Geeks Vs Loneliness: 100 articles later…

Hello and welcome to Geeks Vs Loneliness, the place on the site where we try and talk about things that may be affecting you, or people around you. Over the course of this series, we’ve chatted about a broad range of things, often stuff that may appear trivial from the outside, but may be life-changing if you’re going through it. Hopefully, we’ve given you a few ideas, and positive thoughts, that could be of use.

This is technically the 100th article since we started the series back in 2015. And I thought it worth us stopping just for a second and reflecting. Since we started GvL, we’ve had thousands of comments at the bottom of the articles we’ve run. Comments from people who are having a tough time, from others who want to help, from people just who may be having a bad day, who wanted to say hello. The glue that holds all of us together? We’re human beings, and human beings aren’t perfect.

And for the 100th article, that’s what I wanted to focus on. That very often, we perceive the people around us as perfect. That there’s someone out there who seems to have it all, who has the idyllic life, who we may even measure ourselves against. I knew someone like that too, growing up. I felt low about myself, and what I could do. This person could do things in seconds that I’d stress about for hours.

But then, one day, he asked me to his house. And I saw behind the curtain a little. That one of his parents was constantly on his back, putting him down. That he too was struggling to come to terms with things. That he had darkness in his life – no shortage of it, as it turned out – yet just happened to be very good at hiding it.

He paid a price for that in terms of his mental health over the years, until he finally found a way forward. I’m thrilled for him that he did.

But I do think this: comparing yourselves to others, believing that others are perfect and aren’t beset by problems, is no way forward. We’re all broken to some degree. Some people have more success, and have things easier than others.

Yet consider this: the vast majority of the time, we just get a two-dimensional snapshot of people’s lives. There are very few people we ever get to know three dimensionally, and that’s fine. It works the other way around, too. People may see you, and think all is perfect. No matter how down, how desperate you may feel on the inside. The reason people may not ask how you are isn’t because they don’t care, it’s because they may detect no idea at all that things are wrong.

So for this 100th article, one simple message. Let’s just talk to each other. Cut each other a bit more slack. Lose this pretence that everything has to be perfect. Loneliness, the heart of what this series has always tried to combat, can be an awful thing. Let us set the ball rolling by saying hello, and a thank you, to you wonderful people who have made this series what it is.

And you know what? It’s okay not to be okay.

Thanks, as always, for reading. We’ll be back with article 101 next week.