The Art of Manliness - #618： Finding Connection in a Lonely World

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. We've all been

00:00:11.080 there. You're sitting at home some evening, don't have any plans. You haven't heard from family or

00:00:15.080 friends in a while. You got things on your mind, but don't feel like there's anyone you can talk

00:00:19.360 to about them. Start feeling down and adrift and sense an almost physical pain or ache in your

00:00:24.500 heart. That experience you're feeling is loneliness. And my guest today says we ought to interpret

00:00:28.720 this feeling the way we would hunger or thirst as a signal that we have a need that we should take

00:00:32.820 action to fulfill. His name is Dr. Vivek Murthy. He served as the 19th Surgeon General of the United

00:00:37.120 States, and he's the author of the book, Together, The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes

00:00:41.540 Lonely World. We begin our conversation discussing what loneliness is exactly and how we can feel

00:00:46.040 interpersonally fulfilled in some areas of our lives and yet lonely in others. Vivek then walks

00:00:50.320 us through the very tangible harm loneliness can do to our mental health before exploring why

00:00:54.480 loneliness has been increasing in the Western world. Vivek and I then discuss how loneliness

00:00:58.300 affects men in particular, and we end our conversation with things we can all do to

00:01:01.720 battle the loneliness epidemic and feel more connected to those around us. After the show's

00:01:05.780 over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash loneliness. Vivek joins me now via clearcast.io.

00:01:22.360 All right, Dr. Vivek Murthy, welcome to the show.

00:01:25.320 Thanks so much, Brad. It's good to be with you.

00:01:26.900 So you were the U.S. Surgeon General of the United States from 2014 to 2017, but since then,

00:01:34.460 you've written a book. It's out now called Together, The Healing Power of Human Connection

00:01:38.960 in a Sometimes Lonely World, and it's where you take a deep dive into loneliness, which

00:01:43.960 is an issue, a health issue, mental health issue that often gets overlooked. I'm curious,

00:01:50.560 as a doctor, and we typically don't think of doctors thinking about loneliness. You go to the

00:01:54.880 doctor, you're cold, maybe you're feeling depressed, but never go to the doctor because

00:01:59.420 I'm lonely. When did you, as a healthcare practitioner, start noticing loneliness being a health issue?

00:02:05.640 Well, the truth is, I had seen loneliness long before I entered medicine. I had seen it

00:02:11.320 in my own life. And as a child, I struggled a lot with being alone. I was very shy and had a difficult

00:02:18.900 time going up to other kids and making friends, even though I really wanted to hang out with

00:02:24.220 others. And I remember that loneliness so vividly. I remember pulling up to the front of the school

00:02:31.640 each morning when my parents would drop me off and feeling this pit in my stomach because I was

00:02:36.540 just dreading that feeling of being the one left out. And the toughest part of the school day for me

00:02:43.420 was actually lunchtime when I would walk into the cafeteria, not knowing if there would be somebody

00:02:49.280 I could sit next to. And I carried that with me for a long time, even though I was able over time to

00:02:55.780 build wonderful friendships and to feel a part of a community. I never forgot what it felt like to be

00:03:02.720 lonely. And I was reminded of it when I began working in the hospital as a doctor. Frankly, even as a

00:03:09.440 medical student, I started to see that so many patients would come in alone. And even at moments

00:03:16.260 when we had to have very difficult conversations with them about a new diagnosis or had to make

00:03:22.240 hard decisions about a treatment course. And I would ask them, is there somebody you want me to call

00:03:29.660 so that we could have this conversation together so you have some support? And very often the answer

00:03:35.280 was, I wish there was somebody, but there isn't anyone. You know, even, even right at the time of

00:03:41.060 death, I remember sitting with patients at their bedside and knowing as painful as it was that we

00:03:49.700 were the only ones, my fellow nurses and doctors in the hospitals, we were the only ones who were there

00:03:55.220 with them in those final moments and that there was no one else in their life to witness that final

00:04:00.660 stage. It was painful to see that. But what was also painful, Brad, is I didn't know what to do

00:04:06.380 about it. You know, I had never really trained in how to ask people about loneliness, talk about

00:04:13.440 loneliness, much less address it. I responded to it as a human being and tried my best to

00:04:19.200 listen with empathy and to be present for patients as they struggled with being alone. But I didn't really

00:04:25.440 know how to approach it or how to think about loneliness. And I certainly didn't know

00:04:29.120 that it had health consequences. That I only came to realize when I became Surgeon General and in the

00:04:36.400 conversations I was having with people across the country, conversations about substance use

00:04:42.100 disorders, about depression, about anxiety, about chronic disease, I came to see that there were these

00:04:48.160 threads of loneliness that wove their way through so many people's stories, whether they were college

00:04:54.180 students or moms and dads or people living in remote fishing villages in Alaska or even members of

00:05:01.700 Congress in Washington, D.C., person after person would say to me, I feel I have to carry all of these

00:05:08.580 burdens in my life by myself. Or I feel if I disappear tomorrow, no one would even know. Or I feel invisible.

00:05:16.500 And that's where I started to delve into the research around loneliness and came to see that

00:05:21.300 loneliness is extraordinarily common within the United States. More people struggling with loneliness

00:05:27.780 who are adults than adults who have diabetes or who smoke. And the consequences for our health are

00:05:32.940 actually profound as well, far greater than I could have imagined. And we'll talk about the health

00:05:39.840 consequences of that. But before we do, let's get to definitions. What is loneliness? I mean, how is it

00:05:45.780 different from just being by yourself, solitude? Because I think everyone knows that you can be by yourself and

00:05:50.180 not feel lonely, but then you can be in a crowd of people and feel incredibly lonely.

00:05:54.860 That's right. Loneliness is a subjective term. It describes a gap between the social connections

00:06:02.780 I need and the social connections I have in my life. It is different from an objective descriptor

00:06:10.040 like isolation, which is more a description of the number of people you have around you.

00:06:15.140 But we know that people can feel lonely even if they're surrounded by many. This is a circumstance

00:06:22.380 I observed in so many college students who found themselves surrounded by thousands of other

00:06:27.480 students on campus, but still felt profoundly alone. And this is also different from solitude.

00:06:34.560 Solitude is a state of being alone in objective terms, but it's not a painful state. In fact,

00:06:41.280 it's a peaceful and a welcome state. And it turns out that solitude is an essential part of all of

00:06:48.440 our lives and cultivating solitude, being able to embrace those moments of solitude and make the most

00:06:55.160 of them are counterintuitively a key part of what we need to do to strengthen our connection with other

00:07:01.420 people. And we'll talk about that too. But what I love about in the book, you break down there's,

00:07:07.220 you can experience different types of loneliness. There's not just a single type of loneliness.

00:07:12.540 You can have loneliness, you know, you might have great strong connections with your family, but

00:07:17.400 you might feel lonely when you go to work, for example.

00:07:22.220 That's right. And I found it in the writing of this book so important to understand the different

00:07:28.400 types of loneliness, because if you don't recognize that we have different needs in terms of our social

00:07:35.300 connections, then you might assume that if you're married and your partner is feeling lonely,

00:07:43.280 that somehow that's a reflection on your marriage, or that if you've got a best friend,

00:07:48.120 but they're feeling lonely, that somehow you're not a good enough friend to them.

00:07:51.580 But what you have to understand is three types of loneliness that we can all experience. One is

00:07:55.500 intimate loneliness. When we lack connection with people who know us really well, people with whom we

00:08:01.560 can show up completely as ourselves, people with whom we can be real. The second, and when we don't

00:08:07.360 have that, we experience intimate loneliness. The second type of loneliness is relational loneliness,

00:08:12.660 when we don't have the kind of friendships with which we can seek out others to spend evenings and

00:08:19.220 weekends with, the kind of friendships where we would go on a vacation or a trip with somebody or get

00:08:24.300 our families together for special events. And there's a third type of loneliness,

00:08:29.080 collective loneliness, when we lack a sense of community, a sense of shared identity and purpose

00:08:36.080 with a group of other people, whether that's people that we volunteer with together or people that we

00:08:41.380 attend church or synagogue or the mosque with together, or people with whom we work and with whom we share

00:08:49.140 a deep sense of mission. These three types of loneliness are important and you can be fulfilled in

00:08:57.260 one category. You can have great intimate connections, but still feel lonely if you don't have

00:09:02.080 a community. You can still not feel like you're part of something. And so the more we understand this,

00:09:08.280 the more we recognize that we all have different roles that we play in each other's lives. But if we

00:09:12.540 also want to live a truly connected life, we need those best friends and others who can serve as intimate

00:09:19.220 connections. We need friends with whom we can engage in everyday fulfilling activities with,

00:09:24.660 and we need a community with whom we have a sense of shared purpose and identity.

00:09:29.760 And I've seen that play out in my own life. I say, for example, when I first got married,

00:09:33.020 maybe this happened to other newlyweds. Like when I first got married, like friends wasn't really on

00:09:38.560 the radar. It's like, Oh, I got, I'm married to my best friend. I got my wife and we just do

00:09:41.640 everything together. But I remember the reach, we reached a certain, both of us reached a point

00:09:44.620 like where we need friends, but, but because we were so invested in our, just at the intimate

00:09:50.180 relationship, we had let those friendships atrophy. It was kind of like too late. Right. So you had to

00:09:56.120 like, we were basically building, you know, starting from ground zero because we neglected that.

00:10:00.920 Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up, Brett, because this is a really common thing that happens

00:10:06.360 to a lot of people because it was really interesting about society. Society sends certain messages to us

00:10:12.240 about what we need and, and what we should be fulfilled by. And it tells us, for example, that

00:10:17.420 we can't be happy if we don't have, if we're not married and that once we're married, then our

00:10:24.380 spouse should be enough. But the reality is a lot more complicated than that. The reality is that

00:10:30.400 number one, some people can have very fulfilled lives without being married per se, if they have

00:10:37.000 intimate connections with close friends, and if they have circles of friendships and community

00:10:42.100 connections that keep them feeling like they're living a deeply connected life. On the other hand,

00:10:47.420 there are plenty of people who are in marriages and feel quite lonely, either because their

00:10:53.220 relationship itself is not as open as they need, or because they, their relationship has crowded out

00:11:00.340 friendships and they have not prioritized building community as well. I was actually an example of

00:11:05.940 this in my own life. When I finished my tenure as Surgeon General, I had, I had to figure out how to put

00:11:13.200 my life together again, because I realized that in the years that I served, you know, I had focused on

00:11:19.080 my, my connection with my wife, Alice, and with my connection with close family, but I had neglected so

00:11:26.260 many friendships. I had lost the sense of community. And I had told myself in the job that, you know, this

00:11:34.320 is an important job. And then I had to do as much as I could for as long as I could, recognizing that you

00:11:39.440 never know how long you have the opportunity to serve. And I, and I had a lot of public health

00:11:43.860 campaigns that I wanted to launch during the time I had an office. But the truth is I did that to the,

00:11:50.360 to the point of neglecting my relationships. And I paid the price for that. And I felt quite isolated

00:11:57.980 and lonely at times during my tenure, but even especially afterward. And I had to think after I came

00:12:05.400 out of office, how do I rebuild a connected life, recognizing that even though I'm so grateful to

00:12:11.860 have a fulfilling relationship with my wife, that, that both of us need more, we need other

00:12:17.600 friendships, we need a sense of community. And the years that followed my time in government were a

00:12:23.840 process of recognizing that need of rebuilding that kind of connection in my life. And it's a journey

00:12:30.780 that continues to today. So what happens with our physiology whenever we feel lonely? Because I

00:12:36.640 think everyone's experienced that feeling and there's almost like an ache, like it hurts. It's

00:12:40.680 like, why does it feel like that? Yeah. So loneliness we used to think of as just a bad feeling,

00:12:47.780 but it turns out that loneliness affects our body in a profound way. You know, on a biological level,

00:12:54.140 loneliness puts us in a stress state. And in the short term, that stress can be good. It can motivate

00:13:02.340 us to go and seek out other friends and family members and to hopefully feel more connected and

00:13:09.760 less lonely. But we run into problems when that loneliness is prolonged and when the stress state

00:13:15.020 that it causes is prolonged as well. Because we know that chronic stress is associated with higher

00:13:21.260 levels of inflammation in the body, which in turn can lead to an increased incidence of heart disease

00:13:26.540 and other chronic illnesses. So this is likely one of the key mechanisms through which loneliness has

00:13:32.620 its impact on health. And if you look at the data, the data I started to dig into once I recognized how

00:13:38.540 common loneliness was in our country, you start to see that loneliness is associated with not only an

00:13:45.040 increased risk in heart disease, but also an increased risk in dementia, in depression, anxiety,

00:13:50.440 premature death, premature death, sleep disturbances. In fact, if you look at the mortality impact of

00:13:57.360 loneliness, the number of the amount by which our life is shortened in a sense, you know, when we're

00:14:02.680 lonely, that seems to be similar to the mortality impact associated with smoking 15 cigarettes a day,

00:14:10.060 and even greater than the mortality impact that we see with obesity and sedentary living.

00:14:15.480 I say this, Brett, as someone who served as Surgeon General in an office that for decades worked on

00:14:24.180 those three issues, smoking, obesity, sedentary living. Yet I had not realized just how extraordinarily

00:14:32.000 consequential this other issue was, the issue of loneliness. And the more I understood it, the more I

00:14:38.120 came to realize that it was an important public health concern.

00:14:42.960 I mean, yeah, because it seems like loneliness can underlie all those issues, because usually if you

00:14:47.060 have connections, family, friends, they can help you with those things, quitting smoking, obesity,

00:14:54.520 et cetera. And if you don't have that, it makes it a lot harder to overcome those issues.

00:14:59.040 Yes. And so there, interestingly, I think are these two components to how loneliness impacts our

00:15:04.540 health. There's a practical component of what you just said, which is when you've got people in your

00:15:08.560 life that you can lean on, they can encourage you to do the right thing, whether that's eating right

00:15:13.340 or quitting smoking. They can encourage you to go walking or go to the gym. They can actually

00:15:17.760 practically help you get to the doctor's office or remind you to take your medicines. So that's sort

00:15:22.640 of a practical way in which connections impact our health. This stress-related pathway is a separate,

00:15:28.420 but also equally important one. And if you want to understand why that is, that loneliness causes

00:15:34.500 us stress, it has to do with how we've evolved over thousands of years as people who were hunter

00:15:40.660 gatherers back in the day and who relied on each other for safety and protection. So back in those

00:15:47.240 days, there truly was safety in numbers. When we were with others in trusted communities, we could watch

00:15:53.880 out for predators. We could share food so that we had a stable food supply. We could help with each

00:15:58.880 other with childcare. And when we were separated from our tribe, that automatically reduced our risk

00:16:05.020 of survival. And we knew that. And so our body went into a stress state where it was prepared to either

00:16:11.440 fight a predator or to flee or to quickly look for the tribe again. And in that stress state, what's very

00:16:18.700 interesting is because we felt that we were under threat, we developed a sense of hypervigilance

00:16:24.700 where even if something around us, like the twig that cracked behind us, had only a 1% chance of

00:16:30.480 being a predator, we wanted to interpret it as something dangerous because our life may depend on

00:16:35.480 it. Our focus also shifted inward because we were worried about our safety. Now this all makes sense

00:16:41.320 in an evolutionary context, but think about how it relates to the modern world. Because even though

00:16:46.040 our circumstances are dramatically different now, our nervous systems are remarkably similar.

00:16:51.880 And so when we are lonely and we enter into this state of stress, the hypervigilance associated with

00:16:58.760 loneliness, the greater likelihood of assuming bad intent or threat behind what we see around us,

00:17:04.720 that can actually make it harder for us to connect with people and interact with them. The increased

00:17:09.000 focus we have on ourself can also make it harder for people to feel connected to us in conversation,

00:17:15.400 not to mention the fact that when we're chronically lonely, it can erode our self-esteem as we come

00:17:20.960 to believe that the reason we're lonely is that we're not likable. And this is how, well, if you

00:17:26.280 understand these mechanisms, you understand that loneliness begets loneliness and it creates this

00:17:31.540 downward spiral. And what we have to figure out when we address loneliness is how do we break that

00:17:36.460 spiral and rebuild a pathway to connection? We're going to take a quick break for your words from

00:17:41.220 our sponsors. And now back to the show. Let's talk about why we have been seeing a spike in loneliness

00:17:50.260 because you read those, I've seen those articles come out in the past five, 10 years that more and

00:17:54.500 more people are lonely. In fact, I just saw an article the other day that more and more older Americans

00:17:59.000 are dying alone. What's going on here? What are the factors contributing to that?

00:18:04.760 Yeah. So here's what we know about loneliness in terms of the numbers. We know that loneliness is

00:18:11.820 exceedingly common. If you look at a 2018 Kaiser Family Foundation study, it came up with a number 22%

00:18:21.800 of adults in America who struggle with loneliness. Many would argue that's actually on the lower end of

00:18:28.560 the scale. If you look at other studies that have been done. More recently, the study done by the

00:18:33.840 American health insurer Cigna, a large population-based study using the UCLA loneliness scale,

00:18:39.540 which is a validated, reliable scale, found that the numbers were actually much higher and placed them

00:18:45.220 actually closer to half the population, if not a bit more, that struggles with loneliness. Interestingly,

00:18:50.720 they also found that unlike most people's assumptions that loneliness is probably most concentrated

00:18:56.780 among the elderly. It turned out that young people had some of the highest rates of loneliness, and

00:19:02.160 this has also been seen in other data as well. If you look at other countries, you see that the

00:19:07.260 numbers are not dissimilar. The UK and Australia are struggling with around 25% of adults in their

00:19:15.100 country who admit to being lonely, and many other countries around the world, in Asia, throughout Europe,

00:19:21.100 and in Latin America are finding double-digit percentages of loneliness. The question that

00:19:26.280 is being asked is, is loneliness increasing or not? Have we always been this lonely? And the truth is,

00:19:32.820 we don't 100% know the answer to that question in part because we don't have enough data. Some of the

00:19:38.080 data that's out there in the studies that are done are using different methodologies, so it's hard to

00:19:42.600 always compare apples to apples. But if you just look at the Cigna study that was run in 2018 and

00:19:48.820 2020, using very similar methodology, they did find a modest increase in loneliness. And John

00:19:55.400 Cassioppo, who was widely regarded as the father of modern loneliness research, also believed that

00:20:03.640 there was a modest increase in loneliness that was taking place in society. So I think that for

00:20:08.280 multiple reasons, it merits paying attention to, and it's important to prioritize loneliness because

00:20:14.520 we know it's exceedingly common. We know it's consequential, not only for our health, but also

00:20:19.900 for how we perform in the workplace and in school. And there is a chance, given what we know and some of

00:20:26.020 the limited data we're seeing, that it may in fact be increasing as well. Do we have any idea of the

00:20:31.000 factors that have contributed to it? So I think there's several factors in the modern world that are

00:20:36.120 contributing to loneliness. There's certainly the mobility factor, which has given us the opportunity to

00:20:42.280 travel and to move many times in our lifetime for jobs, for opportunities, but it also uproots us from

00:20:50.820 the communities that we have come to know. I saw this so clearly in my own parents who left India in

00:20:57.460 the early 1970s to build a better life for themselves and for their kids, my sister and I. And they moved to

00:21:04.440 England and to the United Kingdom and then eventually to the United States. And while they were blessed to

00:21:10.200 have many opportunities, what they missed and struggled with for years and years was losing the

00:21:16.320 community that they had in India, a family and friends. And so mobility is one factor. The second

00:21:21.620 factor is how we use technology. And notice I didn't say technology because technology at the end of the

00:21:27.720 day is a tool. And the question is, can we use it to strengthen connection versus weaken

00:21:33.820 connection? And when we use technology to stay in touch with friends who we otherwise may not be

00:21:40.380 able to see, when we use it to video conference with a relative halfway around the world, or when

00:21:45.700 we use it to post on social media that we're coming into town and ask if any friends are free for dinner

00:21:51.420 and that we meet up and catch up in person, these are all powerful ways that technology can help us stay

00:21:57.140 connected to others. But what I worry is that the way in which we're predominantly using technology now

00:22:03.200 may be in fact contributing to greater disconnection. For example, and this happens when we do one of

00:22:08.940 three things with technology. When we allow the amount of time that we're spending in front of

00:22:14.380 screens to edge out and crowd out the in-person time we have with others, that can diminish our

00:22:20.380 relationships. When we also allow technology to creep into our conversations such that we are

00:22:26.740 catching up with friends while we're also checking our social media feed or looking at our inbox or

00:22:32.240 googling a question that came into our head or looking at the score, you know, on the game, all thinking

00:22:36.780 that we can multitask and so we can fully pay attention to our friend, the truth is that our

00:22:41.460 conversations suffer because the science is very clear that we don't multitask as human beings, we task

00:22:47.280 switch. So when I'm looking at my inbox, I'm actually not able to fully pay attention and process what

00:22:52.600 someone is saying. But finally, the way in which technology can hurt is also by how it impacts our

00:22:58.700 perception of ourselves. And for many people who use social media in particular, they know that

00:23:05.900 there's this accelerated culture of comparison that technology has enabled. People have been

00:23:11.160 comparing themselves to other people for thousands of years and, you know, asking, do I have a car

00:23:16.400 that's as nice as my neighbor? Is my house as big as my friends? But what happens on social media is

00:23:22.920 that it is accelerated many, many fold. And so when you're scrolling even through your Instagram feed or

00:23:29.140 through your other social media feeds, you're constantly comparing somebody's curated pictures,

00:23:35.520 really the best version of their life, to your average moments and you often come up feeling short.

00:23:42.220 Social media also and media in general has accelerated messaging to us that often tells us that we're not

00:23:48.500 enough, that we're not thin enough, we're not good looking enough, we're not smart enough, we're not

00:23:52.560 rich enough, we're not popular enough. And when you hear that time and time again, especially when

00:23:57.660 you're young and you're developing your sense of identity, it can really impact your sense of

00:24:02.280 self-worth and make you feel inadequate. And when you approach other people from a place of being

00:24:08.560 inadequate and not feeling like you're good enough, it actually impacts your ability to connect with

00:24:14.140 them because you're more focused often on validation. You're more on edge. You're more

00:24:19.040 trying to be who you think they want you to be. Then you are focused on just showing up as who you

00:24:24.540 are, as being, as just listening to them as opposed to always thinking about what you're going to say.

00:24:30.360 So these are the ways in which I worry about technology and the way in which we're using it.

00:24:35.400 But one last thing I'll say, Brad, and this is perhaps the most insidious driver of loneliness,

00:24:39.960 is a set of cultural constructs that I think we've come to live in in the modern world that

00:24:45.840 tell us that our self-worth is driven and defined by whether we're successful and that our success

00:24:52.620 in turn is defined by whether we're able to acquire wealth, power, or fame. And if we're able to do that,

00:25:02.460 then we're held up as successful. And that's what we do, right? We glorify those who have become

00:25:07.400 rich and famous and powerful. And while there's nothing wrong with seeking out those things in

00:25:15.180 and of themselves, where the problem is, is when we define our self-worth based on those external

00:25:21.140 parameters. And I worry that we have set our children up for failure in a sense, because we

00:25:27.880 know that when people pursue wealth, power, and fame and define their worth by that, that they rarely

00:25:33.900 end up happy. The world is filled with rich, powerful, famous people who are profoundly unhappy.

00:25:41.120 And many of them are people I've talked to. Some of them are people who inspired some of the stories

00:25:46.040 in this book. But unless we change that construct at a cultural level and teach our children or remind

00:25:52.040 ourselves that our worth is truly intrinsic, that it's based on our character, our ability to be

00:25:58.100 compassionate, to be kind, to be generous, and to operate from a place of love, then we will never

00:26:03.640 have a secure place of worth. And that will affect how we approach our interaction with others and the

00:26:10.420 relationships that we build with them. I mean, the other insidious thing about loneliness, because it

00:26:16.240 is subjective, your calibration of what is an ideal social connection is different for everybody. And that

00:26:22.840 can get out of whack based on looking at social media. If you're on social media and you're seeing lots of

00:26:27.500 people doing stuff with lots of people, you make that your expectation. And because you don't feel

00:26:34.260 like you're getting that, meaning that you feel lonely. When maybe three close friends is what you

00:26:40.080 need, or maybe there's that weird, you can create a mental gap that can actually exasperate the feeling

00:26:46.440 of loneliness that maybe you don't need to create. Yeah, that's such an interesting point, Brett, because

00:26:50.680 you're right. What we see shifts our expectations. And when you're constantly seeing people

00:26:55.960 socializing and with friends and at parties, what the picture that paints us, and you see this on

00:27:02.940 college campuses all the time, it paints a picture that to have a social life, we need to be going out

00:27:09.520 all the time. We need to be at parties. We need to be invited to people's houses all the time. We need

00:27:15.000 to be with others constantly. And the truth is that not everyone is built that way. That if you're an

00:27:20.400 introvert and if you need more time alone, or if you prefer interacting with people in smaller group

00:27:26.620 settings or one-on-one, then you can quickly feel that you're a loser if you're not going out to

00:27:32.060 parties every Friday or Saturday night. So I do think that those expectations get ratcheted in the

00:27:37.740 wrong direction. And they get, I should say, distorted by what we see. In the book, I talk about

00:27:43.980 some research by a British gentleman by the name of Robin Dunbar, who's done some fascinating research

00:27:50.520 looking at social networks and primates and extrapolating to how they may impact humans as

00:27:55.860 well. And one of the things that he has suggested in looking at various types of social circles

00:28:02.300 is that our ability to hold close, intimate relationships in our lives, the kind of friendships

00:28:08.780 where people know us for who we are, even when we forget, the kind of friendships where we can really

00:28:13.340 just show up as who we are and not try to be somebody else, that our ability to maintain those

00:28:19.040 is limited to around five people. Now that's not to say you can only have five, you know, some people

00:28:24.280 may have six or seven, but his point was it's a small number of people with whom we can enjoy that

00:28:30.060 kind of intimate connection. And the reason it's small is because cultivating and maintaining those

00:28:35.880 kind of connections takes time. And so what he has also estimated is that 40% of the social time that

00:28:44.600 we spend is actually spent on our closest, on our inner circle, on those small handful of relationships.

00:28:53.300 And I think there's an important lesson there because in two forms, one is that we don't need to have

00:29:00.220 20, 30, 40, 50 best friends in order to have a fulfilled life. We just need a few. And the second

00:29:07.940 point is that friendships take time and investment and effort. We have to remember this because what

00:29:15.740 social media has made it easy to do is to spend a little bit of time with a lot of people. So it is

00:29:24.420 easier for me, for example, to wish happy birthday to a hundred friends on Facebook just by typing

00:29:32.880 HBD exclamation mark and copying and pasting that on their walls, which many people do. It's easier to

00:29:41.860 do that than to actually pick up the phone and have a half hour or 45 minute in-depth conversation with a

00:29:47.620 friend on his or her birthday. And so we've, we've lowered the barrier to having shorter, I would say

00:29:56.300 less intimate interactions with people that we barely know. And as we've done that, that's become the

00:30:02.980 easier place to spend our time. But what Dunbar's research reminds us of is that it is with a few

00:30:10.260 relationships that we need to spend a significant chunk of our social time. And that might be time just

00:30:16.160 witnessing other people's lives by listening to them, by having conversations with them, not with

00:30:21.180 a goal in mind to organize a trip or to solve a problem, but just to be there and ask how each

00:30:26.960 other is doing, to understand what's happening in someone's lives, to spend time with them, to sit

00:30:31.940 with them. And that art of friendship is something that has become lost in a world that feels increasingly

00:30:38.840 oriented around goals and metrics and around how many likes we can get and how many followers we can

00:30:44.860 acquire on social media. How does loneliness affect men differently than women? Are men lonelier than

00:30:52.820 women? It's a great question. You know, the data seems to indicate that men and women have similar

00:30:58.840 rates of loneliness, but it also suggests that men have a harder time admitting it. And I do think that

00:31:04.780 men and women experience loneliness differently. For many men growing up, what's, what's fascinating is

00:31:11.640 that if you look at research that has been done by Niobe Way from New York University, who has studied

00:31:19.100 how young boys experience relationships, she finds that when you talk to young boys and young girls in

00:31:26.680 elementary school about friendships, they talk about them in very similar ways. They'll use language like,

00:31:32.560 I love my friend. I can't wait to hang out with my friend. I would go absolutely crazy if I couldn't see

00:31:37.100 my friend for a few days, or I really need my friend. We need to hang out with each other.

00:31:43.320 But as they get older, as boys enter adolescence, as they start learning how to become, quote unquote,

00:31:51.860 a real man, the way they talk about friendships changes dramatically. And it diverges from how

00:31:57.980 girls talk about relationships. So boys no longer use that language, but they more just say, yeah, it's,

00:32:03.880 it's cool if I can hang out with my friend. But they're reluctant to show that they need their

00:32:08.280 friend or that they're dependent on them in any way. And what they're doing is they're hewing toward

00:32:13.720 a model of masculinity that we teach boys at the youngest of ages, which tells them that real men

00:32:19.960 don't need anyone else. They're self-reliant. They never get scared. They don't experience fear.

00:32:27.540 And they certainly don't show their emotions. They're stoic. And if you keep hearing that message

00:32:34.800 as a young boy, and you internalize that, that affects how you behave and the relationships you

00:32:39.740 form. The only place where it becomes acceptable for a real man to experience intimacy is in a

00:32:46.180 romantic relationship, but not in a platonic friendships. And the only emotion that's acceptable

00:32:52.900 for a real man to express is anger, which is why you see so many of our fellow men with challenges

00:33:02.100 with anger and with anger being the only pathway for them to express feelings of loneliness and fear

00:33:09.040 and resentment and sadness. And so that if we, once you understand that, you start to recognize how

00:33:16.240 loneliness does in fact appear in unusual and interesting ways in men. And I think of loneliness

00:33:23.000 as a great masquerader. It doesn't always look like someone sitting in a corner alone at a party,

00:33:29.160 but loneliness often in men who are older, who experienced one of the three great triggers of

00:33:35.040 loneliness, retirement, illness, or the loss of a spouse, they can actually manifest their loneliness

00:33:40.820 in the form of irritability and anger. Other people will withdraw when they're lonely. Others

00:33:47.000 will experience what looks like depression or anxiety. So loneliness can look like different

00:33:52.640 things in different people, but in men, it is a real challenge because it, because our model of

00:33:58.140 masculinity tells us and demands that we operate in a way and that we shut off our emotions in a manner

00:34:04.640 that is very counterintuitive and is frankly just not how we are built as human beings. And going

00:34:10.980 against a grain like that can often make for an emotionally challenging and very lonely experience.

00:34:18.040 So what do you think the first step is in overcoming loneliness? We've talked about

00:34:21.580 what causes loneliness, what it feels like, the problem, but what can we do? What's the first step

00:34:25.240 in overcoming that? Well, the first step is to recognize that if you're lonely, that you're not alone,

00:34:30.880 that all of us experience loneliness at some point in our lives, that we don't often talk about it

00:34:38.020 because we're often ashamed of it because we have come to believe that if we're lonely, somehow we're

00:34:44.200 not likable or that we're broken in some way. But the truth is that all of us experience loneliness.

00:34:49.700 So that's the first and most important thing to understand. You are not alone. The second thing to

00:34:54.940 understand is that if you're lonely, you are not broken. Because loneliness is a natural signal that our

00:35:00.420 body sends us when we lack something we need for survival, which is in this case, human connection,

00:35:06.220 it stands as something that we should think about just like hunger or thirst. If we're hungry or

00:35:10.380 thirsty, we don't feel embarrassed that we're hungry or thirsty. In a similar way, we should think about

00:35:15.200 loneliness as something that is nothing to be ashamed of, but as a natural response. The third thing to

00:35:21.140 recognize is that rebuilding a life of connection does not necessarily have to entail wholesale

00:35:29.840 transformation of your life. It doesn't mean you've got to quit your job and move halfway across the

00:35:35.140 country to be closer to someone you love, although you may choose to do that, and that for many people

00:35:39.520 is the right solution. But what I have learned in the writing of this book is that small steps can make

00:35:45.640 a big difference in how connected we feel. And the reason is because we are wired to connect with each

00:35:52.220 other. And when given the opportunity to forge even a bit of connection, our body gravitates to it,

00:35:59.600 just like dry sand that sucks in any drop of water that it's exposed to. We soak up human connection when

00:36:07.580 it's offered up to us in the right context. And so there are a few simple steps I think that we can

00:36:12.540 all take to start building a more connected life. The first thing we can do is we can make it a point each

00:36:18.480 day to spend at least 15 minutes with someone we care about. That could be time that we spend video

00:36:25.740 conferencing with a good friend. It could be a call that we make to a family member just to say,

00:36:31.240 I'm thinking of you and I just want to know how you're doing. It could be an email that we write

00:36:35.700 to an old friend just because we want to see how they are. The second thing we can do is we can make

00:36:41.320 it a point to improve the quality of our interaction with other people by eliminating distraction when we're

00:36:48.460 in conversation. I say this as somebody who has been guilty of multitasking during many of the

00:36:54.900 conversations I've had over the years when I was catching up with friends. And I don't feel good about

00:36:59.680 that. I know that they probably knew I wasn't fully present. I know that I didn't feel as fulfilled

00:37:05.320 afterward in the conversation. But it's so easy to do, to multitask. Our devices are right there in our pocket.

00:37:11.960 The TV is so easy to turn on. But what I have found is that even if we reduce the amount of time

00:37:18.720 that we're with other people, if we make sure that that time counts, then that can be profoundly

00:37:26.240 fulfilling. If you've ever had the experience, Brett, of having somebody listen to you deeply

00:37:33.080 and be fully present with you, you know that's an extraordinarily powerful experience. It's the

00:37:40.380 kind of experience where you feel seen and truly heard. And five minutes of conversation like that

00:37:46.660 with someone who is truly present can often be more powerful than 30 minutes of distracted

00:37:51.780 conversation. The third thing we can do is we can look for opportunities to serve other people.

00:37:58.540 The reason this is so powerful, and this was an unexpected discovery for me, is that service

00:38:05.560 turns out to be one of the most powerful antidotes to loneliness that we have. When you understand the

00:38:10.360 downward spiral that loneliness drives, a spiral which makes people turn more inward, feel more

00:38:17.200 threatened, and ultimately experience an erosion of self-esteem, then you can understand why service

00:38:22.420 helps. Because it short-circuits those mechanisms. It transfers our attention from ourselves.

00:38:28.540 To someone else in the context of a positive interaction. And it also reminds us that we have

00:38:34.620 great value to bring to the world. And so in times like this, even if we're not able to go to a soup

00:38:41.720 kitchen or to volunteer at an organization in our neighborhood, calling a friend to check on them,

00:38:48.140 looking in on a neighbor who might be struggling, delivering food to a colleague who might be having a

00:38:55.200 hard time. And even offering to do something like virtually babysit for 10 minutes for a friend who

00:39:00.720 might be struggling to telework and homeschool their kids at the same time. These are all small but

00:39:06.300 powerful acts of service that can help us feel more connected to others as well as to ourself.

00:39:11.960 And finally, Brett, I would offer one last thing, which is to recognize that moments of solitude

00:39:18.280 are extremely important for us to embrace and protect, even as we seek to build stronger

00:39:24.380 connection to other people. And the reason this is true, even though it seems counterintuitive,

00:39:29.320 like why would we need more time with ourself if we're trying to connect with other people?

00:39:33.440 It has to do with the fact that the foundation for connecting with other people is

00:39:37.700 our connection with ourself, which is marked by how comfortable we feel with who we are,

00:39:43.680 how grounded and how centered we feel, how aware we are of our worth and our value.

00:39:51.500 And moments of solitude are powerful because that is when we allow the noise around us to settle.

00:39:57.200 It's when we reground ourselves. It's when we allow ourselves to process what's happening

00:40:01.700 in our world and make sense of the developments in our day. And moments of solitude don't have to

00:40:08.460 look like a seven-day retreat that we take away from our family. They could be five minutes.

00:40:13.680 That we spend outside, like just feeling the breeze against our face. It could be a few minutes that

00:40:19.180 we spend reading a book that inspires us, that we spend remembering three things we're grateful for,

00:40:25.040 taking a walk in nature, meditating, or praying. There are many ways to experience the calming of

00:40:30.800 solitude. But when we approach other people from that place of calmness and centeredness and

00:40:38.240 groundedness, we're often more able to be fully present with them. We're more able to listen,

00:40:44.500 to show up as who we really are. And that is a foundation for creating stronger connection with

00:40:51.020 others. I love that. And the other powerful tool that you had in your section about reconnecting,

00:40:56.740 you can apply all these things you just talked about to this, I guess I'd call it a mental model

00:41:01.040 of thinking of your relationships in circles, right? You have your close family, intimate friend circle,

00:41:06.040 then you have a middle circle of associates, neighbors, then like an outer circle of

00:41:11.460 strangers, you know, or work associates. And thinking about your relationships in that can

00:41:18.100 be very helpful because you might think, well, I'm pretty good with my inner circle. Maybe I can do

00:41:22.340 better on that outer circle.

00:41:24.880 That's right. Yeah. We have different layers of friendships in our life. And just like we talked

00:41:30.220 about intimate loneliness and relational loneliness and collective loneliness, these correspond

00:41:35.140 to three circles of friends, to intimate circles, to relational circles of friendships, and then

00:41:42.340 to collective circles, which are community circles. And if we recognize that these are all important,

00:41:49.200 then we recognize that, yes, we've got to put a significant amount of time with our spouse and our

00:41:54.160 closest friends. That time matters. And you can't substitute for it with gifts or with other

00:42:03.480 other forms of communication. You've got to sometimes just show up and be there in people's

00:42:08.180 lives. But the time we spend cultivating friendships, going out with good friends, having a friend over

00:42:14.880 for a one-on-one conversation, these moments matter. And the community moments matter too. You know,

00:42:21.180 as human beings, we, I believe we all across cultures have a few core needs. We all want to be seen for

00:42:28.980 who we are. We all want to know that we matter. And we all want to be loved. That's true of men and

00:42:35.260 women. It's true of people who are older, who are younger. It's true of people in traditional cultures

00:42:39.700 and people in the modern world. And what's extraordinary is that we can communicate this

00:42:46.280 to someone else. We can meet all three of these needs simply by showing up, being fully present,

00:42:53.880 and listening deeply to another human being. You know, we live in a world that's very action-oriented.

00:43:00.460 So when we hear that somebody is struggling, so many times our thoughts, especially our thoughts

00:43:05.300 as guys is, okay, how can I fix their problem? What can I do to solve it? What we sometimes, sometimes

00:43:10.740 that's what's needed in that situation. But sometimes what we forget, sometimes what I forget, and I have

00:43:16.440 to remind myself of, especially in my conversations with my wife, but also with other friends,

00:43:21.420 is that there is great power in simply showing up, in witnessing, in listening to someone deeply.

00:43:30.800 Because while it feels passive, you are telling somebody when you are listening deeply to them,

00:43:37.120 you're saying to them, I see you. You matter. You are loved. There are a few things that you could

00:43:44.860 say that are more powerful than that. Well, Vivek, where can people go to learn more about the book and

00:43:49.700 your work? Well, thanks, Brad. The best place to go is my personal website, which is vivekmurti.com,

00:43:58.200 myfirstandlastnametogether.com. And there's information there about the book. There is also

00:44:03.540 an opportunity to sign up for our newsletter. We'll be sending out some of the extraordinary

00:44:08.700 stories that we've been getting from across the country and really around the world of people who are

00:44:13.920 reading the book, but also thinking about how they want to build a more connected life. I'm finding

00:44:20.160 many of the people who are reading the book are making it a point to identify one relationship

00:44:25.220 that they want to recommit to as a result of what they've learned in the book. In some cases, it's

00:44:30.040 a family member. In other cases, it's a spouse. Sometimes it's a close friend. But I'm finding those

00:44:35.040 stories to be particularly inspiring. And so we want to share some of those. So you're welcome to sign up

00:44:40.320 to join the community that we're building to build a more connected life and ultimately a more

00:44:44.660 connected world. Well, Dr. Murti, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. So good to speak with

00:44:49.020 you, Brad. I'm glad we did this. My guest today was Dr. Vivek Murti. He is the author of the book

00:44:53.340 Together. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find out more information about

00:44:57.220 his work and his book at his website, vivekmurti.com. That's V-I-V-E-K-M-U-R-T-H-Y.com.

00:45:03.700 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash loneliness, where we find links to resources where we delve deeper

00:45:08.140 into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website

00:45:18.920 at artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles

00:45:22.380 rewritten over the years about pretty much anything you can think of. And if you'd like to enjoy ad

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00:45:46.540 As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding

00:45:49.460 not only to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#618： Finding Connection in a Lonely World

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