Loneliness—a tad overrated, a tad underrated.

Loneliness, is one word I keep hearing on and off, especially from friends and peers. And, it doesn’t mean am in anyway exempt from experiencing the word in all its entirety at times. But, what’s funny is this: a generation that has access to an average of 30 smses a day and 10 cell phone calls and three active chat windows finds itself in the throes of loneliness every second day! Are we overrating our sense of loneliness, when we actually aren’t lonely; or are we missing something quintessential about real relationships and the role they play in loneliness?

A friend of mine once said that she and her husband are constantly on chat the whole day that in the evening there’s hardly anything to say to each other! Now, isn’t that bizarre? Chats have totally hijacked real conversations; leave alone the deplorable standards to which our spellings and grammar have sunk to. Getting back to the friend, I immediately told why should you guys be on chat the whole day through then? She just looked at me as if I were talking in an alien tongue! Yes, it’s unimaginable not to be on chat! But, then, doesn’t chat rob one of real conversations…don’t we miss an occasional smile, a grimace, a frown, an instant silencing, a blacking out, an adorable expression, etc…these, are the very things that make a conversation real and help make a relationship, especially when one is chatting with someone you haven’t met.

Sometimes, I think, would I be able to chat with my dad! Half the times the conversations begin with a shrug and end with a scowl; and believe me, I would have had the best conversation with my dad, which could never be possible on a chat! Of course, I do not deny the fact that chats have ridiculed the distances between Delhi and Chennai and New York! However, chats can never replace real communication and hence real relationships. So, if we think we are nuts to experience loneliness in the presence of so many friends on chat, we are really nuts! Since chats don’t mean anything, they cannot in anyway replace real feeling.

Next, I wonder if loneliness in itself is bad? Sometimes, loneliness teaches a lot of new things about our own selves. It also teaches us the value of relationships; the importance of bonding; the liveliness that another human being brings into one’s life; the value of friendships; and even how to work on friendships. Yes, one can learn a lot from loneliness as well; just don’t make the mistake of chatting just because you are ‘lonely,’ since chats are at the end of day, empty like loneliness itself. :-)