I don’t care how much of a loser this makes me sound like but I’ve come to realize that I spend a lot of time alone. Most of the time. I work from home, I go to the gym or on walks alone, My hobbies are solitary hobbies. Honestly if it weren’t for my wife I’d probably be alone for 90% of my days.
This isn’t unique to me, since the late twenty teens there’s been this noticeable trend and attempt to explain the “phenomenon” of the lonely American male. So much of the early explanations around it were also framed around “angry” dudes. Lonely and angry. That’s why trump won. I’m not Angry. Just alone. Your boy is basic.
The trend of trying to explain is still ongoing, in fact go google “lonely men” like I did above and you’ll be smacked by all the articles in the world. I recently found a podcast episode that lured me in with a baity title. “Robert Putnam Knows Why You’re Lonely”. The podcast is “The Interview” hosted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro, by the NY Times. So I listened so that this guy could tell me what’s up.
Robert Putnam apparently has been calling this loneliness since the 90s. “People don’t join bowling leagues anymore!” he cried to the heavens and Presidents listened. Invited him over to hang out, then nothing happened. Back in the 90s he blamed TV, now he blames Social Media. In all seriousness though, the pod was pretty interesting. Putnam discusses two types of social capital, bridging social capital and bonding social capital. Bonding is the type that you make with people who SHARE some belief or view you have, or some sort of similarity. Bridging social capital is the kind that exists when someone who DON’T have something in common with enters your social sphere and you can still be social or engage with them despite your differences. Admittedly the second is harder to build and social media, in a bid to increase engagement, has cocooned us in echo chambers. So there’s definitely SOMETHING to blame social media about. Echo chambers embolden people, and cement us in the type of Bonding social capital that can lead to type of social societies that march on charlottesville for instance. Or the Border Patrol facebook group that breed all those horrific memes about dead people. Putnam encourage face to face interaction, it’s apparently a lot harder to be racist or dismissive when you see somone face to face, one on one. And Sure.
All of that was good, but there was no WHY to it. Old people spamming Facebook Groups doesn’t explain why I’M lonely. In my opinion Lulu Garcia-Navarro ALMOST gets Putnam there. Putnam talks about periods in American history when from a “social capital” standpoint we were better. That time being 1910-1965. People were more trusting of each other, took time to meet their neighbors…all of that. Then Putnam also mentions how social capital has been down since that time. He briefly mentions that NOW Inequality is at an all time high even going so far as to call the modern era a “Second gilded age”….but then goes on to talk about the media.
AND HERE IS where I personally feel the biggest disconnect, or reason why I’m lonely. Work. Sucks. Americans are being squeezed dry and we can’t afford anything. Capitalism and Greed have made it so that American worker’s purchasing power at an all time low. Putnam wants us to meet face to face for Tupperware parties but fails to recognize that it takes 1 hour to get home from work because it’s too expensive to live where we work and there’s no public transportation so I gotta rot my brain and body in traffic. Nevermind that nobody actually has a home to have these face to face meetings in, and that everyone is one skipped paycheck or one hospital visit from total bankruptcy.
Everyone is working more, for less than ever before. That’s exhausting. There is no “inflation” though, inflation is just another word for corporate greed. Chipotle just announced record Q2 profits after raising prices 4x since Covid and instead of lowering prices or passing that to their employees they engaged in stock buy backs and gave their CEO a big paycheck. Inflation is on the hands of those that set the prices. That’s it. It’s not magic.
I truly believe to ignore the tolls of Capitalism on the pysche of the American worker is missing the larger picture. There's very limited amount of leisure time, there’s even less mental and wage security. Social safety nets are non existant. Existential crisis abounds, and we’re all too tired too anxious about the future about the medical bills about the weird noise the car was making and about how rent prices are going to go up at the end of this lease to go out bowling.
It’s economics.
To be even more personal. Even if one is lucky enough to have A LITTLE BIT saved up, that doesn’t account for the dread of an aging immigrant populace that were THEMSELVES squeezed dry by capitalism and was left WITHOUT pensions or any sort of retirement plan where one finds themselves now being their retirement plan. This is real, this is common for many people like me.
So yes it’s lonely, and I’m not angry. I’m just tired.
A couple of things:
Apparently no one likes Newsletters on Saturdays? I sent the last Liner Notes episode on Saturday and about 15% less of you opened it! What day works best for reading through your email?
If you want to read some LEGIT great writing read Roberto Andrade Franco’s ESPN piece on Olympic Boxer Jennifer Lozano. I don’t care if you don’t like Boxing, it’s just amazing writing. Roberto writes about the border like no one else.
The olympics are on and I’m background watching. USA dominance on swimming seems to be over. Rugby is fun. Indoor Volleyball is fun. Shooting is getting all the memes right now, especially Korean shooter Kim Ye-ji. Apparently the target they shoot at is about the same size as a period in Times New Roman font size 12?! That’s crazy
Finally a Tiktok from my conversation with Maria Garcia:
@elpochcastwhy do we care about the border had Maria Garcia on the podcast to talk about her fantastic podcast "My Divo" and since we're both from the border I asked why does she think people from the border who have left it have such an obsession with the border in their story telling #elpaso #border #pocho #mydivo
Tiktok failed to load.
Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
That’s it! Ahi nos vemos!