Ed Note: This article raises the question about our dealing with loneliness at Skyline–either our own or of others. If you have thoughts about this, please reply. Better yet speak to a member of the Caring Committee.
By Eleanor Cummins and Andrew Zaleski in the NYT
Thanks to Joan H.
Ms. Cummins is a journalist and an adjunct professor in New York University’s science, health and environmental reporting program. Mr. Zaleski is a journalist who covers science, technology and business.
Stephanie Cacioppo thought she would be single forever. “I was an only child,” says Dr. Cacioppo. “I always thought that was my fate to be alone.”
Despite that, Dr. Cacioppo, a behavioral neuroscientist, dedicated herself to studying the science of romance. In 2011, when least expecting it, she met the love of her life. His name was John Cacioppo, a twice-divorced neuroscientist and one of the world’s leading researchers on loneliness.
After they married, in a joyfully spontaneous ceremony in Paris, they were hardly ever apart and even conducted research together at the University of Chicago. They were known among their academic peers by complementary monikers: She was Dr. Love; he was Dr. Loneliness. But in 2018, at age 66, he died, very likely from complications of salivary gland cancer. She was only 43. “They not only shared the same office (the sign on the door said ‘The Cacioppos’),” his New York Times obituary read, “but also the same desk.”
In the wake of her husband’s death, she experienced a crushing loneliness. So she decided to apply the couple’s research to her life while using herself as a case study for further research into solutions. She reached out to friends, ran six miles a day and picked up doubles tennis, all of which she chronicled in her 2022 memoir, “Wired for Love.” It’s an effort that Dr. Cacioppo, now an adjunct assistant professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Oregon, is still undertaking, with the goal of studying how to prevent loneliness and restore strong connections.
More than one-fifth of Americans over 18 say they often or always feel lonely or socially isolated. Among older adults, social isolation has been linked to various adverse physical and psychological effects, including increased risk of dementia and heart disease. “Addressing the crisis of loneliness and isolation is one of our generation’s greatest challenges,” wrote Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in The Times in April, discussing a national framework for rebuilding social connection to combat what he called an “epidemic” of loneliness.
Lonely? With hundreds of neighbors in the same building? Yup.
We see by Jim’s blog and Horizon House Resident Council videos that even CCRCs harbor loneliness. Congregate housing does not translate to “building social connection”. People have all kinds of reasons for choosing population density over isolation – some beneficial, some misguided. Either way, how now to make the most of any living arrangement?
A recent article on loneliness concluded with the reassurance that: Lonely people do not have to remain that way.
Well, some don’t. We may still have enough “agency” to act in our own best interest, get social, and ideally act in the interest of others as well.
Putnam Barber started an online posting of Skyline residents’ offers and asks. He then concluded there was not enough interest to continue the service. Would it work, starting small, to create a Social Connection Board, where residents can post any gathering, meet-up, or event they would like to host or participate in?
Sylvia
And in fine print ask: “lonely? wtf?”