“Perceived social isolation” were the words in my head when we spoke to him — because I was in the midst of research and because, clearly, he was not actually alone. But I thought about those statistics, the ones suggesting that college-aged (18 to 22) young people reported the highest amount of social isolation. And then I thought, why wouldn’t they? I’m thinking of privileged college-bound kids here, those who, instead of being hugged by loving family members (hello, feel-good brain chemical dopamine!), cuddled by purring or slobbering pets (hello, even more dopamine!), surrounded by their close friends and maybe a loving boyfriend or girlfriend, and sleeping in their familiar home filled only with people who care about them, find themselves suddenly alone. Or, rather, “alone.” I remembered my own first month or two of college, back in the Pleistocene era: waiting in line to use the pay phone in my dorm so that I could call home and try not to cry when my mom answered, a lump in my throat bigger than the sack of laundry that was accumulating under my bed because I was too shy to use the machines. Everyone else appeared to be tumbling off to big, joyful parties. Everyone else seemed to be bonding for life. I was not only alone, as I recall, I was also, and worse, alone in my aloneness. I don’t want to suggest that the perceived social isolation of college students is worse than the actual deep aloneness experienced by the millions of older adults cited in studies on social isolation. The social isolation of the elderly is so often compounded by dwindling relationships and loss, illness, being housebound, and a lack of resources. But, despite the very #firstworldproblems flavor of “lonely college students,” some of what they experience is uniquely challenging and disconcerting: The fact of people everywhere, for instance, can feel like a kind of broken promise of connection. Or the fact of social media — the feeling, at least on Instagram and Snapchat, that your high school friends are mysteriously surrounded by laughing throngs of new besties. There’s the stress of the new workload (hello, cortisol!) and the stress about how much stress you’re experiencing (hello, more cortisol!). And there’s the fact that you have to brush your teeth in public. And really, if you’re the bereft parent of a stressed lonely heart, what can you do? (“Let’s just go get him,” a close friend of mine said when I told her he was struggling a little. “It’s already been two whole weeks. Clearly this isn’t working out.” She was kidding but also had tears in her eyes. Other doting moms — yet another community my kid was missing.) I sent candy and cards. I sent encouraging texts and YouTube videos of frightened dogs tiptoeing past cranky cats. I reminded him that though he has grown up knowing my closest friends from college, I’d been lonely at first, too. And I thought about my own mom sending me snail mail filled with newspaper clippings about Georgia O’Keeffe or plum cake or songbirds, whatever — it didn’t matter because the message of those clippings was: I’m thinking about you. The message was: You’re not alone. And it helped so much. It’s helping my son, too, reminding him that he is cherished while he slowly finds his people. “I don’t know if I have friends, exactly,” he said cheerfully over the phone recently. “But I eat and study and hang out with people I really like.” And I smiled to myself and thought, Good enough.
