- Hello, my Frisky Ponies.
A week ago or maybe it was more than a week,
when did I do the Q&A,
I had a viewer ask a question that was basically like,
"What do you do when you're really, really lonely
"and you don't have any friends?
"How do you deal with that?"
And I touched on it briefly in the Q&A,
but I think it's something that is worth more explanation.
Loneliness.
How do we deal with it?
And not just how do we deal with it,
I wanna talk about why is it happening,
and maybe how we're causing it.
So I've heard people say, people posit the idea
that nowadays we're more connected than ever
but are somehow the loneliest we've ever been
as human beings.
Now, I don't know that I buy into that,
because how do we judge how lonely we are
compared with someone living in the year 1650?
When people say that, what it's really getting at is,
why do we keep feeling so lonely,
why hasn't this solved things now that we're more connected?
'Cause you know, we all have a phone in our pocket.
At any moment we can text or call someone else
and have human interaction.
We've got social media keeping us connected.
We've got YouTube,
where some rando can come on and talk about stuff
and you can watch and say what you think.
So theoretically, given all that, we shouldn't be so lonely,
yet we are, here we are asking the question,
Why are we so lonely?
I think there's a couple of things at play here
that don't necessarily cause loneliness,
but they have set us up to be more lonely.
I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily
that we are so connected in terms of
being able to communicate,
in terms of everyone having a cell phone,
in terms of having social media,
even though I don't like social media
and I think it is often used poorly.
I don't think that that in and of itself
contributes anything to loneliness.
But I think that connection sets up
this kind of expectation in a way that we will be
way more connected than we can be realistically.
I think what is an even bigger issue
that has played into this is media in general,
not so much the connecting with each other,
but TV, radio, movies.
We grew up with a TV on all the time.
I mean, maybe you didn't,
but I know that in my house growing up the TV was always on.
And that's kind of like a fake human connection,
when you have people talking at you,
when you can look into people's lives, fictional lives.
And YouTube in a way I guess can kind of play into that too,
'cause you're sort of seeing into people's lives
for reals, in a way, into their minds and what they think.
When you have this kind of fake human connection
being beamed in, it's like when you eat sugar all day,
and your body is like, "Ooh, we're getting some fuel, cool!"
But it really just screws up your body
because it's not, it's empty.
Furthermore, it's like the stories that are told
in a lot of TV shows give you the feeling that,
not only is it creating this fake human connection,
but by the stories they tell,
giving you the message that everyone has a group of friends
that is really close-knit and really dedicated to each other
and they have all these adventures and stuff.
Look at most of the popular TV shows
and you see a group of adults who are friends
and they're together all the time.
I don't know about you,
but that does not really reflect reality for me.
But that's the message we get, and we're like,
"Well, I should have a group of friends
"that I'm around all the time, and we have adventures
"and we meet at Monk's Coffee Shop every day.
"And I should have my next-door neighbor Kramer
"coming in, busting in the door,
"and, you know, giving a chicken a bath in my sink."
So we feel disappointed and excessively lonely
when our real life doesn't give us
the same fulfillment, really, as when we're watching YouTube
or watching TV,
because it's all the time.
Media is all the time, it's nonstop.
And you could be giving yourself
this kind of artificial human connection
24/7 if you wanted to, and then when you turn it off
and you don't have real friends,
it's even more crushing than it would be
if you didn't have all that stuff.
And if you didn't have all that stuff,
maybe you would've already been forced out into the world,
into a situation where it's like,
well, I gotta make some human connection.
Loneliness is a sadness that comes when we feel
this void in our life,
we feel this hunger for human interaction.
It's not the hunger itself.
The hunger itself for human interaction
is just a natural human need.
It's not loneliness itself.
The loneliness comes when we look at it
and we say, "This ain't right, this shouldn't be happening,
"I'm missing out.
"What does it say about me that I have this void?
"Will it ever end, will I ever have any friends,
"will I ever have a relationship?"
I mean, when you're looking at reality,
like the situation you're in,
what's the difference between when you're alone in your room
and you're glad to be alone 'cause you need the solitude,
and being alone in your room and being lonely
because you don't have friends?
What's the difference?
Really nothing externally.
It's all in how you're looking at it.
Because in one, you're okay with it,
and in another one, you're not okay with it.
So then of course, the obvious advice would be,
"Just go out there and make some friends.
"And honestly, we're more connected now than ever,
"if you didn't know,
"and it should be easier than ever to make friends.
"I mean, you just go to Meetup.com,
"find people who are interested
"in something you're interested in and go out."
But it's never that simple, is it?
Because--
(exhales deeply)
I think we're doing this to ourselves,
that we have idealized what friendship is
and what a friend should be and who we're looking for,
and we hold people to way higher standards than we should.
And honestly, we're holding people to higher standards
than I think that we even hold ourselves to.
Like, we go out and we're looking for a really good friend,
someone who's really gonna be there for us
and be everything that we've seen in the movies
that a friend should be.
Or even you could say for a romantic relationship,
you're just looking for the ideal partner.
So we have expectations so high up
it's out of the frame right now, it's way up there.
And no one can meet it.
It's impossible.
I think the other problem is when you're going out
and you're looking for good friends.
And I don't mean good in the terms of character,
I mean just close friends, you're looking to find someone
who you can be a close friend with.
I think you need to start smaller,
because good friends are not easy to create,
especially once you're an adult.
Finding someone who is,
I feel like it's almost gonna be impossible
to find someone out there
who can fulfill that ideal friendship.
So you need to go out and lower your expectations
and just be like, "I just want to find some people
"I can get along with, at least for an hour at a time,
"and let's start there."
'Cause it's so easy to go out there looking for friends
and the first time that you get together with people,
just mentally reject them and be like,
"No, these aren't the friends I want,
"they don't fulfill the needs I have and everything."
But let's get real,
are you an ideal friend to anyone out there?
I think we think we are.
We're like, "Oh man, yeah,
"I would really be there for someone
"if they were the ideal friend to me,
"I would be the ideal friend for them."
But honestly, if there's some other lonely person out there
looking for a friend, they're probably rejecting you
because you're not, at least on first appearance,
maybe second, third, 10th appearance,
going to fulfill their idea of an ideal friend,
and create the ideal friendship.
A lot of this is just letting go
of the idea of finding a great close friend
and being okay with it just being
people you like to be around.
And then it can go from there, maybe it'll grow into
the best friendship ever.
But that takes time,
and when you're an adult it's a lot harder.
Gone are the days of high school
where you just naturally made friends
because you're all stuck in school together.
Those days are gone.
It's much more difficult now.
And I know a lot of you are like,
"It was difficult enough then, I didn't make any friends."
And that's true, too, I didn't make many friends,
but it was a lot easier.
You know, I talked about this some several months ago
when I was trying to make friends.
I was going to this Bible study thing.
And the people were cool.
But I was holding them to this huge standard of,
"These people have gotta become my best friend group.
"These guys have gotta be,
"I've gotta find Kramer, George, and Elaine,
"and maybe even Newman."
But (scoffs) how quickly is that really gonna develop?
And I was not giving these people enough chances.
I was ready to write them off after the first time
they didn't go out of their way to think about me.
And it's like, what fantasy world was I living in?
Would I have ever gone out of my way for them?
I feel like I would have, but would I have actually?
It really just takes time.
You have to start at a place where it's just like,
"Hey, we like hanging out together
"for 90 minutes once a week."
(scoffs)
You know, you never know how it can develop from there.
So that's an important point,
is kind of lower your standard of what you're looking for.
It doesn't mean that all of a sudden you need to go out
and make friends with people
that you have nothing in common with and you don't like.
But it's like,
you can't find excellent Bill and Ted kind of people
right off the bat
because you are just gonna get in your own way
and be looking for every reason why you can't be friends.
What can be humbling is to realize
you're not the ideal person, either.
And then my next point is,
I think we compound loneliness, any negative emotion,
but especially loneliness, when we focus on it.
If we keep saying to ourselves,
"I'm alone, I don't have friends, I can't make friends,
"there's no one out there."
Look, the world is a huge place, you know?
There are millions of people out there,
even billions, so I've been told.
Not that you're gonna make friends
with all 7 billion people on Earth.
But out of that many,
how many do you think you could be friends with?
I don't know, at least a few thousand?
They gotta be out there.
Some of them are probably living within your area.
Probably more than you think.
And when you focus on the negative of what I don't have,
it just makes the problem seem so much worse than it is
and so much more insurmountable.
I know people hate this when you bring it up,
but sometimes it's easy to forget
that you don't have it as bad in the loneliness department
as other people,
especially if you think about the elderly,
people who are in their 80s and 90s
who their spouses died and their family isn't around.
Those people are truly lonely.
And I met this one lady, I talked about it in a vlog.
I went over to this one lady's house.
She's in her 90s, her husband's dead,
her children live across the country.
She has bad back pain.
She can't get out of the house, and she's just stuck there.
And luckily she has a neighbor who comes over
fairly regularly, but other than that
all she has is the TV to keep her company.
And you know, I'm guessing if you're watching my channel,
you are not 90 years old.
Maybe you are, hi, 90-year-old people.
But for the rest of you,
I'm sure some of you, I know there are some people who watch
who do have debilitating issues, and I don't mean to say
that you don't have problems, you do.
But a lot of the people who feel really lonely
don't have those issues, they're not bound to their house.
That's a whole different video, how do you combat loneliness
when you really are limited in what you can do?
But if you're not limited in getting out there
and meeting people,
theoretically there's nothing holding you back.
And even if you are stuck at home,
you all know how to use the internet,
you're here watching me on the internet.
You can make connections through the internet now,
which is one of the amazing things about the internet,
is you can talk to people on the other side of the world
and meet people who are like-minded
that you wouldn't be able to meet where you live,
either because there aren't any people like that,
or because you don't know how to find each other.
And I don't mean to be bashing on people
and being hard on you and whatever,
but it's always good to realize that there are people
who have it much worse and can't do anything to fix it,
and you can.
And maybe it would help loneliness to volunteer
to be with some of these people, you know?
Just to be a visiting whatever,
volunteer and go out and visit some elderly people
who are stuck at home.
Maybe that would help
not only take your mind off of yourself
and kind of distract you from your own loneliness,
but help you to realize how grateful
that you really should be and how good you have it.
Uh-oh, Frank's gettin' preachy!
Frank is puttin' us all down and playing the,
"Well, you're not in a Turkish prison" card.
That's what my mom would always say.
When I would complain about something, she'd be like,
"Well, you're not in a Turkish prison."
"Prizhon."
Why the Turkis, Turkish prison?
Why can't I even say that?
It's like a tongue twister.
It's so detestable to me, the idea of a Turkish prison,
that I can't say it.
But you're not.
Unless the Turkish prisons have given the inmates
internet access, in which case, hi,
(laughs) Turkish prisoners.
Glad to have you here.
A lot of it is just changing your perspective,
realizing that the problem isn't as bad as you think it is,
that you're kind of hopped up on modern media
that makes you think that you should have
a lot more great friends than you should.
It's about lowering your expectations a little bit
for the kind of friends you can make, at least at first.
I mean, I'm sure eventually,
you spend enough time with someone,
it doesn't matter who they are, they can be your best bud.
And then also realizing that you have it pretty good.
And don't forget it.
And I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling lonely.
I feel lonely sometimes, too,
even though I have friends and stuff.
Sometimes it just washes over you and you just,
just feel sad,
feel like I don't have anyone.
When I feel that, I try to turn it around to being grateful
for what I do have and what I can do to remedy the problem.
So thanks for watching, I appreciate it.
Take care.
Don't stop looking for friends, they're out there.
All right, I'll see you later.