to be one of the few women in North America missing the “V-Day” gene. Maybe it’s because I’m gay, or because I dislike chocolate, or because cut flowers kind of creep me out, but I’ve never really had emotional trouble with Valentine’s Day. Other, less notorious days, such as the first day of spring, often hit me much harder in terms of loneliness.

I do live in the modern world, however, so whether or not V-Day is significant to me is kind of immaterial. Just like the rest of you, I’ll be subjected to the “cover your lover with chocolate” stories, and the images of hearts and flowers. This is all pretty predictable.

What strikes me as more interesting is the new storyline that’s emerged in the past few years. This one is all about risk and danger. It’s about how being alone and lonely on Valentine’s Day is this toxic, horrible state that just might kill you. Valentine’s seems to have emerged not just as a day to celebrate all things romantic, it’s become a day of getting hysterical about the risks associated with loneliness.

If you’re lonely, prepare yourself for this. Give yourself a day off from the paper and from cable TV. If you see some screaming headline about the risks of loneliness, take a deep breathe and try to ignore it. Yes, loneliness does carry some risks, but so does riding in a car, and we do that all the time. (I’d actually love to see a Risks of Automobile Travel Day, but that’s a different story.) Loneliness isn’t anything to panic about. It’s a natural state of mind, and a natural way to feel if you’re too much on your own.

I’m not saying that loneliness isn’t hard, or that long-term loneliness isn’t awful. Loneliness can be gruelling. But the media isn’t doing lonely people any favours by treating loneliness as some sort of freakish, dangerous disease state. It’s not. It’s a part of being human. It’s what some of us came into the world with a predisposition for. It’s something we have to manage and struggle our way through, but not anything to become alarmed by.

So I wish everyone a calm, non-anxiety provoking Valentine’s Day. If you see a story about the “health risks of loneliness,” skip it. Instead, do something good for your health, like running or taking a walk or writing in a journal. And treat yourself to something nice–good food, chocolates, a bubble bath. And remember that, by February 15th, it will all be over.

February 13, 2011 | Category: Dealing with Loneliness, Effects of Loneliness, Long-term Loneliness | 9 Comments »

Reading Lonely in public

This weekend was the second annual “Sparks” literary festival here in St. John’s. I was invited to read, and initially felt a bit apprehensive about it. All of my work with Lonely has been conducted in the safety of my office. To be out in the middle of a big group of people, reading and talking about loneliness. Well, that was going to be different.

I’m happy to report that the day and the reading went well. There seemed to be a responsiveness among people when I mentioned the words “long term loneliness.” I know that not everyone in the audience had experienced such loneliness, but there seemed to be a real willingness to listen as I talked about what had happened to me. People applauded at the end, and that was just the best.

The reading felt like something of an anniversary. Lonely came out almost exactly a year ago. That means I’ve spent almost twelve months talking about loneliness, either through blogging, or interviews, or editorials. The reading was sort of the crowning achievement of my year. I realized that, after 12 months, I was calm talking about loneliness. I was ready. And that’s an accomplishment. It’s not anything, six years ago, that I thought I’d ever be able to do.

January 25, 2011 | Category: First Time Writer Stuff, Long-term Loneliness | 7 Comments »

Loneliness — small town v. big city

A question I get a lot is whether I find life in a smaller centre less lonely than life in a big city. (A few years ago I moved from Toronto to St. John’s, Newfoundland. Toronto has a population of about 5 million, St. John’s has a population of about 100,000.)

I’ve thought about this question a lot in the past few years, and I’ve come to two conclusions.

1. The size of the city doesn’t matter as much as the quality of the connections you have there. You could be living in an absolutely massive place, but so long as you feel connected, you probably won’t feel lonely.

2. You need to love the place itself. You could be in the cutest, quaintest small town in the world, but if you don’t feel attached to that place, there’s a good chance you’ll feel isolated.

I think 1 & 2 actually go together: the more connections you have in a place, the happier you’ll be with the place itself. This means that it’s not city size that matters so much as the quality of your social ties. I think that a lot of lonely people daydream about a more connected life in a small town but, trust me, it’s not that straightforward. Connections will influence your experience of place, no matter where you are.

January 7, 2011 | Category: Social Isolation | 18 Comments »

Lonely out in paperback

A quick post to say that Lonely is now out in paperback in Canada, and will be out in paper in the US on January 18th. It’s exciting to have the paperback version in the world, since this is the version that will “last” in bookstores (hardcovers are only in circulation for the first year or so).

I hope that everyone had a good new year, and I look forward to building this site and continuing our discussion about loneliness in the coming year.

January 5, 2011 | Category: First Time Writer Stuff | 2 Comments »

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