It’s no secret that Americans are lonely, with Gen Z, the oldest of whom are now nearing 30, struggling with smartphone-induced states of anxiety and depression. We don’t have as many real friends anymore, it seems, or move too much around the country to situate ourselves in long-term communities. The data is in, the op-eds have been written, the Surgeon General has spoken. 

So why is it that, even on social occasions, that the loneliness often doesn’t go away? Why does social interactional paradoxically intensify feelings of loneliness? I had this experience recently watching football with a couple of buddies. The night before, I’d spent some time with my usual cohort of twenty-something friends, and the same thing happened in each scenario: I was “with” my friends but left both instances feeling like we’d barely even communicated. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. The conversation simply bounced on the surface for an hour, with pithy remarks, jokes, ironies, and tidbits of gossip littering the conversation until, quite honestly, I was hungering for some solitude. 

Gen Z’s Call for Authenticity

While this may be indicative of the introverted spirit, I think there’s something deeper going on. We aren’t connecting even when we’re together. We’ve prided ourselves on our authenticity, but Gen Z is struggling to emotionally connect despite all our focus on “feeling all the feels.” Of course, the phones have a big part to play in this; the phones are always there, like a constant eye, laying on the table and available for us whenever we want a respite from the burdens of interaction. And maybe because we’ve trained our minds to believe that the only meaningful conversations happen through digital means, concrete interaction has come to feel fake instead of the online counterfeit. We’d all rather be talking through text messages than through our actual voices. Why? 

Our new methods of communication have told us that we can manage our relationships without really needing to give up anything to keep them going. We can connect on our phones without the awkwardness of the actual foundation of friendship, which is emotional bonding and simply enjoying the presence of another person. We like to claim that we will never be so bottled-up like the Boomers who bore us, but when push comes to shove, I think my generation is just as clammed up as the next one. 

I think this may be so because authenticity, as it’s now articulated, is something radically different from genuine vulnerability. There have been a few instances in which an ugly aspect of my character was on display, and I couldn’t perform Tetris to get it back behind my façade of innocence. Weirdly, these moments of brutal honesty led to deeper connection with others, because I was, for a moment, at peace with reality and had been given a rare gift of grace: the truth.

Radical Honesty

We’re a connected generation, but we’ve constructed a complex way of hiding ourselves from others, and it’s getting even more obvious. Simply having people around isn’t a solution for loneliness. Relationships born out of radical honesty and openness (carried out with people you trust) are what we need but are getting less and less of.

Today the importance or friendship is given some lip service, but what we’ve essentially been told is that our real problem is a lack of self-realization. The solution is not love, given and received in mutual relations. It’s self-love, self-sustained. Happiness isn’t found in friendship, but in me, myself, and mine. Where’s the community in that? 

“Hell is other people,” wrote Sartre. For the modern apologist of self-love, no one spoke a truer word. I wonder if the mantras of individualism and the self-centered design of social media sites have taught us to see relationships as just another instrument to appease the demands of the empty self. 

Maybe that’s a big reason we’re lonely. We’re terrified of what we’re asking for. And maybe that’s why it’s time to drop the act and trust other people to lay some claim to our inner worlds and have the charity to enter theirs. Otherwise, this empty terrain I call “my life” will forever be occupied for a lone ranger, searching for a sun that’s always dropping below the horizon.