ABSTRACT
CHANCESARE that youwould disclose a sorry family history,medical problems, and even depression, but few would openly admit to being lonely. Susan Schultz (1976) poignantly wrote that “To be alone is to be different. To be different is to be alone, and to be in the interior of this fatal circle is to be lonely. To be lonely is to have failed” (p. 15). There is a stigma to being lonely. The public and therefore us researchers seem to not look favorably on anyone who admits to suffer its pain. When I present, or teach, and ask my audience whether there is anyone in the group who has never experienced loneliness, no one raises a hand. When I further inquire whether anyone is lonely now-dead silence. No one, in my 30 years of researching this topic, has ever had the courage to admit, in public, that he or she is lonely. Loneliness carries a significant social stigma, as lack of friendship and social ties are socially undesirable, and the social perceptions of lonely people are generally unfavorable. Lonely people often have very negative self-perceptions, and the inability to establish social ties suggest that the person may have personal inadequacies or socially undesirable attributes (Lau & Gruen, 1992).
