The need of strong connections

I'm living alone in Kuala Lumpur for two weeks. Feelings of loneliness have arisen in the last days. As an introvert, I like to spend most of my time alone. I don't need to have people around to feel ok, but I'm realizing that I need at least one strong connection to be in a good mood.

In Bangkok I have my girlfriend and, although I spend most of my time alone, I don't feel lonely as I'm in Kuala Lumpur.

Strong connections with people are something I have been losing over the past years. In the past, I could be talking with a friend for hours. In my early twenties, I didn't have any romantic relationship and I didn't feel lonely because of the lack of them.

A few strong connections and good conversations with friends or family made me happy; that was everything I needed.

Who I became?

Nowadays, I look at the mirror in the morning and I ask myself what I have become. As days pass by, I see how I'm mutating slowly but steadily into my father. I remember telling him several times why he didn't go out with friends. He answered that he didn't have any.

"You'll understand me in the future when you begin to lose friends as you age", he once told me.

At that time, I thought that this couldn't happen to me. I was 15 or 16 years old, I was surrounded by good friends and I never thought/experienced feelings of loneliness.

Feeling lonely, worse outcomes

Now, I'm approaching the 30 years mark. Going out of my country and leaving Barcelona was a personal decision. Since I wanted to write and code for longs periods, I thought it was the best thing to do. But I didn't consider that, when you travel far away, relationships become cold as ice in less time than you expect. At least, this has been my experience so far.

When feeling lonely, I begin to lose motivation to do things. My mind becomes foggy and I move slowly. I begin to look different at people and I feel that people look different at me. I become more sensitive about trivial things and conversations. My heart beats quicker when I feel alone but surrounded by people. For example, while buying groceries at the supermarket.

It's a weird sensation I never experienced before.

Brain and isolation: a bad combo

Perhaps our brains are not prepared to be in isolation: leave a man by himself for months without any kind of human contact and take a look at the terrible consequences.

I think most of the adults need a job, apart from the salary, to be surrounded by other people. If you are working with more people, your chances of finding strong connections increase and so does your well-being. Strong connections give us meaning; it's what makes people move forward.

And solo entrepreneurs? They find joy, not only in independence and salary but in the idea that they are being useful to other people. Hence, the idea of connection arises again.

Humans are constantly seeking strong connections; adults cheat because they have the illusion to have found a connection like when they were younger.

The first love, the first strong connection, is something impossible to replicate, but humans look after this kind of feeling all their lives. When they think they have found it, they are willing to risk careers, marriage, and status in favor of it.