13 ms·

Half of lonely people think no one will notice if something bad happens to them

• bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
  To all those that identify with feeling this way... Remember that it's statistically impossible that no one will notice. For better or worse, at least the mailperson will notice eventually.
  • giancarlostoro 8y ago
    Not that I identify under said group but people can feel lonely living in a home of other people too.
  • dmortin 8y ago
    Edit: fixed time Well, how about this one? They noticed it after 5 months: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2515097/Oxfordshire-woman-seen-30-YEARS-dead-daughter-home.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2515097/Oxfordshire...
    • andrewcchen 8y ago
      The title is misleading, they have most likely only been dead for a few months since their bodies were found still decomposing.
      • dmortin 8y ago
        There are other such cases: A woman's skeleton was discovered in her flat three years after she is believed to have died, it emerged today. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatfeedback/4199730/Skeleton-woman-dead-in-front-of-TV-for-years.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatfeedback/4199730/Skel...
  • harlanji 8y ago
    Your logic counters my observations during 2 years underemployer, 52 weeks unemployed, and 25 weeks homeless... after 15+ years in good standing with the professional world (aka. with things people envied).
  • derefr 8y ago
    That isn't so much your absence being noticed/cared about directly, though, as it is that your lack of carrying-out some expected duty of yours is impugning upon someone else's duties. I don't find it very cheering to think that I'd only be discovered dead in my home because someone got angry that they couldn't fit any more mail in my mailbox, and complained to their manager about it. (Or because someone got grossed out by the scent of decay coming from my apartment, or because I never paid my bills and the repossessors attempted to visit me, etc.) It's quite different in kind from even the most casual positive memory, e.g. a barista who makes note of the fact that a customer who they used to see every day at 3PM, isn't coming in any more.
  • sandworm101 8y ago
    "For years, the payments went out of the woman's bank account. Nobody batted an eyelid. Bills were paid. And life went on as normal in the quiet neighborhood of Pontiac, Michigan. Neighbors didn't notice anything unusual. The woman traveled a lot, they said, and kept to herself. One of them mowed her grass to keep things looking tidy. At some point, her bank account ran dry." https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/07/us/michigan-mummified-body-found/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/07/us/michigan-mummified-body-fo...
    • justboxing 8y ago
      > The woman's mummified body was sitting in the back seat of her car, parked in the garage. The key was halfway in the ignition. Truly macabre.
      • blattimwind 8y ago
        Roald Dahl couldn't have done it better.
    • wkearney99 8y ago
      It's the old joke... don't think anyone cares about you? Try missing a couple of payments...
  • dmortin 8y ago
    Woman's Dead Body Lies in Flat for 35 Years https://www.foxnews.com/story/womans-dead-body-lies-in-flat-for-35-years https://www.foxnews.com/story/womans-dead-body-lies-in-flat-...
  • 2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
    How many of us live in apartments and have bills sent electronically? Once the current generation gets old we could easily coast through life isolated without friends. We’ll all need dead man switches soon.
  • newnewpdro 8y ago
    I'm not sure that level of "notice" gives such folks much comfort. Decades ago I knew someone nearly homeless living in a downtown Chicago dive hotel, the kind of place you turned the bathroom light on just so the roaches would scatter before walking to the toilet. They talked about the hotel management giving the younger and destitute tenants free months of stay in return for getting rid of the bodies and possessions of elderly tenants when they passed away. Apparently it was somewhat common for poor elderly folks, alone in the world, to move into the hotel and have their government aid checks cashed for them by the hotel management. By making them disappear after dying, the hotel continued to (illegally) collect the checks.
  • empath75 8y ago
    FWIW I didn't check my mail once for something like 6 months, and they just stopped delivery on it. Nobody came to check on me, that's for sure.
  • cafard 8y ago
    A man I worked with many years ago died at some time after I had left the project. He did not come in to work, and did not answer his phone. After his family in another state had been unable to reach him for some time, they prodded the employer a bit. The project manager checked and found that the man had found dead on the street not far from his apartment. Since his wallet had been stolen, the police could not identify him, and the body was held as a John Doe at the morgue. So yes, the county police noticed at once that the man was dead, the employer almost at once that the man was missing or at least incommunicado; but putting the information together was the problem.
  • coldtea 8y ago
    That's not the point though, noticing here means caring, not merely being aware of. Not to mention tons of people have been found after weeks or months being dead without anybody noticing, so "the mailperson will notice eventually" is hardly a comfort.
  • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    When we say "no one will notice", we mean that they won't care, that they won't have to substantially alter their way of life, or even their routine to accommodate one's death. It was a shock to me, some years ago, on leaving an office job to start a new business: I had a group of what I considered good friends, we spoke on many topics, shared lunches nearly every day, went out socially on occasions. Not one of them dropped in to my new work to see how I was getting on [the reverse was impossible, it was a closed site]. They noticed I wasn't there, but it clearly made no substantial difference to them. Very few of us will leave a legacy that impacts beyond immediate family and friends, I think for those of us in that boat we have to come to terms with it and not let that thought cloud our enjoyment of the time we do have. With 8 billion people the memory of good deeds quickly gets lost in the melee of daily life.
• kiloreux 8y ago
  I don't think it's the "notice" part here. It's the "caring" part. To know that if something happens to you all your relatives and friends won't care or feel anything for losing you is the part that hurts, as for noticing. For sure they'll notice.
  • thaumasiotes 8y ago
    The question isn't whether people will notice if you die. It's whether people will notice if something bad happens. It's not a euphemism: > One in nine didn't feel like they had anyone in their lives who they could rely on in a crisis. It's entirely unsurprising that lonely people think other people won't notice if they're in a crisis -- that's what being lonely is. There's a song called "How Do You Get That Lonely?", about a boy who committed suicide, in which the last lines of the chorus are: How do you feel so empty you want to let it all go How do you get that lonely and nobody know But this has never made any sense to me -- surely, if the problem is that you're so lonely that the best option available to you is killing yourself, it's to be expected that other people weren't familiar with your situation.
    • bluGill 8y ago
      Other people may well understand the situation all too well, but have no idea what to do about it. That can include professional help in some cases. Depression is a bad thing and outsiders often have no way to penetrate to the victim and say they care.
    • whatshisface 8y ago
      >you're so lonely that the best option available to you is killing yourself The best option available would always be to meet a random person on the street because ending up with a bad person would not be as bad as dying.
      • jstanley 8y ago
        People who agree would obviously do that instead of killing themselves, so you're just preaching to the choir.
• digitalsushi 8y ago
  Sometimes I feel that it can be a lucrative trap to become invested in a single person, and then accumulate expectations that far outweigh the responsible obligations of any friendship. As I have gotten older, a pattern that is working much better for me is the campfire model - I just try to keep a metaphorical campfire going, for people traveling through this life to stop and warm themselves upon while I tend it. I cannot know which direction people are traveling from, or to, or how long their journey has been or will be. But all people need to warm their calloused hands and feet, and I can keep this fire with a bed of rosy coals. Sometimes someone will stop at my fire and warm themselves without my ever having paid attention, but to them it may have meant all the difference in the world. By keeping this obligation in mind, to simply expect people to need a place to sit a spell, I can at least believe I am helping. The campfire is a nice way for me to remember we're all suffering, that not a one of us is unique to loneliness. Because sometimes that person who sits down at your fire is the person you have been waiting for, and only by making a seat for them were you able to ever meet.
  • FiatLuxDave 8y ago
    I'm not quite sure what to say, except that I found what you just wrote to be quite beautiful. I hope you find many fires to warm yourself at.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • sleepyandlazy 8y ago
      +1 One of the best life analogies I’ve ever heard.
  • gizmo686 8y ago
    > Sometimes I feel that it can be a lucrative trap to become invested in a single person, and then accumulate expectations that far outweigh the responsible obligations of any friendship. I don't meen this cynically, but isn't this the entire idea behind modern marriage. (Of course marriage adds an expectation of reciprocity, which is what keeps us from viewing it as exploitative; and an expectation of exclusivity, which seems orthogonal)
• deleted 8y ago
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• e40 8y ago
  My mom (who lives alone and is approaching 80) and I have an agreement: she emails me every morning with "hey" in the subject and no body if she doesn't feel like it. If I don't get an email, I call. Since we started doing this (years), I feel more connected to her, and we often have conversations that last a while. I can't remember the last time I got a blank email.
  • mongol 8y ago
    Sounds like a good agreement and happy that it works out for you. I seem to remain childless and worry sometimes for the time I am in your mother's age
  • nickthegreek 8y ago
    I make it a point to call my mom on my 15 minute drive home instead of popping on another podcast. After my father passed, it took me a few years to reflect on the loneliness that she could be feeling. She looks forwards to these calls and I know that they provide a good connection for both of us. I am considering getting her an apple watch in the next year or two for the emergency call features and fall detection.
    • bmer 8y ago
      Considering? Do it! It's your mom. She deserves it.
    • yesforwhat 8y ago
      This is a weird consequence of getting airpods, but now that I always have the ability to listen and talk I am speaking a lot more with friends that I used to.
    • bestnameever 8y ago
      I use the walkie talkie function with my mom quite a bit. Luckily, she doesn't initiate with me much but I think she enjoys it when I randomly pop in to ask to see how shes doing.
      • 8y ago
• deleted 8y ago
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• wintorez 8y ago
  In my opinion, Loneliness & Global Warming are the most immediate existential threats facing humanity.
  • nixpulvis 8y ago
    I don't think loneliness is an "existential threat", it's just a crisis. I have a hard time imagining the human species being wiped out because we're lonely. I would think that would fix itself long before it got to that point. Climate change on the other hand...
    • jpster 8y ago
      Loneliness, or alienation, can certainly be exploited by politicians & the malevolent. Not as grave as climate change but possibly impactful at scale.
• Pica_soO 8y ago
  Well, the roaches will have a feast. If i'm reincarnated as a roach, i might even enjoy my own remains.
• sjg007 8y ago
  Sure. I mean maybe a few people actually care.. your parents, siblings and family, maybe your colleagues if you are lucky. All real estate is local as is anything that happens to you. Look at how we as a society treat the least able, the poor and the homeless. It's no wonder that the lonely don't expect any help because we as a society expect someone to reach out by definition. We are too busy doing nothing to help anyone else outside of our small circle.
• mmirate 8y ago
  As I read the article, I was most puzzled as to how people could possibly be afraid of such a trifle as loneliness. The answer is in the buried-lead at the end: >According to the Campaign To End Loneliness, loneliness has been found to speed up cognitive decline in older people, with one study concluding that it can increase your risk of developing clinical dementia by 64 per cent. >Increasing the risk of high blood pressure, coronary heart disease and stroke, as well as disability, loneliness has also been found to increase your risk of dying early by 26 per cent - that's as much as obesity and smoking. > So this isn't just a social problem - it's a potential health crisis. This results in the question: how can we re-engineer humanity so that our 22nd-century cousins' physical health isn't dependent on, well, dealing with people? (On second thought, it maybe doesn't result in that question after all: because nobody alive today could actually benefit from such an effort.)
• fudgy73 8y ago
  we are living in a time that without noticing it we are focusing on the quantity, not the quality of our connections. how can we shift our thoughts and senses to the latter?
• uberlonely 8y ago
  I'm positive if I died no one would notice for at least 2-3 months, maybe more I live abroad. I have no truly close friends. The closest friend has 2 kids so I see him maybe once every 2 months. My family is 7000+ miles away. I talk to them about once every 3-8 months. The biggest issue is the time difference. Those times when I think "I feel like calling" it's always the wrong time so it's usually only when I'm up at 3am and instead of going to sleep I tell myself "Ok, I guess I should stay up another hour to call". I'm self employed. 80% of my expenses are automated. (should be 100% really) So, if I died a couple of friends might think I was rude for not answering their messages on slack or fb messenger but it would be quite a while before someone came and checked. Unless there was a smell or something coming from the apartment there really is no one I can think of that would check up on me. Yes, I want to fix this situation. Stupidly I don't know how. I'm > 50yrs old. When I go out most people are < 40yrs old. Of course we get along but being in different places in your life can make it hard to relate the same way that people in the same place in life relate. I go to meetups and know a few people's names but haven't made any "friends".
  • scythe 8y ago
    >My family is 7000+ miles away. I talk to them about once every 3-8 months. The biggest issue is the time difference. Those times when I think "I feel like calling" it's always the wrong time It's not actually natural for humans to choose to experience social interaction every time it happens (historically, we didn't). It can help if you pick a time in advance and then call no matter what. It will almost always be easier than you thought after you start talking.
  • justaguyhere 8y ago
    Stupidly I don't know how If you like, we can become email friends, just to keep in touch. I may or may be able to relate to you, but I promise to try sincerely. I see myself going the same route, so... On a meta level: Do you have any ideas on how to think about situations like this? Surely, there must be millions of people who feel the same?
    • uberlonely 8y ago
• gigatexal 8y ago
  That’s so sad! If anyone wants a pen pal or someone to talk to I’m game!
  • MAMAMassakali 8y ago
    me
    • smithmayowa 8y ago
      how can i reach you, email me at my username @testimonly.com and i will be happy to talk to you.
  • gigatexal 8y ago
    Email me! Alex at Alexandarnarayan dot com
• closeparen 8y ago
  Loneliness is usually presented as a matching or communication problem: if only all the lonely people could find each other, and had the social skills to initiate contact, all would be well. But what if it’s deeper than that? Could we be losing the life/personality traits that make people interested in us? Overstimulated by other sources so that friendships with ordinary people are not interesting uses of time? For example, just because you yourself are overweight, does not mean you will be attracted to other overweight people. So we should expect a decline in sexual relationships as the prevalence of obesity rises.
  • ThrowMeDown01 8y ago
    > if only all the lonely people could find each other, and had the social skills to initiate contact, all would be well. I'd say I have very good social skills, never have a problem getting to know people when I take the time. The problem is I'm simultaneously a bit lonely (not a desperation level though) - but also not interested (in meeting people). It's really weird. Note that the "not interested" does not come from a(ny) level of depression, there is none (I know because I used to have a noticeable level of it many years ago, so I know how it feels to be incapacitated by even a small bit of that affliction). I just don't find most people interesting enough. That's not a "looking down" kind of feeling, but merely a mismatch. A big part of it is the way we all live our lives though, I think. I want (a larger) community and cannot find or even see it, no so much "the one" friendship, or even "just friends". Having superficial talks now and then just isn't enough for me, I'm looking for a larger purpose.
    • akvadrako 8y ago
      I have less than average social skills but I mostly feel the same way, so for me socialization is even less worth it. What I trying to make happen is to build a community of people with similar goals and world views, so we can have productive conversations about interesting ideas and actually produce something I care about.
    • csunbird 8y ago
      I think you are just a guy who is at wrong place, at wrong time. Maybe you should try changing your circle of friends and meet different people, that can instantly change your mood. For example, at the place that I'm working, I felt the same way, then I found a nerdy group of people playing DnD. Instantly I felt better and I have people that I can call friends that I can just hang out with. My 2 cents :)
• sacado2 8y ago
  I'm not especially a lonely person, I have a job, I have hobbies almost every day of the week, but I live alone and sometimes wonder how long it would take for people to notice "hey, this is really strange, anybody got news?" if I had an accident.
• Mankrik 8y ago
  Is there anyone that suffered a sort of midlife crisis after university? I fortunately have a job as a developer doing what I set out, but find I'm lacking the social connections I once had, especially since moving to a new city with few connections, the ones which I have already I'm fortunate to have, but still the feeling of loneliness creeps into me when I feel like I have no excuse to me. I think I'm lacking the deep relationship where I can open up to someone about how I really feel, rather than the usual conversation of what I _think_. (overthinking infact being a reoccurring problem)