A bottle of shampoo made me realise how lonely I really was

‘It’s been two weeks since I last had a face-to-face conversation.’

These were the lines I wrote in a journal entry back in April 2024.

I’d been grocery shopping that day, when it occurred to me that I had made it through an entire bottle of shampoo since I last saw a friend.

An entire bottle of shampoo takes me two weeks to use up. 

I’d been completely alone. 

My journal entry continued: ‘My only interaction today was with a self-service checkout. I was praying for an unexpected item in the bagging area, just to break the ice.’ 

‘So yes, it’s fair to say I’m lonely,’ I concluded.

But then that’s hardly surprising when you consider that I’m part of what’s being dubbed the ‘loneliest generation’.

Born in the late 1990s, it’s a fact that myself and my contemporaries grew up in a globalised world. We spent our university days in lockdown and our early careers working over video call.

As a result, research suggests that 16-29 year olds are twice as likely as the elderly to feel lonely often or always, flipping on its head the traditional perception of isolation as an old-person’s problem.  

Personally, loneliness was nothing new for me: my teenage life had amounted to one long ‘misunderstood genius’ phase. I read too many books and too few social signals. I was out of touch, awkward, and arrogant, leaving me with few friends and a constant sense of being on the outside.

By the time I set off for university, I thought I could just about pass for normal. I joined societies and went on dates. I had friends and boyfriends and undesirable remnants of one-night stands that I hid from in lectures.

But it still felt as though I’d snuck into an exclusive event I wasn’t meant to be at, and now that I was there I could never fully escape the lingering sense of not belonging.

That sense of isolation niggled at me over the years, but it finally turned chronic in spring 2024, when I found myself without a job, a partner, or any other regular social group.

I tried to meet with friends, texting them to make arrangements. But those who replied said they were too busy, while others left my messages on read.   

I was already very depressed. And I can certainly attest that loneliness and depression make for powerful allies.

Loneliness made the present unbearable. Without people to be with, people to speak to, there was no happiness left in my life. Meanwhile, depression destroyed my hope for the future: the longer I went without seeing people, the more I felt that things couldn’t get better.

And yet, I’m not sure that I or we can blame our ‘loneliness epidemic’ exclusively on global events. There seems to be something inherent in the way Gen Z treats one another that’s driving our isolation.

My generation is notorious for the habit of ‘quiet quitting friendships’ – passively ending friendships by putting in minimum effort – and our preference for ‘low maintenance friendships’.  

We’re experts at ignoring each other, blanking texts or declining to meet up and dressing it up as ‘self care’.

In fact, 71% of Gen Z openly admit to having broken up with someone by ghosting, as opposed to only 34% of Gen X. 

If War Babies are the Silent Generation, then Gen Z must be the Radio Silent Generation. 

But as someone who has felt lonely for most of her life, I wonder why we are so ready to tune each other out?  

I understand that we have been raised to rail against obligation – social media is overrun by influencers reassuring their 13-30-year-old followers: ‘You don’t owe anyone anything’ – and, within reason, I do believe there’s nothing wrong with looking after yourself.  

But Gen Z has clearly muddled up obligation and kindness.

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We’ve come to a point where we’re using self-care as an excuse for negligence, we’re dropping friends when they’re no longer ‘fun’, and ignoring the people who need us most because it’ll have an impact on our own mental health.

I’m all for being the main character in your own story, but surely we should still be kind to all the supporting players, too?

And, as always, technology does its bit to exacerbate the problem.

Because so much of our lives happen over text, we’ve learnt to think that people can be put on pause – marked as unread – for days, weeks, months, until we’re ready to respond.  

Except that people can’t be put on pause. We don’t stop existing, just because it’s inconvenient. 

Certainly, I’m no saint here. I’ve never been a big fan of phones and the pressures they put on individuals to be constantly ‘on’. In the past, I’ve used this distaste for technology to justify going for days without checking my messages.

It was only this year, when I myself became so lonely, that I realised the impact that my own social media boycott might be having on friends.

I’m not saying that Gen Z is terminally selfish or fundamentally incapable of caring for anyone other than ourselves.

Generations, like people, can change.  

I’m a case in point because I now feel a lot better than I did back in April.

When I reached my second week of isolation back then, I made a point of sending out an SOS to a friend, admitting how much I needed to meet up. Understanding the situation, my friend immediately agreed to meet up that week.

All it took was for him to know how I really felt.

But even now, I still spend lots of time alone. Not every day can be an SOS day. Nor can I expect to rely on a few kind friends.

In fact, the only way to reduce Gen Z loneliness levels and improve our mental health, is if we all try harder to look after each other. This means checking up on friends we haven’t seen in a while, responding to people’s texts (within a day, not a month), and generally making time for one another.  

We need to look beyond the attitude that we don’t owe anyone anything, because life isn’t about debt or obligation – it’s about compassion.  

The only real way to reverse our generation’s loneliness epidemic is if we each try harder to look after one another. Reach out to your friends and make an effort to stick to your plans.

And remember, there’s nothing wrong with taking some time to be alone. But you don’t have to be lonely.

This article was originally published October 21, 2024

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

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