Natara’s Reviews > The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-first Century > Status Update

Distress to social exclusion & isolation is the alarm. Ignoring/quieting this without solving the problem is risky. Social isolation is stressful. Fix the problem, instead of masking it.
"Social isolation reduces happiness, health, and longevity."
We all need time alone from the crowd, but we also need one another. Feeling left out, even if we choose to be, is not satisfying. It's painful.

"Isolated individuals are nearly twice as likely to die in a ten-year period as their more socially involved neighbours."
"Social connection itself appears to have direct effects on human biology."
The Dangerous Book for Boys - the old days when kids went out to play
Drinking alcohol on social settings - "social jollification" lol

Obstreperous - new word to me!
"Most ppl would tend to let their houses slide into disorder if no one ever came over to visit." Chicken & egg for me 😅

"...there was far too much pressure on a spouse to be everything to their partner—best friend, lover, companion, coparent—and too much reliance on a spouse to meet every social need had become a factor in the high rate of divorce"
"Once ppl get married, they seem to feel relieved of social obligations." Great for nurturing love, but closes off other sources of nurturing (family/friends). Romance can't carry it all

Ouff, this book is showing its age. 2009 doesn't seem that long ago, but it just mentioned MySpace 😳 this is early days of Facebook too

"Gossip plays the same role for humans that grooming behavior does for other primates" fascinating!

"No amount of privilege lets anyone make it to adulthood without having had powerful experiences of being left out."
"The feeling of being left out seems so fundamentally trivial, so whiny and babyish. [...] [but] both the feeling itself and the reactions to it are deeply human." "[...] that no one ever fully outgrows"
Kids don't eat spinach & broccoli because evolution taught us most dark green plants were poison!

Restarting reading this. Hoping to finally finish!

"..most of our patients were more comfortable saying they were depressed than saying they were lonely."

"..[those] who think of themselves as depressed have in fact a sense of isolation at the core of their feelings."

Society: "Heroic"=being alone, "loser"=feeling lonely

Being left out: we feel it's been done TO us, not BY us