Mike Carruthers

And so you said a few moments ago that

you need to connect and that one thing you could do is, you know, talk to the cashier at the store or wave to the person next to you.

That's not really a connection.

That's just a kind of a polite, hi, how are you?

See you later.

So how does that help?

I remember hearing, and maybe it was from you when we've talked in the past, that that intense pain that loneliness causes is evolutionary, that we're not meant to be that way.

We can't survive if we're all alone, and that that's a motivation, a push to get rid of that feeling, and the only way to get rid of it is to go connect with people.

We're talking about loneliness and we're talking about it with Dr. Edward Halliwell.

He is a psychiatrist, author of several books.

And one of which is called connect.

So, Ned, it's my sense that around Valentine's Day, you know, Valentine's Day is wonderful for people who have a Valentine to celebrate it with, but that for people who don't have a Valentine or who don't feel connected, who feel lonely, it makes the loneliness even worse to watch all these other people celebrate all the love in their life.

That is some really great advice because everyone who has ever, and I assume it is everyone, has ever worried alone knows that when you bring somebody else in on your worry, it somehow lightens up.

I've heard it described as a paradox, really, that we are, with social media and the internet, we are more connected than ever.

And yet a lot of those social media kind of connections aren't real connections and exacerbate the problem of loneliness because you're connected, but not in the way that people used to be connected.

What do you think about social media connections?

Is it that?

Is it exacerbating the problem?

It would seem that because loneliness is so painful...

And a lot of people suffer that pain in silence.