I’m thankful for COVID because it’s helped me finally love my loneliness. I was in denial about it for years, rejecting loneliness as weak, immature, and painful. I kept myself from feeling it by having a lot of friends, making myself into a busy and important person, and generally repressing such a useless emotion. After all, aren’t we supposed to be zen and totally independent of others? Any kind of neediness is unenlightened and lame, which obviously isn’t me. I’m strong, emotionally stable, and only look towards myself for approval… right?
At T-group, I learned I couldn’t say, “I want people to like me,” without adding in a bunch of qualifiers, like, “but not at the expense of being authentic,” etc.
Jeff pointed out, ‘Seems like we finally found your edge. You’re scared of admitting, ‘I care about being liked.’”
“I’m not scared! It’s just not that important to me compared to other stuff.”
But I wondered, “Why do I keep qualifying that statement? I can say other stuff that I also don’t prioritize without qualifying it. Like, I can say, ‘I like 30 Rock,’ without adding, ‘but not as much as I like, ‘Rick and Morty.’” I saw all the judgments I had about wanting to be liked, wanting others’ approval, needing others. I hid behind my openness— I’m not scared of revealing personal facts or controversial views, so I didn’t have to be vulnerable myself to touch on topics others viewed as edgy. Was there even a difference between openness and vulnerability? Turns out there is— that by definition, being vulnerable means you give someone else some power to affect you. That’s what Jeff had kept pushing me on— what was actually vulnerable for me? Well, it turned out I was scared of admitting that others had power over me. Why would I be so stupid as to invite suffering by giving others any control over my internal state? I wouldn’t do that.
Acceptance is the first step, and I was in denial about wanting to be liked. Who cares what others think, I’m an iconoclast, others’ opinions say more about them than about me, etc! But humans want to be liked. I took a step towards accepting myself as a human— I wanted to be liked, but I didn’t want to care about being liked.
My fear wasn’t just from my aspiration of being high status and empowered either. It was from being scared of needing someone else for my happiness, and having them reject or fail me. I was scared of heartbreak. Isn’t that logical? Isn’t it clearly more stable to have your emotions depend on nothing you can’t control, including anyone else’s behavior or anything that happens in the outside world? Nice ideal, but I was fooling myself that I’d already gotten there and had skipped all these other steps to enlightenment. It just wasn’t true that I didn’t care what others thought of me.
When I told Simar my life story, I noticed the parts where people left me, and where I left others. My mom abandoned me twice. When I was 2, she came to America without me; I don’t remember but my cousin tells me I cried big, slow, silent tears when she gave me the letter my mom sent. My cousins cried around me, watching me miss my mother, 想妈妈. In college, I wrote about my mother moving out of the house when I was 15 and me not realizing she wasn’t coming back. Until she called to say, “It’s my time now,” and to send her all her things. I’d answered, “That makes sense. I’m fine. I’ll stay by myself; I don’t want to live with Dad.” I didn’t need her. I didn’t need my dad either. When my professor read my writing and said, “She abandoned you,” I was surprised because I’d never thought of it like that.
I saw the parts of my life when I’ve abandoned people, like the neighborhood kids I left without a word whenever we moved every few years around Pittsburgh, my friend asking, “When did you find out? Why didn’t you tell us you were moving?” and me shrugging. Or my teacher giving me an addressed and stamped envelope so I could mail in my finished story exclaiming she was sorry to be so pushy but she wanted to know what happened to her favorite character Queen Purple, me taking it though I thought it was silly she cared so much. Whenever I’ve been separated from people, I didn’t want to be heartbroken again, I didn’t want it to matter. What was I supposed to do about it? We’d be fine. I was always fine.
In elementary school, I kept our house key tied around my belt loop with a thick piece of bright red yarn. I’d go outside and play with the neighborhood kids who were all older, and after they were called home for dinner by their parents one by one, I’d go back to our apartment and turn on the TV and lights so it didn’t feel as melancholy and quiet in the twilight. The TV and I would watch each other until my parents came home. At night, men would break bottles and yell across the parking lot. Lying in bed, staring at the yellow from the street lights slanting across my ceiling, I’d sink into the astounding realization that I was me; no one else could ever know the experience of my brain. Lying awake at night, 8 year old Nancy would meditate on this magic: I was alone in my consciousness.
I thought I was really good at never feeling lonely, but it started to break down when I turned 30. Living in a huge house with my best friends, I felt lonely. My cofounder had left and I told everyone this was the best thing ever, not a big deal, very mutual, but I was scared. I’d told a friend I’d broken up with my boyfriend and he said, “But he’s great! And you guys were together for so long! Wasn’t it already decided that he was the one?” When I told my team, they said, “Oh no! We’ll never see him in our office again,” and I immediately said, “It’s for the best. Long distance wasn’t working and we’re both starting companies. We’ll still be friends. I’m really happy!” I was happy that stuff was happening, and I’m usually cheery and smiley, but I also wasn’t happy. Was I losing my edge? I just had to find a new boyfriend, and work even more, and control my emotions even more. I didn’t find loneliness an attractive emotion in me so I didn’t let myself feel it or acknowledge it. I was disciplined, long term greedy, and good at self denial. Everything was fine.
But I started to do things that surprised my friends.
“Why are you going out with that guy?” they’d ask about various dates. “You don’t seem happy. I’ve never seen you cry this much.”
“It’s just for fun,” I’d say, illogically. I always had an explanation, or a distracting, funny story about my dating life. I’d wonder, “Am I going crazy because my uterus is aging? Must be more emotional because of hormones. Doesn’t mean anything. Ignore.”
“Are you lonely?”
I protested, “No, I’m great at being alone. I’m single for at least 8 months between relationships. During those times, I focus on work and projects and friends and working out. It’s great!” But I was just white knuckling it during those breaks. I didn’t love it. I was forcing myself to be alone out of pride, to prove to myself I didn’t need anyone, because I didn’t trust myself and felt scared I’d dive into a random relationship too fast, because I liked to take a few months to decompress after relationships, because I didn’t see anyone I liked and the loneliness hadn’t gotten too bad yet.
It wasn’t until I dated someone who I didn’t even like that I was forced to admit I was doing it because I was lonely. My friend said, “You seem to like hanging out with my cat more than your boyfriend.”
“Your cat is amazing! There’s no one like him.” But I finally let myself wonder what I was really doing.
Her cat purred against me, rubbing his face against my hands. I loved petting his warm, soft fur. I remembered my old cat, how she pawed and meowed at my bedroom door because any separation was unbearable. It was a sliding door that didn’t always lock properly and she’d sometimes get a wedge open that she could start to thrust her face through. She’d scrape with her little paws tirelessly until finally she’d thump onto my bed in the dead of night. She’d contentedly arrange herself against my skin and start to lick her disheveled fur back into place, sometimes licking me until I couldn’t stand the scratchiness anymore and shifted away.
I could feel a small cat like her inside me, mournful, yowling, wanting that warmth, that touch. All my life, I kept pushing it back, shoving its face into its box, telling it, “You’re fine, you don’t want that, you’re not here.” But it was there, it was getting louder, it was growing. I starved it but, skeletal, it escaped. A shadow, it lurked and loomed. I deftly ignored it, just an illusion. When it wouldn’t leave, I left it by the side of the road, but it always found me, fur matted and eyes glowing. It was never going to stop until I held it and caressed it all over and set out a bowl of milk for it.
Before COVID, I had social events every night, often multiple. People told me I was the most social person they knew. I had amazing friends, many of whom had known me more than half my life. Wasn’t it dumb and silly and ungrateful of me to feel lonely? But I fretted that my friends would fall from me as they had families and rightfully prioritized them over me. I distracted myself from this fear through my usual methods. Geniuses asked me out at events, 24 year olds asked me out on the street, I wasn’t lonely, I could date anyone, everything was fine.
But then during COVID, there were no social events for me to feel FOMO about. Friends said I was the only one who was saying I loved COVID. I loved focusing on my art, video chatting with friends, feeling my feelings, and indulging my introvert.
One day, I admitted the loneliness was mine and let it in. After I acknowledged it, loving my loneliness was surprisingly easy. What’s the difference between ignoring it and loving it? It’s dancing with it. It’s feeling it. I savored my loneliness like I savor the delicious twinge of delayed onset muscle soreness. I savored that ache in my heart that wanted someone to love, that was afraid of separation, that missed my ex even though I’d judged him to be “unworthy” and previously would’ve thought I “shouldn’t” miss him. But I did miss him and others, my mom, my friends, my teammates who I would alternately be sure I needed to fire and be terrified would leave, my old cats, all these others in my life who I’ve loved and lost who I “shouldn’t” miss because it was pointless and weak. I let that missing in, I let my heart break, and I massaged that ache and poked it to feel it even more. I played with it and held it until it finally eased, and then I let my heart break anew to see if I could find the ache again.
I’ve never consciously wanted to date someone just to avoid my loneliness, always saying I could get a pet or a sex robot if that’s all I wanted. But my inner needy cat had been riding me all these years because I’d been unconscious of it. That’s been the meta lesson of CLG: any pattern that you’re aware of you can play with, whereas any pattern you’re not aware of plays you. I don’t want to avoid my loneliness anymore. It doesn’t long term work to avoid it anyway. I have to learn to love it.
I wrote a poem for my friend’s open mic night. https://youtu.be/Q-7pjPsj0dY
“For My Unknown Soulmate: Love in the Time of COVID”
Behold, I ordered all new bedding, because I am ready for YOU
We’re probably both so busy learning achieving and quarantining
I have no idea how we’ll meet
But I hope you’re investing this time in getting ripped
So you can attract my attention from across the universe
So one day we can take off our masks and
Nuzzle each others’ naked faces
Even during non-quarantine times
It was unclear how we’d meet because
I only left my house to go to barry’s bootcamp and eat with friends 1:1
I don’t like live music, sporting events, loud parties, or staying out late
I don’t drink or do drugs except acid
I can count on 1 hand the times I’ve been to a club or a bar for non-business reasons
But now COVID has leveled the playing field for nerds like me!
I love that quarantine has made social interaction rules clear at last,
That all interactions are on zoom so networkers don’t ask me to coffee
If you’re the same way, we might never meet because
We both stay at home eating, writing, and doing jump squats all day
But I hope we meet because it’d be more fun doing it together
While we snuggle and joke and talk about our readings and writings
And riff off each others’ ideas
And massage each other all over
And make fun of each other
And tell each other stories
And play with everything that happens including COVID
Because I’m a rational person
As a science experiment
I rearranged the romance corner of my house
According to a feng shui diagram
So now I leave it to the universe and accept whatever happens
Quarantine has trained me to be zen and love aloneness
But I don’t feel alone bc I feel like we’re in this together
I feel like I’ve always known you so even if we never meet
You’re out there and you’re with me
I’m with you
And I’m with me
Quarantine or no quarantine