Let’s Be Lonely Together
November 9, 2022
Writer: Libby Zufi
Editor: Ava Tomlin
Think of a time when you knew your life was changing–fast and right before your eyes — and all you could think to yourself was, Oh wow, this is actually happening. For me, this pivotal moment occurred two months ago when I first walked into my empty shoe-box sized dorm in Mary Markley Hall and realized that this room — hundreds of miles away from everything I know — was going to be home for the next nine months. My eyes roamed over the criminally small space, and my mind started to race. I wondered how I would ever fit the copious amounts of stuff I brought from home into the tiny closet and limited drawers, or how I would navigate meeting the 1,000 other freshmen roaming the Markley halls.
Once I was moved in, and every inch was filled with decorations, articles of clothing, and keepsakes reminding me of treasured times, my previously vacant room officially became home. While I don’t consider myself to be particularly sentimental and have never been one to fear goodbyes, this time felt different. This goodbye meant that for the first time in my life, I was well and truly on my own.
Being alone is a completely foreign experience to me. I grew up in a massive and verbose family, so conversation constantly surrounded me. In school, I enjoyed socializing with friends during transition periods in the hallways, and spent my weekends surrounded by friends and activities. As someone who labels myself as an extrovert, I was shocked that on my first Saturday at college, all I wanted to do was lay in bed. I was stunned by these sudden feelings of apathy and isolation. All I could think to myself was: “in a school of thousands of other students, how could I feel so lonely?”
I became consumed by this sense of feeling out of place. Uncertain of how to address it, I retreated to myself. My extroverted self felt lost and trapped as I struggled to engage with the strangers around me, despite mentally preparing to meet new people for months. As I laid in bed scrolling through social media, I saw that virtually everyone seemed to be happy, smiling, and posting about all the fun they were having. I couldn't help but feel that I hadn't found my place in Ann Arbor.
Alas, I was happy to find out that many other freshmen felt this same sense of feeling out of place and alone. This notion of automatically meeting your best friends is not always the case, and is overlooked by the picture perfect life that we paint online (I am certainly guilty of it). After many late night chats with my roommate and a handful of friends I have since made, I realized that I was not the only one who felt this way. In fact, just about everyone else felt the same way. It was at this moment that I concluded that everyone is lonely together in this new milestone of our lives. And it's ok.
Although I have only been here a short amount of time, I have already grown tremendously. For one, I have learned to embrace the feeling of being uncomfortable. While this is a difficult experience, in time, I know that these feelings will pass. Secondly, it is so quick to judge another's experience through a distorted lens like social media. While I felt like everyone had found their place, it turns out that everyone was also masking their sense of feeling out of place through photos and the illusion of a picture perfect social life. While you might feel like you are alone in your struggles, just know that these thoughts are universal, and can lead to a sense of unity and closeness with others as we are all truly lonely together.
Image: Chloe Sinel
