Saturday, October 29, 2005
The Bible is filled with lonely people. Think of Jonah in the whale, Daniel in the lion's den, Job in his misery, Paul in his prison cell, even Jesus during his 40 days' ordeal alone in the desert.
Of course, solitude is no sin, and it is often a matter of personal choice to abandon the crowds and get one's work done with no distractions. Think of the early Christian hermits who embraced solitary lives to be alone with God.
Today, people who are desperately lonely often attempt to hide their condition by protesting that they are independent or self-sufficient. But, increasingly, they are turning to the Internet for an anonymous way of hooking up with other lonely people.
Last year someone calling himself Wetfeet2000 typed into the Google search engine, "I am lonely." He received a rash of responses, prompting him to ask himself, "Does that make you the most popular loneliest person on the planet?"
Since then, the anonymous outing of lonely people has become an industry. Correspondents have talked one another out of suicide and into helping others as a solution to unwanted solitude. But other responses are not so solicitous. Someone calling himself SAGoon gave a complainer this prescription: "First, buy a gun. Second, shoot yourself."
By August of this year the discussion on Google had become international and had grown to 107 pages, prompting a brief article in The New Yorker, which in turn encouraged nonlonely people to visit the site out of curiosity. That infuriated the genuinely lonely people. A regular user calling himself FrenchToast, wrote, "I'm outta here! This used to be a pretty cool site. People discovered it through serendipity and wound up sharing some very personal stuff."
In short, the nonlonely people had started giving advice to the complainers -- something they didn't want. Most preferred to stew in their own juices so long as they could share their misery. Many had come to define themselves as lonely and developed a perverse pride in their condition.
What some wrote
A few examples:
Oddkod: "Maybe I am just saying my little piece, congratulating myself. ... Maybe no one will read my post and understand it. ... Maybe someone out there will read it and understand, and maybe she will write back."
NYERREADER: "In New York City, millions of people, but here I am: quite overweight, single, nearing a big, ugly birthday. Time to stop the pity party, I know, but terribly lonesome in the meantime... "
alonetonight: "this thread is so beautiful ... it feels like humanity crying out in one voice ... I'm lonely tonight. Anyone in montreal? I wish we could go for a walk together ..."
Some lonely people become upbeat about sharing their plight: "I'll be everyone's friend!!!" writes Kristen. But others are neither articulate nor sympathetic. Jack the King, for example, is a scold: "some of u talk to damn much! no wonder u lonely."
Scripps Howard News Service