Pod Insights All In The Mind Loneliness — you're not alone, from Ladies, We Need To Talk About this episode Loneliness hurts. And we know it's bad for us, worse than smoking or obesity. Even though a third of us are lonely, we're embarrassed to say so.
So, what would happen if we talked about our loneliness openly? And how can we build more meaningful connections?
This week we have a special episode from our friends at Ladies, We Need To Talk https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/ladies-we-need-to-talk.
Host Yumi Stynes speaks to women who are lonely, one within a marriage and one hoping to find a partner, to understand the toll it can take. Plus, psychologist Dr Bella Ingram shares tips on how we can insulate ourselves from the chill of being lonely.
More information:
Ending Loneliness Report https://endingloneliness.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/ELT-Annual-Report-2024-smlFINAL-1.pdfResources:
Beyond Blue https://www.beyondblue.org.au/Lifeline https://www.lifeline.org.au/13 11 14
Transcript 5,222 words · 10 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.
0:09 Speaker 01 Hello, it's Sana here. We're doing something a little bit different on All in the Mind this week. You are a fan of the show, right? So you know that we like to dig deep on the mental health challenges that people are going through. So I wanted to share an episode from our friends over at the ABC Podcast, Ladies, We Need to Talk about loneliness. It's a topic right in our wheelhouse. And in Australia, about a third of us feel lonely. That's according to the 2023 Ending Loneliness Together report. And on top of that, many of us are embarrassed to talk about it. But at All in the Mind and at Ladies, We Need to Talk, that is what we do. We talk about the stuff that can be sometimes tricky to
0:51 Speaker 01 open up about, so that all of us listening can feel, hopefully, less alone. So here's the episode.
1:02 Speaker 02 You can't say, hey, I really feel lonely at the moment, or I don't feel that connected, because it's not something we talk about in society.
1:10 Speaker 03 It feels pretty shit. It just feels like your heart hurts, your chest hurts.
1:17 Speaker 04 From the outside, we could look like a very sociable person who potentially has it all, but feel incredibly lonely.
1:24 Speaker 02 You can feel lonely when you're surrounded by people.
1:33 Speaker 03 Um, it's like 5:40 a.m. and I'm just getting in my car to drive to meet some friends, to go for a run this morning. So it's still pitch dark outside, which is how I like it because it's too hot on us. And then you get the most glorious sunrise as you're running. There's my friend's car.
2:02 Speaker 03 Once or twice a week, I get up at the crack of dawn and I drive in the dark to run between seven and 10 kilometres. All right, what do I need for this run? I started this running group during COVID lockdowns because I was ashamed to discover that I didn't really know any people who lived close by me. Morning. Hey, Ben-Akden. You remember Val? Hey.
2:26 Speaker 03 It's not as humid, is it?
2:29 Speaker 03 Like I have friends, but none of them lived all that close by, and none of them wanted to go running.
2:37 Speaker 03 So I reached out and made the first move with people from my neighbourhood. And now there's a small group of us who meet up for runs.
2:43 Speaker 05 Look, it's the sunrise. Shall we try and sprint that last after we get around the corner?
2:49 Speaker 03 Sometimes followed by coffee, sometimes not. And there's always a lot of chat.
2:53 Speaker 06 The endorphins at the end of running are just a bit like jumping in the ocean. You just never regret it.
2:57 Speaker 00 Well, you know, the shame if you don't get out of bed and drive.
3:02 Speaker 03 Having this quite wholesome thing in common with people has helped me through some tough times. And the friendships that I've made with my fellow joggers are super dorky and have nothing to do with work. And the whole thing has made me feel way more connected to my community. The sad truth is we're lonelier than we've ever been. In Australia, almost a third of us feel lonely. That's according to the 2023 Ending Loneliness Together report. There's a sense of shame around our loneliness. More than half of those who feel lonely do not talk about it.
3:42 Speaker 03 And loneliness doesn't just feel awful. The science shows it's really bad for our physical and mental health. So why, in this hyper-connected world of WhatsApp group chats and being only a few swipes away from a shag or a pash, why are we lonelier than ever? And what can we do about it? I'm Yumi Steins, ladies.
4:07 Speaker 03 We need to talk about loneliness.
4:23 Speaker 02 It was just torrential rain and the first Uber cancelled on me. Then the second Uber cancelled on me.
4:30 Speaker 06 Oh no.
4:32 Speaker 02 And then the third Uber, I was just so desperate. I rang him, I said, please tell me you are on your way.
4:39 Speaker 03 This is Sandy. She's waiting for a ride and the rain is hammering down. It's her 50th birthday.
4:45 Speaker 02 I got out and I got into the bar and I just sat there by myself.
4:53 Speaker 02 And ordered myself a lovely glass of champagne. And I actually said to the bartender, I said, "It's actually my birthday." And he said, "Oh, happy birthday." And I said, "Thank you." And besides my son at home and my son who called me from overseas, no one really sort of said anything. I didn't feel I could ring anyone.
5:17 Speaker 03 So I have a real picture of you at this bar, looking great in your birthday outfit with a glass of champagne in hand.
5:24 Speaker 02 Even thinking about it now, I get emotional.
5:29 Speaker 02 It was very hard not to be upset. And just having that sinking feeling in your gut, and for me, I feel it in my chest as well. Almost like I'm forgetting to breathe. And it's a mixture of feeling upset, but also feeling embarrassed. And that sense of shame that I'm 50 and I'm at a bar by myself. And my husband's overseas. And I spent the morning with my dog and my cat.
6:02 Speaker 03 And predictably, the family pets had not organised a surprise party nor a birthday cake for Sandy. Those pets are rubbish. But there's nothing like sitting in a bar alone on a really important milestone birthday to make you reflect.
6:19 Speaker 02 I thought to myself, I would just love to have a group of friends. I know people and I have friends, but I don't have that, you know, sex in the city, we're so close or that, you know, we went to high school and we're going to celebrate every birthday together. And I was just like, you know what, I'll just sit here and just have my champagne.
6:40 Speaker 03 How were you feeling in the lead up to that big milestone?
6:43 Speaker 02 I was dreading it. My husband had at the last minute been invited to go and do a management course and it was the week of my birthday. And I wasn't going to say no, but I was dreading it. And I just really would have liked to have just slept through it. And I still remember the day before thinking to myself, I've just got to get through it. And I'd taken the day off work and I thought to myself, why did I bother? I've got nothing planned. I'm pretty sure he hasn't planned anything.
7:16 Speaker 03 Sandy comes across as someone completely together.
7:19 Speaker 02 When you meet my husband and I and you see our boys, we look like we have everything and we look like we're a great couple and we're super happy.
7:28 Speaker 03 Throughout her marriage, Sandy has kept herself busy raising her boys, supporting her husband and working.
7:34 Speaker 02 But for me, there is this sense of loneliness where I feel like there's a disconnect.
7:39 Speaker 03 One of the kids has left home already and the other isn't too far from going. And Sandy's been forced to think about what her life will look like afterwards.
7:47 Speaker 02 I'm at a point now where the boys don't need me very much, but I'm sitting here going, oh, what do I do now?
7:54 Speaker 03 A lot of women have written to us saying they feel lonely in their marriages. You know, you're married to this person, but you're actually lonely a lot of the time. Does that resonate for you?
8:07 Speaker 02 Yes, yes.
8:08 Speaker 03 Do you still sleep in the same bed?
8:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, yep, but we, there's no sort of like kiss good night, no sort of cuddles or anything like that, which I've just gotten used to. I, yeah, as sad as that sounds.
8:24 Speaker 03 Can I ask you, um, do you feel like you've moved further apart from each other as your marriage has gone on? Or is it just sort of always been at this distance?
8:33 Speaker 02 I think we've moved further apart.
8:34 Speaker 03 Hmm.
8:35 Speaker 02 But I think if you asked my husband, he would not acknowledge that. He's not someone that shows emotion or will give you a hug. And sometimes I just crave that.
8:51 Speaker 03 Outside of her marriage, Sandy works, she goes to yoga, and she has friends, but she doesn't have those ride-or-die friends.
8:59 Speaker 02 And I, at times, can't figure out why, because I do think I'm pretty easygoing, I'm easy to get along with, I am social. But for whatever reason, it just hasn't happened that way.
9:14 Speaker 03 And admitting to others that you're lonely, that can be pretty awkward.
9:21 Speaker 02 I was having a particularly tough day, so I went to yoga, not feeling great, but hoping that by getting on my mat, I would feel better. And my friend at yoga, she said, "How was your weekend?" And I said, "Um, not that great. How was yours?" She said, "Oh, we went for a long lunch." And I said, "That must have been lovely." I said, "You know, sometimes I find it really hard to meet people at this age, and I feel lonely." And she looked at me sort of wide-eyed, and I looked at her wide-eyed, and I thought, "Oh shit, I've made myself really vulnerable here."
9:57 Speaker 03 Hmm.
9:58 Speaker 02 And she said, "Oh, yeah, it can be slightly difficult. Oh, yes. Uh, okay, I've got to go to work now. Um, I'll see you later on in the week." And I just grabbed my mat, oh, and I just raced out the door. And I could feel myself getting red and just feeling hot in the face, like, "Why did I say that?"
10:20 Speaker 04 Loneliness is stigmatized. A lot of us don't want to admit we're lonely still.
10:26 Speaker 03 Dr Bella Ingram is a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Wollongong.
10:33 Speaker 04 If we look at national data, even the general public perceives that, you know, someone who admits they're lonely, there must be something wrong with them.
10:41 Speaker 03 Bella's research focuses on loneliness and the role of social connections in health and wellbeing.
10:47 Speaker 04 In Australia, we're predominantly a Western culture, which is quite an individualistic culture. And that's pretty terrible for loneliness.
10:56 Speaker 03 And the research shows unequivocally that women are lonelier than ever.
11:02 Speaker 04 What we know about loneliness is that that really comes about when we kind of have these shifts in identity, when we're undergoing life transitions. And a woman who's sort of trying to navigate a career path, for example, and also trying to navigate parenthood and perhaps a carer for elderly parents as well. There's a lot of roles in there. And so trying to figure out where there's time and space left for social relationships, that kind of often falls by the wayside.
11:29 Speaker 03 And it turns out that loneliness is making us really sick.
11:34 Speaker 04 So there's a lot of research out there now that talks about loneliness being linked to, you know, high risk for morbidity and mortality. It's worse for us than smoking and obesity. And the reason for this, we think, is that loneliness is linked to cortisol, the stress hormone. And so when we're lonely, our cortisol increases and this reduces our immune system. We know that cortisol is also not great for weight. It's not great for a range of things. And so that's one of the theories behind why loneliness impacts our physical health.
12:09 Speaker 03 The research shows a particularly strong link between loneliness and cardiovascular disease.
12:15 Speaker 04 When we're lonely, we might be more likely to drink alcohol. We might be more likely to binge eat, to comfort ourselves. And all of these kind of behavioural risk factors, what we call them, are also really big contributors to heart disease.
12:30 Speaker 03 And yeah, I can almost hear you saying, "Yeah, duh, Yumi", because loneliness, of course, hurts our mental health too.
12:38 Speaker 04 Loneliness and depression are really intertwined. Loneliness and anxiety are really intertwined. And we know that people who are lonely tend to experience poorer physical and mental health. But also it's the people that might also have existing mental health conditions or existing physical health conditions that are also more likely to experience loneliness.
13:01 Speaker 03 Ah, so it's a cycle.
13:02 Speaker 04 It's a reciprocal cycle and it's a nasty one.
13:05 Speaker 03 What are the measures of loneliness?
13:09 Speaker 04 It's a really tricky one. A lot of scales don't necessarily use the term lonely. They kind of dance around it a little bit. And I think that's still this big question mark is how do we, how do we know? If I asked you, Yumi, how would I know if you feel lonely? There's going to be a range of different reactions that we have. So some women, they might completely withdraw and maybe no one will notice. For other women, they're going to power on and act like nothing's going on. And they might not even know they feel lonely themselves.
13:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, I just felt really confronted when you asked me, how do I know when I feel lonely? Because it's, it's very hard to describe. You know, and it's, I think the last time I felt really lonely was years ago. Cause I've got so many children around me. I'm, I'm sort of always in, in company and feeling quite loved. But I remember the feeling of my bed, the, the space in my bed next to me being empty. And it's been very symbolic of the emptiness inside of my heart. Do you know what I mean? Like this yawning, great big expansive bed that nobody is sleeping next to me. But yeah, how would you put that into a survey that is specific to different individual experiences? Very tricky, very interesting.
14:19 Speaker 04 So what we know about loneliness is that that really comes about when we kind of have these shifts in identity. When we're undergoing life transitions.
14:28 Speaker 03 By life transitions, we're talking the big stuff. Puberty, your twenties and thirties, when the career and baby race is on. Divorce, my favourite, perimenopause, major illness, empty nesting.
14:40 Speaker 04 And when we think about that, it's that, you know, a woman who's sort of trying to navigate a career path, for example, and also trying to navigate parenthood and perhaps a carer for elderly parents as well. There's a lot of roles in there. And so trying to figure out where there's time and space left for social relationships. That kind of often falls by the wayside. How am I going to progress? What's next for me? So all these questions, I think, can really play into our sense of identity, which can then play into, do I belong?
15:12 Speaker 03 So the overarching idea that I'm getting from this, Dr. Bella, is that it's needing a sense of belonging and the absence of belonging that creates a feeling of loneliness. And when we move from life stage to life stage, it's a bit of a reinvention or a redrawing of our, ourselves, where we're unsure at that point in our lives of where we belong.
15:36 Speaker 04 That's a beautiful nutshell.
15:40 Speaker 03 When we set out to make this episode, we did a call out via my Instagram, asking if anyone wanted to share their experiences of loneliness. And God, we appreciate that so many of you are willing to share. One of the voice notes we received really hit hard.
15:58 Speaker 07 I am a 35-year-old, single female. I've just come back from overseas. Most of my girlfriends are married, who have their own children now. And I am childless and not in a relationship.
16:18 Speaker 03 This is ladies listener Sophie.
16:22 Speaker 07 My friends are now in a different spot in their lives. And I feel incredibly lonely, even when I'm out with them and they don't have their kids with them. I just thought I would share this because, you know, maybe this can be some sort of,
16:44 Speaker 07 I don't know, help me through by talking about it. It's one of the most loneliest I've had in my whole life.
16:56 Speaker 03 Being at a different stage of life from your mates can be isolating for so many women, especially if your friends are in the marriage and babies era and you're not. And as Dr Bella pointed out, those states of transition are often the loneliest dots on your timeline. After hearing Sophie's voice note, we wanted to meet her in real life. Okay. All right. Okay. Feel free to take your time. Okay. It's a sensitive thing to talk about. Yeah. And we want to get deep in the feels of it. So can you tell us about a recent time when you've hung out with your friends with the babies? What is it like to be there as the person who doesn't have the baby? It can be quite isolating.
17:39 Speaker 03 And I try not to let it be isolating because I'm one of those people who just makes a joke, but I'm actually feeling quite uncomfortable and I'll go up at the end of sentences. Um, so I try not to make it feel awkward, but it kind of does. And I find that the awkwardness more comes after the event. And then the reality of it comes out, which is, I don't have that. A lot of women will be able to relate to your yearning for a baby and a family. Can you describe that feeling of yearning?
18:10 Speaker 05 It feels pretty shit. It just feels like your heart hurts, your chest hurts and you want that. And you don't know what you can do to get that.
18:24 Speaker 03 That chest hurt feeling, I think that'd be very familiar.
18:28 Speaker 05 Yeah.
18:28 Speaker 03 For a lot of women.
18:30 Speaker 05 Yeah.
18:31 Speaker 03 How often are you feeling that? Is it all day? Is it just sometimes?
18:35 Speaker 05 No, it's, it's every now and then, like, it just pops up. Like, now that we're talking about, I can definitely feel it, you know, simmering. And, you know, if you hear another baby announcement, or even like so and so's getting married.
18:51 Speaker 03 Loneliness comes in waves for Sophie. It can be painful in those big, loud announcement type moments. But the quiet times can often be even harder.
19:03 Speaker 05 The loneliness, I think, can come often at night time, often on the weekend. That's when I feel it the most, because during the week I'm like, go, go, go, go, go. And then the weekend comes, you reach out to your mates and they're busy with their families. It can be like a Saturday night and you're like, oh, I'm not doing anything, like, it's just me and the dog. Who I love, but she doesn't talk to me, so, you know.
19:30 Speaker 03 Staying in at home on a Saturday night inevitably involves an element of FOMO. And that sense of the clock ticking for Sophie that a lot of single thirty-something women can relate to.
19:42 Speaker 05 I feel like I'm kind of wasting my, my time, you know, I should be out there. That's what people are doing and I'm not doing that. And, you know, it kind of often ends in a crime. You caught me on a, that was like a Saturday night.
19:56 Speaker 03 Oh, a cry night.
19:58 Speaker 05 Yeah, that was cry night.
19:59 Speaker 03 Crying is good.
20:00 Speaker 05 Yeah, love a good cry.
20:01 Speaker 03 I can tell Sophie that you're funny and you're outgoing and you're quite good company. I mean, in the short time that we've spent together. Do you feel like admitting out loud to people, to humans, that you're lonely kind of is a bit of a vibe kill?
20:15 Speaker 05 Totally.
20:16 Speaker 03 Right.
20:17 Speaker 05 Yeah.
20:17 Speaker 03 So you don't want to be that guy?
20:19 Speaker 05 No, I don't want to be that guy, but, you know, jokes aside, which is big for me to say, but jokes aside. I do think it's a really important thing to talk about.
20:33 Speaker 03 After returning from living overseas at the end of last year, Sophie's got some new roomies.
20:39 Speaker 05 I'm back at home with my parents.
20:40 Speaker 03 Oh, wow.
20:40 Speaker 05 Yeah.
20:41 Speaker 03 Oh, Sophie.
20:42 Speaker 05 Yeah.
20:43 Speaker 03 That's a horny place to be living.
20:45 Speaker 05 It's a really great place if you're dating, you know.
20:48 Speaker 03 Oh, my god.
20:49 Speaker 05 Like, my parents are great. They're like housemates. But I feel like the closest people in my life at the moment are my parents. At this time in my life, that, that care and love surely should have been passed down to these imaginary children that I thought I was gonna have.
21:07 Speaker 03 Let's talk about being single.
21:09 Speaker 05 Okay.
21:10 Speaker 03 So what do you think that having a partner would bring to your life?
21:13 Speaker 05 I've thought about this a lot. I,
21:19 Speaker 05 I don't know what a partner would bring to my life because I don't think my life is horri- like, I don't think it's terrible and I'm quite self-sufficient on my own.
21:30 Speaker 03 Sounds like it.
21:31 Speaker 05 So I don't know what a partner would bring, but I know that it would be nice. I see my parents, who have been married for a long time. You know, you kind of long for something that's like that.
21:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
21:45 Speaker 05 You know?
21:46 Speaker 03 The yearning for a romantic partner occupies a lot of space in Sophie's mind.
21:51 Speaker 05 I've been single a long time and I'd like, even though I know it might not be great or they might disappoint the crap out of me, I just wanna try it again, you know? I was, now I'm gonna get emotional. Um, I was in a relationship when I was in my early twenties and then it ended. And I've not had a connection with someone like that for a long time and I do, um, I would like that again, you know?
22:20 Speaker 03 Hmm.
22:21 Speaker 05 Just to sh- just to, yeah.
22:26 Speaker 05 Yeah.
22:26 Speaker 03 What do you miss about it?
22:29 Speaker 05 Just that someone's in your court, you know?
22:34 Speaker 04 I would argue that loneliness is more about the quality of relationships than the quantity.
22:40 Speaker 03 This is Dr Bella Ingram again, and by quality, she means getting your needs met.
22:47 Speaker 04 So a varied range of needs. I mean, having shared values, not just hobbies, but actually really being able to connect with someone and go walk away from that connection and be like, that's my person. Whereas quantity is around, you know, I've got a thousand social media followers.
23:06 Speaker 03 If you look at people's social media feeds, you could be forgiven for thinking that no one's lonely and everybody's surrounded by really gorgeous friends and doing fun stuff. It's hard not to compare to the shiny, happy versions of life when we see our friends, particularly real people that we know, living that life.
23:24 Speaker 04 I think as women, we're all guilty of this, but we know comparison is the thief of joy. We know social comparisons that are more pronounced now by social media and the accessibility of information can be really difficult when it comes to loneliness because it's exactly what you described. You see something and think, how come I don't have that? What am I doing wrong?
23:46 Speaker 03 A big part of Bella's research is the connection between women's drinking and loneliness.
23:53 Speaker 04 Women are increasingly one of the highest consumers of alcohol in Australia, particularly middle-aged women. These are also the women that are reporting feeling more and more lonely. And women are turning to alcohol to fill a void of some sorts. And it becomes a bit of a habit as well. We know that alcohol can be a social facilitator in some instances. It can really help us, you know, lighten up, be able to engage in interactions that we might have felt a bit uncomfortable to do otherwise.
24:23 Speaker 03 But it can be a slippery slope.
24:26 Speaker 04 Where we might find ourselves drinking quite a bit or too much even on one instance and we can actually no longer socially engage very well. We could do things we regret, we could say things we regret. We might wake up feeling a bit embarrassed. Or we might just find ourselves in this habit of just relying on alcohol to be able to engage socially.
24:46 Speaker 03 So, okay, we shouldn't rely on alcohol to numb our loneliness. But what can we do to protect ourselves from that feeling of loneliness?
24:56 Speaker 04 I think it takes a lot of introspection. I think it's about knowing yourself. And so this is going to be difficult for some women and easier for others. But I think if you have a good sense of your values and what's important to you, that's going to be your compass to help navigate you in terms of where you're going to belong. But you're going to know, you're going to trust your gut and you'll know whether they're your people or not at the end of the day.
25:20 Speaker 03 I like that idea of knowing yourself and having a compass to kind of steer you to the right people. But in essence, isn't making friends hard?
25:28 Speaker 04 Yes, it is so hard. And I think, again, this is, it takes self-compassion and it takes bravery and courage. And I think what it's about is persistence too. What we also know is that navigating knockbacks can be really tricky.
25:44 Speaker 03 Hmm.
25:45 Speaker 04 That's a really big barrier to being able to connect with other people. Is that fear of knockbacks, it's shame, it's embarrassment. And it trickles into all this, am I good enough?
25:57 Speaker 03 Doctor, as somebody who's an expert in this field, who spends a lot of time thinking about loneliness, what are you doing to shore up your own personal future so that you don't become a lonely old woman?
26:08 Speaker 04 My poor husband, I talk to him about this all the time, the poor guy.
26:13 Speaker 04 Um, so I'm giving myself permission to not have to have a big social network that doesn't necessarily fill my cup. I think I'm recognizing that I'm going to have different needs met in different places. So I have some needs met with my work relationships. And I love that because I don't get that need met with my husband or some of my friend groups. I'm recognizing that with my husband, I have a lot of needs met, but he is not interested in talking politics with me. That's for friends. And then I walk away from those interactions feeling full, feeling valued, feeling recognized.
26:51 Speaker 02 We don't acknowledge that there is loneliness in the world and there's loneliness within marriages. And that it's okay to feel that way.
27:02 Speaker 03 It took a lot of courage for Sandy to come on Ladies We Need to Talk and open up about her loneliness. But she wants to shed some light on the issue.
27:11 Speaker 02 I think it's not acknowledged enough. And I wish that women were a bit more honest about it.
27:18 Speaker 03 What would you say to someone listening right now who is feeling alone in her marriage and her community?
27:26 Speaker 02 Oh, that's...
27:30 Speaker 02 That's very tricky. I think that probably what I would say is what someone said to me this morning is that you're stronger than you think you are. And you think you can't do it, but you can. What I would also say to women is you deserve a life, your own life.
27:48 Speaker 03 As for Sophie, who sent us the voice memo on Cry Night, she's still struggling with her loneliness, but taking steps in the right direction.
27:57 Speaker 05 I'm in the bottom of the pit right now.
28:00 Speaker 03 Well, thank you for reaching out from the bottom of the pit.
28:03 Speaker 05 You're welcome.
28:04 Speaker 03 So what sort of things do you do to try to build connection with others?
28:08 Speaker 05 I've enrolled in a, like a, doing a course. Not to how to meet people.
28:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, just a course.
28:14 Speaker 05 Just a course of like something that I'm interested in, which is a great way to meet people. I exercise, I do like boxing classes. And I date a lot.
28:25 Speaker 03 It's not just Sophie who's keen to find a partner. The people around her are invested too.
28:30 Speaker 05 You know, I hear so and so saying, do you know this guy? Have you met this guy before? Maybe we can set you up. Like, just because there's two single people doesn't mean we're gonna be compatible.
28:40 Speaker 03 Absolutely not.
28:41 Speaker 05 You know, but...
28:42 Speaker 03 But they're like, oh, I know a guy.
28:44 Speaker 05 Yeah. And you're single and so is he.
28:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, he's got an odour.
28:49 Speaker 05 Yeah, but that's fine.
28:50 Speaker 03 He hasn't worked in 14 years. But, I mean, he doesn't have a girlfriend and you don't have a boyfriend.
28:54 Speaker 05 So maybe you guys would be a match.
29:00 Speaker 03 Okay, there are six things to take from this. Number one, just because your friend is single doesn't mean she wants you to set them up with some random jobless guy who smells like unwashed butt and corn chips. Be real, the world's man scraps are not your friend's future husbands. Stop that. Number two, cats and dogs are terrible at organising surprise parties and are officially being put on notice that they need to get their shit together or risk being scrap heaped next to the man scraps. Number three, one's spouse cannot meet all one's needs. You need to build a social network of awesome people beyond that one person so that you have different people to tap when you have a different need.
29:45 Speaker 03 Four, you can expect transition times to be tough. That includes transitions to new motherhood, menopause, unemployment, divorce, any situation where you're no longer living the same daily setup that you were. Prepare for this by buying more cats and dogs. Number five, making friends takes intention, work and vulnerability. It may also involve making the first move. My advice is to have a cool thing that you want to do, whether it be going running at dawn, or having a sewing group, or finding like-minded anti-pollution mining company saboteurs, or starting a rock band, or acting in amateur theatre, or getting into swinging.
30:30 Speaker 03 Have a shared purpose that preferably doesn't involve drugs or alcohol and takes the focus off you and on to the thing that you can do together. Number six, and the final on our list, the definition of loneliness is craving connection and not getting it. If you are lonely, we really hope this episode helps and please know that you're not the only one. This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gundangara and Gadigal peoples. Ladies We Need to Talk is mixed by Anne-Marie Debetancourt. It's produced by Elsa Silberstein. Supervising producer is Tamar Cranswick and our executive producer is Alex Lolback. This series was created by Claudine Ryan.
31:21 Speaker 08 What have your phones done to your attention spans?
31:24 Speaker 04 I can't even watch a YouTube video that's more than five minutes long without putting it on two times speed.
31:28 Speaker 08 I'm Angela Wapier, the ABC's National Technology Reporter, and this is Brain Rot, a new series from Science Fiction about the science of being chronically online and what it's doing to our brains. We've found that taking photos can impair memory.
31:43 Speaker 09 I data dumped my entire life into this, into this language model.
31:47 Speaker 08 All that and more is coming up on Brain Rot. Find new eps each week on the ABC Listen app.
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