A Different View
The pain of loneliness in a forest of people
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Lonely people in Tokyo can rent a cuddle; Japan’s ‘affection for hire’ industry boasts cuddle cafés and even places you can rent a cat for a little while to ease the pain of isolation.
This isn’t funny – if anything, it’s pathetic, and at best it’s tragic – but it does emphasize how you can live in the midst of millions and still feel so utterly all alone.
These Tokyo facilities, according to the Guardian newspaper, attract widowers and shy single types. The largest of the rent-a-friend agencies, Client Partners, has eight branches in Tokyo alone.
And it’s a global phenomenon – New York may be the city that never sleeps but many of those who walk its streets never meet anyone they can talk to.
One in five Americans admit they had just one close friend – and across the US more than a quarter of the population live alone, up from just five per cent in 1920.
In New York City it’s roughly one third.
The same trend is evident in Canada, and even more pronounced in Europe – 58 per cent of people in Stockholm live alone, the highest in Europe.
Of course you don’t have to stray to the other side of the world to find loneliness – it’s on our own doorstep.
And it’s not synonymous with older people either – those who move to cities for work often go home to empty flats or houses, because once five o’clock comes, everyone just heads off to get on with their own lives.
The Irish Times took up the issue in a series on loneliness last year, asking readers for their own views – and the response was shockingly sad.
“I lie about the weekend,” wrote one reader.
“At work on a Monday morning, colleagues ask about the weekend. I make up a short lie on the lines of “quiet really, just dinner with friends on Friday”. In reality, my friends were Netflix and a bottle of wine. There are odd weekends when my only social interactions take place in shops.”
“I get so jealous when I hear others say they are meeting up for drinks,” wrote another.
“I once took the initiative and asked could I go as well. I arrived in great form, bought a round and was left to myself for the rest of the night as everyone else got into little cliques. I was so embarrassed and humiliated I can’t even put into words. I cried for days afterwards.”
“I live on my own and my friends tell me how lucky I am: I don’t have to report to anyone, compromise with anyone, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. But that can be hard too,” admitted a person in their thirties.
“Sometimes I want to do things and I have nobody to do them with – cinema trips, holidays, walks along the pier, trying the latest restaurant, a drink in the local. The reassurance that there is someone standing up for me, in my corner, and the loneliness and anxiety that hits when you realise you have to do it all yourself.”
Rural isolation is a growing problem and one acknowledged now more than ever – but you can be all alone in a big city too.
Not everyone of course – but more than you might think.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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