# How To Deal With Loneliness

It's a basic understanding of evolutionary psychology that we evolved to be 
social organisms. Just as surviving as an individual required us to evolve 
to want food or the need to reproduce has made us evolve to want sex, the 
need to survive as a species has made us evolve to want social contact. It 
is fundamental to our existence. This is the underlying reason as to why we 
experience loneliness. We tend to forget this since culture has evolved so 
much faster than our biology. The extent to which we depend on each other 
for survival has diminished a lot in modern society, yet our biological 
social needs haven't been able to adapt as fast. The disconnect here is why 
loneliness is so common. People in developing countries tend to experience 
this less as they need each other more.

If it was just a matter of knowing and understanding this, it would be an 
easy issue to overcome. We would just hang out more and make friends. But 
the problem gets more complicated when you add social conditioning to the 
mix along with flawed paradigms built upon our concepts of identity. We 
easily tend to simplify our perception of others by categorizing people as 
good or bad based on our own experiences. Bit by bit, we end up isolating 
ourselves since there is little room for human complexity in such a 
worldview. If you are surrounded by people who think that way, you might 
try and fit in but the best thing you can do is seek out others who are 
like-minded. Unless this is how you look at the world as well, the best 
thing you can do then is re-evaluate your paradigm. Many people don't know 
any better because it is how they grew up and that is why reflecting on 
these insights can be very important.

If we want to have good friends, we first have to understand what it is 
that makes people good friends. The quality of your relationship is defined 
by what connects you. If it is college, then friendships will fade away 
when you graduate. If it is gaming, they will fade when you don't have as 
much time to play games any more. This happens all the time, especially 
when you get in a relationship or start a family because what you look for 
in a friendship is what defines the strength of it. So in most cases the 
reason why people are lonely is because it either reflects what they value 
in life themselves and translates to the quality of their friendships or 
because they cannot find people in their surroundings that are compatible 
with them. In both cases there is something you can do about it. Improving 
your mindset allows you to reevaluate what is important in life, which is 
more in line with what you are and will make you look for people that do 
the same. The foundation of your friendship will be more durable as what 
connects you will be much stronger. This can range from working out 
together to helping improve the world. On the other hand, if you can't find 
people compatible with you but you do have the right mindset, you should 
keep looking and go about it in a structured and effective way. From my own 
experience, the strongest connection that can bind two people together is a 
common purpose that you value and work towards.

It seems to always come down to developing the right mindset, which, if you 
think about it, makes a lot of sense. Being more aligned with reality has 
been crucial to our existence and it's reflected in all aspects of our 
lives, including loneliness. If our mindset isn't compatible with itself 
and we couldn't stand a version of ourselves for example, we can wonder why 
we don't solve this problem by first working on ourselves.