31 Notes on Queer Loneliness in the Digital Age
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This is the Sunday Edition of Paging Dr. Lesbian. If you like this type of thing, subscribe, and share it with your friends.
Prologue: New York City, Christmastime, 1952. A young woman works in the toy department of a large store. She has a boyfriend, but still feels entirely untethered. In the suburbs, an older woman is about to become a divorcée. She should feel free, but instead, she just feels even more isolated. Will these two lonely souls find each other?
Loneliness is difficult to talk about. By definition, it’s something you feel alone, and it’s also an experience that has a certain amount of shame attached to it. To talk about it might in some way alleviate the feeling, but the act of speaking the feeling into existence necessitates a considerable amount of vulnerability on the speaker’s part.
In an issue of the Clinical Psychology Review, Liesl M. Heinrich and Eleonora Gullone propose a definition of loneliness. “Loneliness has been defined as the aversive state experienced when a discrepancy exists between the interpersonal relationships one wishes to have, and those that one perceives they currently have,” they write. The key here is that loneliness is a cognitive experience that stems from social observations, which in turn causes internal feelings of unpleasantness.
Dating apps seem especially bleak these days, and this phenomenon seems to affect both queer and straight users alike. The exact nature of the problem is difficult to diagnose. It seems that either people are not actually looking for genuine connection, or if they are looking for this, they don’t know how to honestly express that fact.
For queer people, dating apps seem to be more of a necessity than they might be for straight people. Per Business Insider, “A recent survey [in 2020] conducted by Pew Research Center reports that more than half of the LGBTQ-identifying people sampled said they have pursued online dating.” Only 28% of straight respondents reported dating app usage.
Loneliness isn’t exactly a sexy emotion. On the queer personals app Lex, there was recently a small controversy among users in Austin, Texas, where I live. Several users had been posting about how they were depressed, lonely, and horny (a fairly common occurrence on the app), and another user took issue with the pity parties. “some of y’all gotta stop drinking chronically online juice! wanting sex is fine, just be less sad and mopey with your posts,” they wrote. This created some back and forth, with some users agreeing with the detractor and others defending the “depressed and horny” set. If you were wondering what kind of drama sapphics and queer people involve themselves in, this is a rather beautiful example.
There’s something distinct about the connection between lesbians and loneliness, I think. For numerous reasons, many of them having to do with socialization and cultural norms, lesbians and sapphics tend to have a fear of being too forward with potential romantic partners. Are we forever haunted by locker room nightmares? Then there’s the in-joke/stereotype of the “useless lesbian,” ie. the lesbian who is too awkward or oblivious to flirt with other women. To the Lex user’s point, perhaps this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way. If you’re already resigned to the fact that you’re useless, then what’s the point in trying?
Obviously, the pandemic exacerbated these problems. A Harvard study found that “36% of all Americans,” which includes “61% of young adults” feel “serious loneliness.” Researchers found that “loneliness appears to have increased substantially since the outbreak of the global pandemic.” British charity LGBT Hero found that prior to the pandemic, 21% of LGBTQ+ people reported feeling loneliness “very often” or “every day,” and this number rose to 56% during lockdown. According to another charity, Just Like Us, this experience is most common to lesbians, with 9 in 10 (87 per cent) of lesbians reporting feeling lonely.
Loneliness is, by definition, an isolating experience, so I thought it would be wise to solicit other opinions on the matter. I took to the internet – Twitter, Reddit, and Discord, to be specific – to collect a small sampling of thoughts on the matter. My survey is not intended to be representative of any group or population, but rather is a means to engage with these ideas on a more personal level. Anonymity is sometimes the best way to uncover the truth.
While loneliness may be in the mind, it can have very real consequences. In an issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Louise C. Hawkley and John T. Cacioppo write: “We have posited that loneliness is the social equivalent of physical pain, hunger, and thirst; the pain of social disconnection and the hunger and thirst for social connection motivate the maintenance and formation of social connections necessary for the survival of our genes.”
When I asked respondents what they do to combat loneliness, there were some common themes. Some noted they make plans with friends or chat with people online. One respondent said “nothing lol,” while another answered that they spend time scrolling Tik Tok, which “doesn’t really help at all.”
Hawkley and Cacioppo proposed solutions to chronic and widespread loneliness based on their research. Because loneliness is a cognitive condition, they posited “that interventions that targeted maladaptive social cognition [...] would be more effective than interventions that targeted social support, social skills, or social access.”
When I asked respondents if their sense of loneliness felt connected to their queer identity, many responded in the affirmative. Some noted feeling lonely in both queer and straight spaces, while others noted that where they live has a huge effect on their level of isolation. “I think that loneliness is part of the human experience but queer loneliness specifically seems tied to this survivalist need to stay hidden/closeted for safety,” one respondent wrote.
Even the queer spaces that do exist are often not accessible to all. Those with disabilities often struggle to access queer spaces, and the pandemic has only made things worse in this regard. One respondent noted that the journey of queerness is supposedly all about the joy and relief of coming out, but that they know ableism is something they’ll experience for the rest of their life. “It's a double dose of isolation, because different marginalisations aren't an either/or thing - they're a multiplier.”
In 2021, there were thought to be just 16 lesbian bars left in the United States. There may be as few as 12 feminist bookstores – which in many ways have served as community spaces as much as places of business – remaining in the U.S.
“All great and precious things are lonely,” John Steinbeck once wrote. Clearly, Steinbeck had never been to a drag show.
Hawkley and Cacioppo go on to describe how feelings of loneliness can be a motivating factor for some individuals, prompting them to seek out social connections or increase geographical closeness to others. But this is not always the case. They found that “for as many as 15–30% of the general population, however, loneliness is a chronic state.”
Loneliness and the desire to be known can look like many things. For example, in the 2015 film Carol, a lonely housewife meets a young sales clerk named Therese. After spending the day together, their happy bubble is popped when Carol’s husband returns. Therese takes the train home, not sure if she should inquire about the state of Carol’s affairs. That evening, Carol calls her on the phone. “Ask me things. Please,” she pleads. Vulnerability in action.
“Unconscious surveillance for social threat produces cognitive biases: relative to nonlonely people, lonely individuals see the social world as a more threatening place, expect more negative social interactions, and remember more negative social information,” Hawkley and Cacioppo write. This “[sets] in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy in which lonely people actively distance themselves from would-be social partners even as they believe that the cause of the social distance is attributable to others and is beyond their own control.”
Human beings have a great capacity for joy. We’re also meaning-making creatures, which is something of a double-edged sword. It’s all in your head, but isn’t everything?
Communications researcher Richard Hall found that it takes around 50 hours of time with someone to make a casual friend, and “more than 200 hours before you can consider someone your close friend.” The clock is ticking.
What is it that lonely people desire? According to Heinrich and Gullone, loneliness has been observed to arise from “a sense of yearning for another person(s).” It is a desire for something one does not have, or at least something one perceives they do not have. In some ways, it is a dissatisfaction with the present and a desire for a better future. The future is both hopeful, and, by definition, never right now. The future of connection has not yet arrived.
In his book Cruising Utopia, José Esteban Muñoz writes that “Queerness is a structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present. The here and now is a prison house.” While loneliness is often considered a pessimistic experience, Muñoz posits that this dissatisfaction with one’s present situation is inherently optimistic.
In Precarious Life, Judith Butler writes: “Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something.” And isn’t that what loneliness is? The feeling of missing something fundamental to who you are? Psychological research tells us that the feeling of loneliness is as much about perception as it is about circumstance, but our heads are where we live, after all.
Perception is especially important in regard to queer loneliness. As one survey respondent wrote: “queer time/temporality plays into this as it can be extremely isolating to see how your life is differing from heteronormative timelines.”
The notion of queer time comes from scholar Jack Halberstam, who writes that “Queer uses of time and space develop, at least in part, in opposition to the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction.” Halberstam suggests that queerness itself is “an outcome of strange temporalities, imaginative life schedules, and eccentric economic practices.” These ideas can be difficult to internalize, of course, as a lifetime of social norms are hard to unlearn.
It’s probably obvious to everyone at this point, but social media certainly doesn’t alleviate any of this. If loneliness is primarily rooted in perception and social media encourages us to compare ourselves to others, then the negative feedback loop only intensifies.
What’s especially interesting about loneliness is that it isn’t necessarily defined by your lifestyle or relationships. You can be in a romantic relationship and have good friends and family and still feel lonely. “Empirical evidence also suggests that lonely and nonlonely people do not differ in either the daily activities they engage in, or in the amount of time they spend alone,” write Heinrich and Gullone.
A psychological evaluation of the loneliness epidemic might suggest therapeutic solutions, but, as always, capitalism plays a role here. “I feel like loneliness is more a problem of capitalism and lack of good community spaces,” one respondent from the U.S. theorized. Several respondents suggested that barriers to community and connection include the lack of walkable cities we have in the states, a lack of free public spaces, and the dominance of the 9-5 job, which tends to keep us isolated and eat up our time and energy.
The experience of loneliness, then, can be conceived of as a call to action. A call to imagine a queer utopia, like Muñoz suggested, but also an impetus to create sustainable infrastructure on both social and structural levels. “Queer futurity does not underplay desire,” Muñoz wrote. In fact, it can be a catalyst for creation.
A coda: After several months of separation, Carol and Therese reunite. Carol has invited Therese to dinner, but she’s not sure she’ll come. Therese does come, and as she walks towards Carol in slow motion, Carol looks up, a languid smile forming on her face. The future is theirs for the taking.
The title caught me right away. Loneliness is a hallmark of my queerness which makes it feel all the more fragile in its newness. It’s funny though, I just got together with my queer community today and wrote about the sacredness of the space we keep for each other. It’s validating and strengthens my resolve, especially in facing places where I don’t always feel wholly myself.