How to Keep Life From Passing You By

Source: Monkey Business/Shutterstock

The sense that the rest of the world is just spinning on its own without your being part of that spinning can be one of the saddest ways to feel. You spend weekends and holidays without any real human contact, other than going to complete your chores—such as shopping and handling various mundane affairs.

Hours go by without anyone calling or texting you, and you just get this sense that you don’t make a difference to anyone, not even your family or the people who are supposed to be your friends.

The Concept of Loneliness

That feeling of having no importance compared to others whose engagements get them out there in the world may be, according to new research, a component of loneliness. According to the University of Klagenfurt’s Marcus Mund and colleagues (2023), “Interpersonal relationships are among the most powerful sources for well-being and health.” Without these, they continue, “individuals experience loneliness."

Perhaps you never thought of yourself as a lonely person. The sense of isolation you have when you don’t feel needed or wanted, however, may be exactly related to this psychological quality. Before trying to remedy or cope with this isolation, an important first step would be to figure out if it’s loneliness that’s behind your sense of disengagement.

Because loneliness is a state and not an inherent dispositional factor, once identified, you could then go on to figure out ways to put it behind you and feel that there are pathways toward fulfillment through those important interpersonal relationships.

As the Austrian authors note, even though loneliness is important to mental health, there is no one widely-accepted way to measure it. The purpose of their study was to settle the question of how best to assess loneliness both by evaluating current measures and then by seeing how they relate to important psychological outcomes.

Source: FotoDuets/ Shutterstock

Finding the Best Way to Measure Loneliness

There are no less than six instruments within the loneliness literature, ranging from single-item rating scales to others with from three to 20 items. You might think one item would be insufficient to capture the complex aspects of this state of mind, but nevertheless, it has been a popular approach.

Also, you may wonder whether the way you see yourself from the standpoint of feeling lonely corresponds to the way others see you. If others can detect your loneliness from the cues you give off, this would suggest that it’s become a central feature of your approach to life. Some of the measures indeed use ratings provided not just by the participant but by someone else.

Data for the University Klagenfort study came from online samples of adults (and informants) across the adult age span, including one study using longitudinal methods. In addition to administering loneliness instruments, the research team used measures of personality, including the five-factor model traits (extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness), as well as self-esteem, depressiveness, affiliation motive, need satisfaction, shyness, and sociability.

Number of Daily Social Interactions

They assessed life satisfaction in the domains of life overall: education, leisure, friends, family, and partner relationships. The number of social interactions the individuals report on a daily basis became a more behaviorally-oriented loneliness correlate.

The loneliness measures themselves differed not only in length, but in their focus, with some assessing “direct” vs. “indirect” forms. In other words, rather than having people rate themselves on the item, “I feel lonely” (direct), an indirect measure asks individuals to rate themselves on the item, “I feel alone.”

Social vs. Emotional Loneliness

Another distinction the authors point to contrasts emotional and social loneliness. “I experience a general sense of emptiness,” assesses emotional loneliness. Social loneliness is rated on items such as, “There are plenty of people I can rely on when I have problems” (reverse scored).

Loneliness Essential Reads

Friendship Needed: How Healthcare Organizations Can Help

The Particular Loneliness of Losing a Spouse

After contrasting the statistical structure of the various loneliness scales along with their relationship to personality and life satisfaction, the authors concluded that social and emotional loneliness are, indeed, different facets of overall loneliness. The indirect measures, which don’t use loneliness in the items themselves, did not produce results that were as clear or consistent as the direct loneliness ratings.

Surprisingly, despite what may seem as being too simplistic, single items proved to have strong statistical support. Although such measures “lose bandwidth,” as the authors conclude, they are useful in research where financial or time constraints require brevity. However, the ultra-short loneliness measures (e.g., those with three items) should not be used in a therapy setting “where a nuanced perspective is required."

Furthermore, and maybe not surprisingly, there was strong agreement between observers and participants in loneliness ratings. If you’re lonely, then there’s a strong chance that those who know you sense it too. This happens, the authors suggest, because you give off emotional vibes in your interactions with others, both in what you say and how you say it.

Implications for Everyday Life and Mental Health

Having shown that loneliness can be clearly identified by the individual or by informants, the issue then becomes what difference it makes for the quality of life. The authors conclude: “Its consequences seem to reach far beyond social relationships and to cloud individual’s perspective on life more generally."

Returning to the question of how to identify and cope with feelings of "you don’t matter," the Austrian study suggests that this belief may have its underpinnings in loneliness. Sorting through your sense of disengagement from the outside world and close relationships, begin simply by asking yourself the question used in this study of whether you feel lonely (or how lonely you feel) on a scale of 1 to 7.

Now that you’ve separated out your feelings of loneliness from the other emotions you might be experiencing, you can start to tackle some of that vibe you give off to others of being lonely. People do notice this feeling, especially those who know you the best.

Next, take stock of the number of times you get together with friends. What is the nature of those friendships—are they close, do you go to them for help and advice? Do they help you deal with problems? An objective count of these connections could help give you a benchmark from which you can try to reengage.

The activities don’t have to be particularly exciting or profound, but they can become a building point for developing greater closeness. If you really can’t think of anyone you’d engage in this process, try exploring new activities that can have a social basis, such as taking a class at a local high school or college.

Emotional loneliness, with its connections to depression, can be more difficult to tackle. However, depression is a treatable condition, and you don’t need to live with it forever. In fact, some treatments for depression involve precisely the above step of practicing ways to become involved in activities that can boost your mood.

To sum up: Feeling that you’re not a part of anything important, worthwhile, or gratifying may stem from an underlying sense of loneliness. Conquering loneliness can help you get on a pathway to more engaged, and fulfilling, involvement with life.

Facebook image: Alexey Gresser/Shutterstock

LinkedIn image: Bricolage/Shutterstock