The More the Lonelier
- Ariel Bakshandeh
- Jan 10, 2017
- 6 min read
According to a 2013 census, the population of Los Angeles is 3.884 million. The population of Hawaii is 1.2 million. The population of Oregon is 3.97 million. When we put that into perspective, one city has more people in it than a small state does and has almost as many people as a medium-sized state. You’d think that in a city with so many people in it you wouldn’t really find lonely people. Well I happened to grow up in Los Angeles and, at one point, I was the loneliest person you’d ever meet. In my previous posts, I talked a lot about my school life but my personal life at a young age wasn’t that much better either. I grew up in a big family (bigger on my mother's side though). I didn’t have any brothers or sisters but I had a lot of cousins. The problem was I was smack dab in the middle of them age-wise. Either they were too old to relate to me or too young to relate to me, but keep in mind that there were a lot of them.
Water, Water Everywhere But Not a Drop to Drink
The times I’ve felt the most lonely by far were at any big gatherings of family members (including extended family). It’s not as if I didn’t like the people but I absolutely detested small talk and feeling awkward in a large group of people. The worst part about it is when you’re really young and you have no transportation for yourself. You have to stay for as long as your parents are there and unfortunately for me my parents came the earliest and left at the latest time. It was all a lot of people, a lot of noise and a lot of dancing. It was a lot of loneliness for me because I hardly had an interest in any of it. The more people that would come in, the lonelier I would feel because more people meant more awkwardness for me. It’s also hard to concentrate your energy on one person to talk to when there are so many people. The worst part about it was when I was lucky enough to find that one person to talk to and actually find a subject or an experience we shared in common, one of two things would almost inevitably happen: either the music was so loud that we’d have to be screaming at each other to hear each other or 6 or 7 people didn’t say hi to that person so they would constantly be disrupting our conversation to say their hellos.
Looking for Signs of Intelligent Life
The goal was to feel a genuine connection with someone. To do that, I needed to find common ground whether it was a passion, a sense of humor, an experience and/or an idea. Robin Williams said, “I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.” This is important for everyone but especially for introverts and/or some depressed people (not to say that all introverts are depressed). Validation in life and relationships is so relieving because people then have a sense of who you are, what you want and where you are coming from. The case of Robin Williams is interesting though. He had millions of admirers around the world but did he ever have people around him who validated him? My theory is that for your average man living in a gigantic city where so many things are hypercompetitive, this special validation from your environment is extremely hard to come by.
Welcome to the Jungle
I like to think of myself as the right person in the wrong place. The geography and culture I grew up in were the antithesis of who I was as a person. The geography of Los Angeles in my opinion is terrible. It’s a spiderweb of highways and freeways and seemingly unending urban sprawl. The city honestly doesn’t have any kind of center where people can get together and talk, especially in the area I grew up in where there were only houses as far as the eye can see and nothing else. Culture was another limiting factor because for an introvert like myself, Persians (at least the ones who fled to America after the Revolution) enjoy their parties and loud music. I on the other hand, as an introvert, do not appreciate such loudness. The most ironic part of it was that my mother would feel bad when I would decide to stay home alone instead of going to a party but I actually felt better by myself than at one of those places.
Home Away From Home
Fortunately for me I do find validation but not for a lasting period of time. Around the time of my second year of college, I mustered up the courage to do something called hosteling. I went to places like Washington D.C and Portland, Oregon. I ended up enjoying these places and, most of all, their geography because I found out that some places are actually walkable and a big city doesn’t have to be surrounded by urban sprawl. It wasn’t until later periods in my life that I visited places like Chicago and even did international travel with my trips to Tokyo, Auckland and Sydney. The invention of the airplane is truly a miracle. In Chicago I got to know a person who is similar to me and holds the same sentiments about Los Angeles that I do. I made other friends at the hostel and introduced them to one another. In Tokyo I finally talked to my friend who I’ve been Skyping with for a long time and even visited his house. Similarly in Auckland, another friend and I drove around and took a look at the countryside. I truly enjoy the connections and the adventures I’ve had and the worst part is when it’s time to go back home.
Ballistic Statistics
Places like Portland, Oregon, D.C. and Auckland have much smaller populations than Los Angeles. I’ll never forget the time I was talking to someone in a bookstore in Portland and he wondered if people like me get lost in the hugeness of the city they live in; at that time I did indeed feel lost. Let me leave you with another quote “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” Joseph Stalin said that. Although he was an evil man he had a point. The point is that the more inflated the numbers are (in this case population) the more deflated the emotions are (how much people are going to care). Think about Syria and its human suffering. For the most part, all we saw in the news are statistics that people easily (and tragically) gloss over. If we actually see a story about one person or a family going through that kind of tragedy, we are more likely to cry. That’s why I dislike the education system and the job market so much. All you are to these people is a statistic. Think of the unemployment numbers: we hear that people are unemployed but do we hear the stories behind why? The reason I made this blog is to restore our sense of humanity instead of being a statistic in this big, overpopulated world we live in. I refuse to be a statistic and I want to share the story behind who I am and what I stand for.
Where Do I Belong?
What would my ideal be you ask? Make no mistake - I don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere in a small hick town. I value my privacy and maybe in a town that small you wouldn’t get any privacy. Rather, I’d like to live in a medium-sized place that’s not too big where you’re just a statistic and not too small where everyone knows who you are and are all up in your business. My ideal place would be just the right size so you meet genuine people that you can make a lasting connection with. The funny thing about a connection is that some people who I see on the Internet that I like and are well-behaved I’d rather be with face to face whereas some people who are rambunctious and annoying I’d rather have a computer screen separating them from me. On that note, I’ll leave you with this: the mental is more important than the physical. I’d rather be at home online having 3 or 4 engaging Skype conversations with people who I can relate to rather than being at a big, loud and obnoxious party with hundreds of people that I share nothing in common with. I’m very lucky to be living in the age of communication and aviation technology where we can so easily find people that actually relate to us and inspire us.