Ever been in a room full of people and felt lonely? Well you’re not the only one (pardon the irony).
Actually, feeling lonely has little to do with how many friends you have. It's more the way that you feel about you.
Australia is a big country with a relatively small population, which means big gaps between population centres.
In rural parts of Australia there are men who are hundreds of kilometres from the nearest human beings. Even as apes in the trees we hung around in troops and then when we started walking upright we evolved into tribes, then villages, then towns and finally onto cities.
According to the National Rural Health Alliance a recent study has shown that men in regional and remote areas were 1.3 to 2.6 times more likely to end their life by suicide than their urban counterparts.
At any given time, rates of suicide tend to increase with rurality. The most recent AIHW Mortality Report shows that 15-24 year old males in regional areas are 1.5–1.8 times more likely to end their life by suicide than their urban counterparts. The incidence is up to six times higher in very remote areas.
The inter-regional comparison is almost as bad for the next age group (25-44 years - where national rates for males are highest), and it is also worse in non-metropolitan areas among 45-64 year old males.
This is no coincidence, as human beings we are social creatures, who crave companionship whether that be from a partner, friends or family.
Even though over the past few months we have been in some sort of lockdown situation, social isolation is not a new thing. In fact some people suggest we are currently going through a loneliness epidemic.
An analysis of Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data from 2001 to 2017 has found more than one in six people report feeling lonely in any given year — and a staggering 1.5 million people have been lonely for a decade or more.
Feeling lonely can pose a bigger risk for premature death than smoking or obesity, according to research by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Brigham Young University in Utah, USA.
Links to depression may not be surprising, but the idea that loneliness can be associated with poorer cardiovascular health and, in old age, a faster rate of cognitive decline and dementia is repositioning loneliness as a public health issue.
So what can we do?
One thing I missed the most during the COVID lockdown was having a beer with my mates. It wasn’t that we ever spoke about our feelings or mental struggles with each other (although perhaps that’s not such a bad idea), it was just that sometimes you need to talk shit with your mate over a beer, it’s that simple.
But for some people it’s not that simple - what do you do if you have no friends? Or you’ve just come out of a divorce to find that your old pre marriage friends have moved on. Maybe you’ve just moved to a new town for work where you don’t know anyone. While reasons for loneliness are endless, so is the list of solutions.
You need to find your tribe and a very simple step could be joining a sports club or a gym. Not only will it get you out of the house, but you’re getting some physical exercise at the same time which has proven benefits for your mental fitness also.
If you’re not the sporting type, check out Meetup where there are thousands of clubs and groups dedicated to everything from live music to basket weaving and model trains. There’s also Mr Perfect a group that gets men together to have BBQ’s on the weekend just because.
Or why not start your own group? I did and even though it’s relatively small compared to the above organisations, getting out of the house and meeting men in similar situations has been rewarding.
You can never have too many friends, too many conversations or meet too many new people. But the first step is you’ve got to reach out. Phil Brandel is a freelance writer, broadcaster and bloke. You can tweet him at @Philbrandel1.
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