Image: Geir Tonessen/Flickr, Creative Commons
Anyone who really knows what loneliness is knows it well: that permanent vague aching sensation in your chest when you haven’t meaningfully engaged with another human being for days or weeks or even months, and yet here you are, alone once again. When it finally comes, that moment when someone says something to you that goes beyond work orders or neighbourly pleasantries, or touches your hand, or hugs you, can be so powerful that you fear your legs will give way under you, or that you will start sobbing uncontrollably. But you manage - more or less - to maintain appearances.
Anyone who really knows loneliness, of this deep kind which lasts for weeks and months rather than a few lonely hours, is not in the least surprised to hear the research findings which tell us that being lonely is the health equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, or that loneliness significantly increases the risk of premature death.
