Modern Loneliness

Back in college, I listened to this pop musician called Lauv. I wouldn’t say he’s an A-lister when it comes to the genre, but he did have a handful of hits in the late 2010s. 

There’s one song of his I’ve found myself coming back to. It’s called “Modern Loneliness”. 

The chorus goes like this:

Modern loneliness

We're never alone, but always depressed, yeah

Love my friends to death

But I never call and I never text, yeah

La-di-da-di-da

Yeah, you get what you give, and you give what you get, so

Modern loneliness

We love to get high, but we don't know how to come down

To me, the song is about the paradox of the social media era. In an age of Instagram and TikTok, we’re never alone. We can pull out our phone to reach friends and strangers alike at any moment.

Despite that, depression and other mental illnesses are at an all-time high.

The song suggests that while this social media presence seems connecting, we fail to do the things that would actually make us feel connected. This isolating cycle drives us to choose the quick high of scrolling social media instead of opting for something that might make us feel better in the long run.

That chorus has reverberated through my head for years. It makes me think about all the friends I’ve been lucky to have in my life.

Never Alone

In the age of the internet, I’m closer than ever to those I care about most. Right?

I can pick up my phone and see the actual, real-time location of my best friends. I can send a funny video to four friends at once on the platform of my choosing. Hell, I can even see the elaborate vacations of someone who at most I shared a 9am English lecture with during a single semester in college. 

We are more connected than ever.

So, then why do we feel so distant? 

Love My Friends to Death

I gave a referral for a friend recently when the interviewer asked how often we stayed in contact. My response was, “well, what type of contact?” I can send Reels and Snapchats to a friend daily, but am I really saying anything to them?

I care deeply for my friends. There are friends who I haven’t seen in days, months, years that I long to see and that I would still do a lot for. 

I miss my friends. I miss when the most important thing in my life wasn’t making it to work on time, or paying the bills, but rather deciding where to go to dinner with friends that night. In hindsight, the location didn’t matter. The people did.

That absence hurts at times. It hurts to think about how easy it was to see a friend who worked down the hall from me or a roommate in the bedroom over. I simply had to take a few steps.

Now, I’d have to drive or fly long distances to do something that I so recently took for granted. 

You Get What You Give

Why don’t I reach out more? Sometimes it feels like the largest burden to respond to a text. I leave it unread, and the little red icon tugs at the back of my mind.

It’s so easy to isolate oneself in the corners of the Internet. It’s easy to come home from a long day at work and want to loaf on the couch on Instagram. I send a few Reels in the name of friendship before quickly forgetting and scrolling along.

I feel like I’m sharing something important as I send Reels and TikToks. Does that Reel come remotely close to the moments spent laughing together in person? Talking about nothing and everything all at once.

How to Come Down

This week, I went to a friend’s comedy show. Seeing him perform reminded me of times when I was the one across from him. It felt good. Another day this week, I walked during a call with a friend. The motion drew me into the conversation, and I wasn’t distracted by other things. That felt good too. 

I think the missing piece is presence.

The common denominator for the best memories I have is that they’re the ones without phones. They’re the ones spent sharing cigars, bottles of wine, dances in dilapidated castles. I didn’t want to look at my phone in those moments. Being present allowed me to have those memories.

I won’t stop sending Reels to my friends – I think there is some good in it or at least some fun. The act is perhaps incomplete.

I might not be able to see all my friends on a weekly basis, but I can choose to be more intentional about how I engage with them.

As I come into this new year of my life, I find myself thinking a lot about the past and those I care about. Maybe the best way to address the longing is being more intentional about how I interact with the people who are the most important to me.

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P.S.

For those who enjoyed the drawings in previous posts, I'm trying to get them to make a comeback. The habit I started didn't end up sticking as well as I'd hoped, so I'm brainstorming on new ways to get back to the act of drawing.