The Slow Narrowing
There have been weekends where the most social thing I’ve done is chat with the trainer at the gym.
I didn’t think I’d become a cliché, but here I am. Just another lonely male in America.
It’s hard to admit that. And I don’t fully fit the statistic (read: could def be in some denial). I have friends. I have love. I have family. But I don’t have a circle where I live. There are weeks where no one reaches out to me, and that’s a strange thing to feel when you were born in the 1900s.
A couple of years ago, I moved back to the States to be closer to my family. And I don’t regret it. I got to hold my newborn nephew and watch him tilt his head with wide curiosity whenever I sang to him. I got to celebrate his first birthday in person. I get to help my parents set up their smart TVs and fix whatever WiFi thing isn’t working. I get Sunday dinners—my mom’s saucy, sweet, yet smoky baby back ribs—and proximity and a kind of steadiness that didn’t exist when I was living abroad.
But what I left behind was something extraordinary too.
Picture this: a field somewhere in the Netherlands. Lowlands music festival. Someone teaching me and my crew how to vogue, badly at first, dramatically by the end. Later, groovin to Anderson .Paak like nothing in the world mattered. Because at a four-day music festival the only worry is what to wear that day and which set we’re catching next.
My friends and I danced as a cluster of bodies who knew each other well. Just shared rhythm. Sweat. Inside jokes. And that smile. That knowing smile when their favorite part of the song comes on and you catch it at the exact same second and all you can do is belt along with them and dance. Just dance.
Then there were the ordinary nights. Piled on a couch binge-watching Insecure or Common Side Effects, half-watching, half-talking about life. Fully focused on what snacks we collected for the viewing event. The kind of friends who are just…in your life. Several times a month. Effortlessly.
I didn’t just leave friends. I left chosen family.
Now, it’s different.
There are Fridays where I find myself checking my phone like it owes me something. Hoping for an invite to go hiking or just a “hey, what are you up to?” Only to remember…oh right. I don’t really know anybody in this city like that yet.
I’m trying. Slowly. I’ve joined a social club. I’ve gone to a few of events. I’m saying yes (more than I want to tbh). But it’s humbling to introduce myself again and again. It’s strange to walk into a room alone and realize everyone else arrived with someone. People are in their pods. Their parenting rhythms. Their long-standing group chats.
I don’t blame them. I just feel the gap. And I want in haha!
I think that’s the part of the statistic we don’t talk about. Not the dramatic loneliness or the total isolation. Just the slow narrowing. The subtle shrinking of your social world without you fully noticing. Until one day you look up and wonder where the f*** did everybody go?!
I’m not the lonely man with no one. But I understand how someone becomes him.
I can reread all the philosophy about seasons and chapters of life. It gives hope, but it sure don’t fix Friday night.
Still, I know this isn’t forever.
My life has moved in chapters before. Seasons of no money but partnership. Seasons of partnership but little stability. Seasons of deep friendship and light responsibility. You can’t have it all. Or at least not all at once.
Right now, I think I’m in a chapter of rebuilding. It has given me time. I write more. I reflect more. There is something steady about that. Something intentional.
But boy do I miss having friends.
I miss the ease of knowing who to call. I miss being in someone’s Tuesday, not just their quarterly rotation.
If you’re in this chapter too—starting over, circling rooms alone, checking your phone a little too often—I see you.
I’m building again. Awkwardly. Saying yes. Showing up. The hardest part is challenging the social anxiety that whispers it’s easier to stay home. I know that one day my cup will be full again. Not the same cup, of course. Not the same people. But something new (with it’s own issues to gripe about then).
For now, I’m in the in-between.
And it’s harder than the quotes make it sound.
