"Do you have any friends?" she asked

A human exchange in the craft store and loneliness in the headlines.

I was shopping at an arts & craft stores this past weekend for a kid’s birthday present. I am sick of the same-old-same-old at Target so I thought to change it up and peruse with my daughter the aisles of art.

We actually found an amazing dinosaur chia pet that watered itself. I almost said this is not art but if a five year old boy can grow a plant and appreciate nature and photosynthesis then well, art it is and art it will be.

Every store in America is installing or already has the self check out line. Most days I opt for a human because I enjoy the interaction but today there was a brand new machine and it had a hand-held scanner thing and I was already late to the birthday party so I went for self check out.

Sidebar, as a small child who did a lot of grocery shopping with her mama, I dreamed of being the person at the end of the conveyor belt, scanning all the items and the register drawer opening with the tap of all those buttons. Beep-scan. Beep-scan. I would be mesmerized, I wanted to try it so badly. And listen, these self check-out lines are fun but for me, it is missing the conveyor belt thing.

So I am scanning my items, beep-scan, beep-scan, and tapping my CC to pay when I overhear an interesting exchange between an older woman and a younger woman nearby. The older woman had to be rounding her 70th year here on Earth and the younger woman maybe in her early 20s. Clad in their matching red vests, I believe the older woman was training the younger woman at the cash wrap. Which a note to share: I did really love seeing this older woman teaching the younger woman tech. The younger person stumbles over her question a bit but asks the older woman whose name tag said ‘COLLEEN’, she said, “so, do you, you know, have any friends?”

The older woman leaned in, “what did you say, dear?”

The young girl turns up the volume a smidge and says, “do you have any friends … like outside of work?”.

Colleen pauses for a moment and says she does have some good friends. Shares what she likes to do on the weekends and some hobbies she dabbles in. The young girl nods and listens.

“Do you have a husband or anything?” the young woman asks.

“Yes, yes I have one of those.” Colleen responds.

I could have stood there forever and I mean forever listening to them talk, train on the tech of the cash register and what not, my kiddo and I had to get going to that birthday.

And I just have so many questions now that I want to ask, like:

Did the young girl think Colleen was lonely so she asked that?

Was the young girl asking because she is curious on how to make friends beyond work, is she actually lonely?

Will Colleen and this young woman hang out outside of work now?

And if they do hang out, will they do arts & crafts or do something totally different?

I guess what really got me in that moment was not the vulnerability in the question but the vulnerability in the answer. I don’t think I have ever heard anyone ask someone “do you have any friends?”.

Ever.

Do we just assume we all have friends?
Does it come across almost as judgement to ask someone?
Or if we ask, will they think we don’t have any friends?
Should we be asking this more?

Every headline this past week in different apps and inboxes seemed to be about loneliness. This one in The NYT gives notes on how to feel less lonely, and this one on Vox talking about loneliness being as bad as smoking for our health, and this one in The Guardian asking young people under 30 to share about their experiences of loneliness - these are only a few from just the past couple days.

It reminds me when I moved from California to Colorado almost a decade ago, I left a really beautiful group of friends and moved here to Colorado knowing no one, not a soul. Chris and I got married six months after our move here and only one person was from Colorado that came to our wedding, ONE! And it took a minute to make friends. And by a minute, I mean at least 8 months but round up to about 1.5 years for friends to friendship.

I remember emailing my friends from California on a group email saying I was having a hard time making friends and if they could call me in the next couple weeks, I would love it because the loneliness was taking a toll. And I was (still am) in a very happy and loving relationship but I know my partner cannot be everything for me - my husband, my best friend, my gossip friend, my yoga friend, my really smart friend, my self help booking-reading friend, my doctor friend…he cannot be all of those!

And my out of town friends did call. And I am proud of myself for asking and reaching out. And I did eventually make local friends here in Colorado but it took a while. One quick story: I distinctly remember my first couple weeks of living here and navigating snow and going to a yoga class with a really cool yoga teacher who said things in class that made me think we could be friends. So after class I asked her if she would ever want to grab a tea some time as I was new in town. And she said no. I look back now beyond (beyond the beyond) impressed with her boundaries and also can still feel the pang of rejection that made me a bit shy with the next friend requests for a while. I actually bought a pink sweatshirt that said ‘here to make friends’ literally written on the breast pocket. When I went to google that same shirt, a sweatshirt that is now trending reads ‘I’m not here to make friends’. So interesting.

If you would have asked me if I had friends at that time - like the young woman asked Colleen at the craft shop, I know defensively I would have said yes, because I did - just none of them lived nearby. So I had friends but I wasn’t hanging out with anyone beyond my partner.

And this makes me ponder moments and longer moments strung together of loneliness in my whole life - I have been lonely before that move and after and will be again. I have been lonely even in friendships when I didn’t know myself very well. I have been lonely in a church and now without a church I want to attend. I have been lonely navigating motherhood, especially those first three months after birth every single time. Oh how I have been lonely in wrong relationships like when I dated this boy in college and lost a lot of my friends but felt stuck - it was a mess. I have been lonely when I have gone through grief (this feels like a major one). And then I have been lonely on the other side of grief when I changed and then asked, ‘what and who now?’. I have been lonely changing career industries from a moving and shaking Hollywood life to a retail life in wellness.

It does seem inevitable on the emotional spectrum, a unifier in an odd way since I imagine you have been lonely before all this, too.

So why now all the commotion about it?

I feel this is seated in the tricky part of connection in a post-pandemic time and the prevalence of tech now. It is incredible that we can scroll through other people’s lives any time (I should say, the facade of people’s lives), we can Facetime and call any time (which feels more rare to actually use a phone as a phone that calls people) or send a digital note in the form of a text or email (or DM or snap or LinkedIN message….) - hello, people used to have to do snail mail to keep in touch. Or you used to have to call someone’s house and there wasn’t even caller ID, can you even?

I have been wondering though as we are all navigating the tech landscape and how to be together in a polarizing time, are these digital connections really enough?

I should add that I feel funny sitting her typing this to you - my digital community. With three small children and a husband and a dog and a business in a state of transition and my life about to be packed in boxes, I am in the thick of it right now. And I say that because everyone, and I mean everyone I share the age of my kids says, “oh yes, you are in the thick of it right now” with a somewhat smirk on their face and then followed by a quiet yearning. And like that cool yoga teacher that rejected me almost a decade ago for tea, I now say no more often than yes to friends in real life right now.

There is something about energetic bandwidth here that is at play in this time. I am speaking in accordance to my life but also as a whole. We won’t know for decades what the pandemic did to our mental health, physical health, behaviors and emotions wrapped in science and stats and served up in Hollywood movies we all probably won’t go see. However, you can feel the innate science now in your own body that we are all navigating (trying to navigate) the aftermath and how energy and effort into friendships can feel fleeting. And yet, at what cost?

Virginia Satir, a world-renowned family therapist, is famous for saying, “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” This article from 2020 haunts me and begs the questions are we as humans actually getting enough hugs?

I actually asked myself today if I feel lonely in this life phase and I answered most times, no. Where I do feel lonely is in my career. I am a solo-entrepreneur and I actually laughed looking at myself in the mirror today. I said to myself, ‘remember when you had to get ready for work, can you believe you can wear this on a Monday?’. I am looking rough today, folks. I sit here in joggers and a long oversized blue cardigan and my hair, I have no words for my hair - it is half wet and half dry under a flat brimmed cap that reads ‘Only You Can Prevent Wildfires’ and zero make up on with a second coffee cup. No shoes. I can’t believe I actually have a bra on.

I like getting ready. And I do like people. The water cooler at work, I used to linger at for human interaction. I have worked in Hollywood, in PR, in retail, in the service industry waiting all the tables at 7am while in college (worst and best idea I have ever had really) and many the office lives when I was younger before going off on my own. And most days now, I work from home on a screen … solo.

I do dabble in the thought of getting back into a team environment. I have applied to jobs in the past six months. More rejection is the theme lately and that is okay. It is a toe dip, a curiosity, a tipping point.

I guess what I am asking you is, ‘do you, you know, have friends?’

And if this question is a bit daunting, that is okay.

I loved this from Vivek Murthy when he was wrapping up his interview with Krista Tippett on On Being, he started a meditation and said along these lines, “put your hand on your heart, now think of everyone that has loved you….”. And he went on and on but I think that is a great space to start today.

And then ponder how you want to be interacting with friends online and offline. We have the choice to keep meeting ourselves here in the now and answer the question posed by Mary Oliver, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” and I’ll add in, who do you want to do that plan with?

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RESOURCES:

HELP: Talk to someone. If you’re thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, the Lifeline network is available 24/7 across the United States. TEXT 988

BOOK: Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World by Vivek Murthy

COMMUNE: Join me Oct. 4 - 8 in the Sequoia Trees in October for a Retreat to the Trees with hiking, workshops, sound bowls and connection in nature. Details here, come gather.

ARTICLE: Dealing with Loneliness in the Age of Social Distancing

ARTICLE: Priya Parker on how we should properly gather and return to the workplace

LISTEN: 10 Comforting Pods to Help You Feel Less Alone