The world is a brutal place right now. And not just for teenagers, as I spoke about in my last post. The world is tough for everyone, but it can feel heavier if you’re single or friendless.

It seems that loneliness is more of an issue now than ever before. You don’t need me to tell you about the countless studies showing that people have sex less frequently these days, or that the loss of third spaces is leading to more time alone. It’s just common knowledge that we’re lonelier now than ever before.

The internet has become our third place and the space we spend most of our time. But it’s not a real place, and we aren’t making real connections here.

It’s all a pretence; it’s all happening at a distance from us.

However, instead of considering the state of the world and how we got here, many people look inward for something to blame for their loneliness. They do not consider the role that the past few years have had on things – the growth of the internet and how mad things are out there – and instead choose to point the finger at themselves.

And it makes sense because it’s easier to blame yourself than to consider that a wider issue is at play.

As someone who loves a bit of self-development and has been obsessed with the idea of bettering myself since my early teenage years,I know how validating it feels to find a problem within yourself. How addictive it is to use yourself as the study, to constantly problem-solve and assess, only to find yourself falling short.

Self-help is a popular genre for a reason, and I truly think that without personal development, the world would come to a standstill.

“There woild be no progress in this world were it not for man’s dissatisfaction with himself”

• Neville Goddard

However, there comes a point when this development, or dissatisfaction as Goddard describes it, becomes more debilitating than exhilarating. This usually comes after a bout of failures, of doing a lot of work and seeing no results.

Sure, this can be a sign that you need to change things up, but a lot of the time it’s bigger than that. And it’s not necessarily your fault.

The Loneliness Epidemic

One such area where I see this a lot, especially lately, is appearances and dating/connections.

Now, for context, I’m incredibly interested in internet culture. Because of this, I have spent far too long researching incels, the manosphere, and that whole dark world, especially when it began to grow during the pandemic.

With this in mind, I wasn’t shocked to learn about the history of looksmaxxing, which is the latest trend targeting young men specifically and helping people blame themselves for loneliness. While I wasn’t shocked about where it started, I was shocked to see how mainstream it had become.

Incels are supposed to be a fringe group, yet their maxims are on the For You Page. Here are seemingly normal, healthy, teenage boys talking about ways to ‘ascend’ through modifications like ‘mewing’ or, God forbid, ‘bonesmashing’.

While it’s tempting to throw this to the side as stupid internet stuff, and trust me, I’ve tried, it does highlight a significant shift in things offline, too.

Like the performative male trend, the popularity of lookmaxxing highlights how terribly lonely things are right now, and how far we’ve all strayed from real human connections.

I’m not pitting myself as better than this stuff, by the way. I’m part of this, too.

Sure, I’m not reading Reddit forums on how to change my eye shape, or watching TikToks of surgeries and planning what I need to get – but I once was. Or at least, it was once doing whatever the equivalent of this was in the 2010s.

I now just have the experience and wisdom that comes with age, and from seeing patterns repeat, to be able to hold myself at a distance from this stuff and examine it on a wider scale.

Side note: I think it’s interesting that we are now so concerned with men’s beauty standards, seeing documentaries, articles and studies about the subject, when women and girls have been left to fend for themselves for decades. Sure, these current trends are extreme, but as a woman, I can sincerely tell you that girls were being shown just as extreme body and face trends from a young age, too. But I’ll save that for a later date, because the truth is no one is free from this.

It doesn’t matter who started it or where they began; what matters is the fact that normal people (kids!) are being pulled into this dark, expensive, and dangerous world of self-hatred.

Everyone is being told it’s their own fault they can’t get dates or that they have no friends. And this is not because of who they are as a person, but because of how they look.

Anyone with some sort of life experience will be able to tell you this is a load of bollocks, but most of these kids/people affected don’t have the life experience behind them. Or all of their experiences are being shadowed by these damaging beliefs so they can’t think clearly anyway.

We’ve all heard the saying ‘what you focus on multiplies, ‘ and in the case of this self-hatred, everything becomes evidence that you’re the problem.

Like looking for a specific colour car, you can’t stop noticing the patterns once you become aware of them. While searching for yellow cars is a fun demonstration of this, seeing ongoing examples of how your face is failing you is damaging, and we’re now seeing it on a wider scale (and affecting a different gender).

Failures and rejections are no longer just part of life or an opportunity to regroup. They instead become something you’ve caused, and something that can be avoided with treatments, skincare, surgery, or taking a hammer to your cheekbones.

It’s Not Your Face

Here’s the thing: the reason you’re lonely is not because you’re ugly, but because that’s just the state of the world right now.

We’re all frightened and alone and untrusting.

No one wants to put themselves out there for fear of hurt, humiliation, or something more serious.

It doesn’t matter what you do to your face and body; this is not going to change unless we all do.

I don’t want this to be an upsetting post or make you feel more hopeless than before. But rather, I want it to take some of the weight off you.

It’s not your fault you’re alone right now. The world simply isn’t made for human connections in its current state, and getting out there is hard.

But it’s not impossible.

There are ways around this; there are ways to make real friends and to meet people in person. The internet has made things more convenient for us, which means that anything requiring effort is undesirable and annoying.

Human connections are one such thing.

It takes work to build trust, to develop friendships, and connect with people. It takes action and movement – not just faffing around with your face.

At the end of the day, you can craft the perfect appearance for yourself behind closed doors, but you’ll still be alone unless you get out there.

I know this is easier said than done, but I’m hoping that with a little reminder that this is not your fault, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. You can open yourself up to more opportunities instead of shutting yourself away.

As Catherine Tate once said:

“My advice to you is please don’t ever sit in your room and lock yourself away because you don’t think you’re good enough”

I know it’s hard, and I know you feel like that’s the only thing you can do. But I beg you, as someone who has been there and continues to fall into this thinking, the world needs you. We want to see you, so please don’t lock yourself away.

Speak soon,

Rachael.

Photo by Philbo 🇺🇦 on Unsplash