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The complications surrounding the feeling of loneliness are somewhat ridiculous, especially considering that the word “lonely” itself generally had no emotional meanings before the year 1800. Historians have traced the word “loneliness” back to its precursor: “oneliness.” Oneliness, like the word “alone,” simply meant a state of being alone, but unlike today’s “alone” it had no assumed emotional baggage. This state of oneliness was not particularly undesirable either. It was seen as a necessary space for reflection and prayer. In fact, because of the strong religious beliefs during this time period, even when you were in solitude you were never believed to be truly alone, as God was always with you. 

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The word “lonely” itself also existed around this same time but was only used to describe places. Specifically, places away from other people. Lonely places simply existed at a physical distance apart from more populated regions. For anyone who found themself in such a lonely place, that physical distance translated into a state of vulnerability, a physical distance from the protection that a group of other humans provided. Naturally, the use of the word lonely then broadened to encompass a number of undesirable places: the desert, the grave, hell, etc. which may be where some of the negative connotations around the word originated. 

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Continuing with the old idea that lonely places, or being in a place away from other people, is what makes one “lonely” then we would expect both Judd and barr, who each lived extremely isolated lives as the only citizens of Gothic, to fit this definition. And if they fit this definition, then we would expect those who reported on their lives to give them the label of loneliness ubiquitously. But this is not the case. Despite the striking similarities between the lives of Garwood Judd and billy barr - I mean really, how often can two people each claim to be the sole inhabitants of the same place? - the way they are described by their contemporaries varies greatly. 

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Judd, who remained in Gothic as the once booming silver town faded around him, was mainly known as “the man who stayed.” This straightforward and descriptive title was a badge of honor, the title of a true sportsman. Other newspaper clippings and historical accounts of Judd’s life describe him as “the emperor of Gothic,” “the sage of Gothic,” and “the political nestor of the Elk Mountains.” His 1930 obituary commends his many attributes at length: “a gentleman aristocratic in carriage but democratic in his friendships… handsome, gay and charming in personality… the idol of cowboy, miner and financier alike.” The piece culminates by asking what tribute would be great enough for such a man as Judd. Even though the recently deceased are typically fondly remembered, the length of obituary and sheer amount of praise indicate a genuine love and appreciation for Garwood Judd.

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In contrast, nearly every article on billy barr at some point goes out of its way to call him a “hermit.” While technically accurate (because yes, barr has chosen to live in solitude) this word seems harshly unfair in its negative connotations for a man who simply wanted to get away from the pressures of society. Especially when compared to the heroic terms used to describe Judd.

So if Judd and barr are both equally physically removed from society, why is barr characterized as a lonely hermit while Judd is praised as a steadfast constant? Perhaps to understand this discrepancy we need a more modernized definition of the word “lonely,” one that encompasses the emotional burden that we now tend to associate with it. Besides the association of the word with undesirable places away from other people, when and how did the word come to take on such negative connotations?

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The shift in the meaning of the word “lonely” reportedly coincided with  major societal shifts. Cultural historian Fay Bound Alberti explains that “Industrialization, the growth of the consumer economy, the declining influence of religion, and the popularity of evolutionary biology all served to emphasize that the individual was what mattered - not traditional, paternalistic visions of a society in which everyone had a place.” The invention of machines and rise of factory work meant you no longer had to dedicate your life to becoming a master craftsman - what a relief! Instead, you could sit or stand indoors and complete the same repetitive action over and over and over to earn your living - every person’s dream! And with the rhetoric of communal worship gradually being replaced by the rhetoric of Darwin’s “survival of the fittest,” you didn’t need to be a good person anymore, you simply needed to be better than those around you. People no longer relied on collective prosperity for their own well being. Suddenly it was more and more possible to support oneself.

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But this shift to individualism  simultaneously hurt the individual. A factory job may have meant everything to the worker whose livelihood it supported, but the worker themself meant nothing to the factory owner. Individuals held general, unspecified roles in an industrialized society and thus became replaceable.

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The prioritization of individual success rather than collective well being made it less beneficial to help those around you. Why should you give up your hard won earnings to feed the widow down the street? Especially when this would only make you less fit to complete your job the next day and she was unlikely to ever reciprocally contribute to your success? No, no. Her situation was not your fault, so it was also none of your business. And with everyone just minding their own business, suddenly your neighbors were less likely to be your friends and supporters. They might even have been your direct competitors for space, jobs, etc. Simply being in the presence of others no longer had the same healing effects unless you had a meaningful connection to the group. And those meaningful connections became increasingly scarce as time went on, with many people now blaming modern technology and social media for the lack of true interpersonal connections and the ensuing loneliness. 

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This understanding of the word “lonely” serves to explain why billy barr and I each struggled at our respective universities. We were surrounded by people, but without meaningful connections to those people, without a meaningful role in our community, the presence of others only served to exacerbate our solitude. But how does this idea of loneliness as not having a meaningful role in a community hold up in terms of the discrepancy between how Judd and barr are described? 

 By all accounts, Judd seemed to be a central character in the story of Gothic’s heyday. Despite being attracted by the silver boom, Judd held many positions in Gothic - few of which seemed directly related to mining. At various times he was elected mayor, trustee, and sheriff. He owned a popular saloon and acted as a sort of real estate broker to mediate the sale of mining claims. So maybe by becoming integral to the town and the surrounding areas before Gothic was abandoned set Judd up to retain a sense of importance and connectedness once he was alone.

 Indeed there are several brief newspaper clippings dated after Gothic’s abandonment that describe Judd’s visits to friends in nearby Gunnison. By being highly involved in the bustling mining town that Gothic once was, Judd may have felt, and set himself up to be remembered as, a highly important individual in his community. So perhaps by moving to the mountain after it was already abandoned, barr had no new community to make a space for himself within, which could explain why he is described so differently from Judd.

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 Yet this is not the case. Since his first summer of field research in 1972, barr has fulfilled a number of roles for the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL). Among them are: caretaker, librarian, dishwasher, plumber, electrician, and phone line technician. He worked for the Colorado Avalanche Center and as a Crested Butte hotshot firefighter for several years. And in 1980 he became the RMBL’s business manager and accountant, jobs he still fulfills part time today. Additionally, he is a board member of the Gothic Cricket Club, which he also founded. And, as barr often jokes, a benefit of living alone in a ghost town is that you’re the mayor, sheriff, council member, and anything else that matters by default. So although the community of barr’s modern Gothic is restricted to primarily the summer months, he has still found meaningful ways to be involved with it.

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Again, despite the differences in how they are reported on, barr and Judd both served integral roles in their respective communities. But to say that barr should not be described as lonelier than Judd because they both worked in an array of positions also seems to suggest that loneliness can be remedied by simply having a job. This is another theme that I’ve noticed throughout my single life and my research for this piece.  Single people and people who live alone are characterized as lonely, unhappy, unhealthy, and sometimes just generally undesirable. But your redeeming characteristics come from your work ethic. 

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In 2006, social scientist Bella DePaulo asked 1000 undergraduates to list characteristics they associated with either married or single people. Married people were more likely to be described as “mature, stable, honest, happy, kind, and loving.” The attributes “caring, kind, and giving” were applied to married people almost 50% of the time compared to only 2% for singles. Instead, singles were more often described as “immature, insecure, self-centered, unhappy, lonely, and ugly.” The only positive attributes handed out to single people? Independent. And career-oriented.

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This double standard by which we characterize a solitary individual is evident just in the two uses of the word “alone.” Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus defines the word “alone” in its adjective form as “separated from others; isolated.” Unsurprisingly, its synonyms include: “lone, lonesome, lonely, single.”  Even despite the matter of fact style of a dictionary, negative associations seep through this definition. But as an adverb, used to describe an action, the word “alone” comes to mean “solely, exclusively; without aid or support” and is synonymous with “independently” and “single handedly.” Apparently while English speaking societies don’t like you when you are alone, they praise and appreciate the things you do alone. 

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This sets up the expectation that although your personal life may be miserable - aw, pity - single people can still find meaning in work. I’ll admit that I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this scenario has very much been my reality during my time in undergrad. Over the past four years I’ve been lucky enough to work two jobs that I loved. I have been a research assistant in a cancer biology lab and a peer writing consultant in the campus writing center. No matter what was going on in my personal life I could count on these jobs to boost my self confidence. The boy from the bar never texted me back? Well that’s fine because I know how to establish a new cell line that can be used in experiments to better understand a life threatening disease. I was too awkward to carry a decent conversation with my friend at a party? Well obviously I’m not completely socially inept, because I just built a rapport with a total stranger before helping them entirely restructure their essay. I could always count on my performance in these roles and the impact they had on others to make me feel good about myself.

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But at the same time, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that self worth should be based solely on performance. Surely I am more than just the hours that I have put into the lab. Surely I mean more to the people around me than the help I can provide with their writing assignments. Just as Judd was more than the saloon he owned or the peace he maintained as sheriff. And barr is more than the fires he’s extinguished and the accounts he’s kept. People, even as individuals, are complex and multifaceted. To claim that the work of someone’s life and only that work is what kept them from being lonely is too simplistic.

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This is not to say that work has no meaning. As I shared before, my jobs helped keep me going through some of my toughest times during undergrad. But when I think about the importance that these jobs had to me, the reasons they were so helpful to me, it has little to do with the actual labor I was participating in. Yes, I do love science, and I do love helping people. But the importance that these jobs held for me was in the connections that I made through them. The mentoring relationships that I built with other scientists in the lab. The friendships and inside jokes that I developed with other peer writing consultants. So maybe that’s the key. Maybe Judd is described in less lonely terms than barr because the nature of his work allowed him to build stronger connections that could be maintained even after most people moved away.

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It’s true that Judd’s positions (mayor, sheriff, real estate broker, saloon owner) appear objectively more public-facing while barr’s (librarian, dishwasher, electrician, accountant) have a more behind the scenes quality. However, you can’t start a cricket club in rural Colorado without being well-liked. And many of the people who work with barr share stories about how he was the first person to greet them at the RMBL and has since been a consistent source of chocolate and conversation. He has several friends among the hundreds of scientists who flock to the RMBL in the summer months and among the year round inhabitants of the nearby ski town Crested Butte, which barr frequently visits for supplies. They describe him as a delight and a wonderful, caring, generous man who has become somewhat of a local legend. Even barr himself proclaims, “I’m a social person, I just live out here,” and explains that “In summer, I don’t shut up because I hardly talk to anyone all winter.” So by all accounts both Judd and barr have held prominent roles with meaningful connections in their respective communities.

 

Perhaps then the discrepancy in how these men have been described can be attributed to the proximity of those doing the describing. The people closest to barr describe him kindly and in ways that reflect how he views himself. Likewise, the only accounts I could find of Judd were from local or near local newspapers at the time, the writers of which likely interacted with Judd either directly or by proxy. So maybe barr is only labeled a “hermit” by outsiders who do not truly know him.

 

Both men actually received the honor of having their lives documented in film. In 1928, two years before his death, a short two reel film was made about Judd’s life. Sadly I couldn’t find more information about this production other than the fact that it existed and bore Judd’s nickname - The Man Who Stayed - as its title. barr’s life and work have been celebrated in at least two, separate, short documentaries: The Snow Guardian and Greta and the Snowman. Both films focus on barr’s unintentional but invaluable contribution to climate change research. You see, shortly after moving to Gothic, barr started recording facts about his environment - the temperature, the rain, the snow, the birds and animals he saw or found traces of. This was during the very early days of climate science, before many lay people, or even scientists, were paying much attention to trends in the weather. barr started writing his notes not because of some deep-seeded scientific nature or omniscient predictive power, but simply because he was bored. He had nothing to prove. He just wanted something to do. And he’s kept with it. Now, 5o years on the observations from his notebooks, which have since been digitized and added to a rolling spreadsheet housed on his website, have culminated in a trove of unbiased  weather data. In this way, billy barr made an unintentional but monumental contribution to climate change research. So monumental that he’s earned recognition through at least two documentaries and numerous articles on the subject. So even while barr’s character may be snubbed by outside authors, his contributions are even more widely celebrated than Judd’s. 

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But then how much do these sorts of external appraisals really matter? If loneliness comes from a lack of close and meaningful connections, then how much does it matter what people only tangentially connected to you think? Shouldn’t the people closest to you, who have the type of connection to you that repels lonely spells be the ones whose opinions most matter? And if it’s a contest of proximity and meaning, then you yourself will always be the closest, most meaningful judge. 

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Would Judd describe himself as a heroic figure like others did? He kept a diary. Or at least the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory Gift Shop claims to be selling his diary. But since I didn’t fork over $11.95 plus shipping and handling to read that diary for this piece, I’m not sure how Judd described himself. I’m not even sure whether or not he considered himself lonely.

 

But I do know that even before writing this piece, but especially during it, I have struggled to find the right words to accurately describe myself. After abandoning my “oh woe is me” ways, I came to appreciate some of the freedoms that living alone afforded. I could live as messily or as cleanly as I wanted. I never had to get approval before inviting people over. And I could listen to my music and podcasts as loudly as I wanted without headphones. Despite these luxuries, there were still times that I felt lonely and longed for the cohabitation I saw my friends partaking in.

This state of begrudging acceptance bordering on appreciation is harder to describe than the straightforward lonely terror I initially experienced.  How can I portray my lack of cohabitation, albeit in a popular city, my single status, though I rarely see it as the problem it’s assumed to be, and my stretches of solitude, which occasionally but don’t always overlap with feelings of loneliness, despite the vast connections with family, friends, and classmates that I work to maintain? Within the English language (the only one I know) I am at a loss for words.

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Several possibilities exist but none of them feel like a perfect fit. “Single” is too narrow of a category, because the type of belonging I want to feel is broader than what a romantic relationship can provide. “Lonely” is not accurate, because I am not always lonely. I actually truly love spending time alone when I choose it. “Alone” is the next contender, but in addition to carrying its own connotations of implicit loneliness, this word is limited by space and time. I am not always physically alone when I feel alone.

 

So if not “alone” then maybe one of its cousins. The closest possibility would be “lone.” But seeing as this word is often used in phrasing to describe wolves and gunmen, it has a violent, uncomfortable connotation that I don’t want to take on. “Independent” is another possibility. Yet as I am still heavily reliant on my parents, I’m not quite ready to make this claim. I know of several people who like to describe themselves as “solo.” Other generations may associate this word with a certain individualistic Star Wars character (who ironically both has a best friend and finds love over the course of the storyline). But for me, the word “solo” prompts memories of Jason Derulo’s 2010 hit “Ridin Solo.” Factor in the ensuing middle school dance memories and I think you can understand why I avoid this word too.

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The only other options I’m aware of - solitude, solitary, and unchaperoned - are all a bit too stately and outdated. And as much as I love Downton Abbey, I’m not trying to further distance myself from my contemporaries by using mildly pretentious or old-timey language.

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 So despite the aforementioned array of synonyms, there’s no perfect word in the English language to describe a state of being alone without implicit connotations of loneliness. As someone who places a lot of emphasis on the specific meanings and connotations of words, this bothers me. I’ve spent a lot of time in both my position as a research assistant and a peer writing consultant looking for just the right phrasings, the perfect ways to convey my claims and ideas in as few words as possible. If we don’t have a clear and concise English word to describe a state of solitude without the innate implication of loneliness, then how can we possibly convey that idea to others effectively? 

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The theory of linguistic relativity, also called the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, proposes that the structure of a language shapes the way that speakers of that language perceive the world, essentially how they think. In her Ted Talk, cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky describes several scientifically proven examples that support this theory. One of which is the language around directions used by the Kuuk Thaayore people, an Aboriginal community who lives in Pormpuraaw at the West edge of Cape York in Australia. While English speakers tend to describe directions and spatial relations primarily in words like left and right, centering the speaker in an egocentric manner I doubt anyone with a basic knowledge of world history would be surprised by, the Kuuk Thaayore use only the cardinal directions: North, East, South, and West. Boroditsky explains that the typical greeting among the Kuuk Thaayore is to inquire about and report the direction in which one is heading. Thus, because their language requires a constant attention to one’s orientation in the world, the Kuuk Thaayore could easily know which direction is Southwest. But if you or I had to point which direction is Southwest - an experiment that Boroditsky runs during her Ted Talk - our answers would be completely different and probably both wrong unless we got to use the iPhone compass app. Our use of the English language does not require us to pay attention to cardinal directions on a frequent basis, so we don’t know which way we’re oriented in relation to these cardinal directions throughout our daily actions.

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Another relevant example from Boroditsky’s Ted Talk is the difference in how the English and Russian languages distinguish between shades of the color blue. In English, the single word “blue” encompases all possible shades of blue. But in Russian, speakers must distinguish between shades because there is not one all encompassing word. “Instead,” Boroditsky explains, “Russian speakers have to differentiate between light blue, ‘goluboy,’ and dark blue, ‘siniy.’” She then goes on to explain experimental evidence showing that Russian speakers are both faster at discerning light from dark blue and show cognitive brain activity similar to surprise when they watch a light shade of blue shift to a dark one, or vice versa. This surprised reaction denotes the cognitive  understanding that the color somehow categorically changed. The brains of English speakers do not show the same cognitive reaction, because the color stayed “blue” without a dramatic categorical difference. Therefore, since the Russian language requires practice and attention to the distinction between shades of blue while the English language does not, it appears that Russian speakers are better able to perceive this distinction. 

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Now, imagine if the English language forced this same type of categorical distinction in the way that we talk about being alone and loneliness. Would we be better able to distinguish between times when we love being alone versus times when we hate it? I like to think that we might. So maybe we need a new word, something more like the old “oneliness” to mean on one’s own but not lonely.

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Or maybe the words don’t matter as much as we (okay, I) think they do. During billy barr’s interview on This is Love, Phoebe Judge asked him how he felt about being called “a hermit and local legend” in a 2017 story by a Denver news station. He responded with the same independent spirit that drove him to the mountains in the first place. He said, “I mean I know who I am. It’s not who I am. Not usually people’s definition of this, ya know, somebody who lives there and I wear animal skins and I have breakfast still in my beard.” This was where he interjected with his joke about cleaning his beard by lunch, before continuing on a more serious note again to say, “I for the most part am on my own, and therefore there’s a certain serenity and security in having that fixed routine. And I think that as people get older they find that wherever they live, and I think it’s even more enhanced by the fact that that’s all I have. I don’t have outside stimulation at night. There’s no interaction.” billy simply doesn’t care how others describe him, because his time alone has allowed him the self assuredness to know who he is and what he believes in. No word or label can change his understanding of himself, so he doesn’t bother with fussing over finding the “right” one. 

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Likewise, the theory of linguistic relativity (which all of Boroditsky’s examples seem to support) has been harshly criticized for the often unsupported overgeneralizations that its proponents can make and the “othering” inherent in such generalizations. Examples of linguistic relativity are difficult to prove empirically based on the extreme variability in human thought even among those who speak the same language. Additionally, the tendency to compare English or other European languages to less common, or indigenous languages serves to make the latter appear more “exotic.” Thus the types of generalizations that can arise from theories of linguistic relativity can be doubly harmful in that they have the potential to generate and or promote potentially damaging stereotypes that reinforce the existing power structures in the world. 

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In her Ted Talk, Lera Boroditsky handled these potential criticisms of linguistic relativity exceptionally well. Rather than arguing one side or the other, she simply challenged her audience to instead take an inward facing approach to the theory by using it to question their own patterns of thought. She concludes by explaining that the power of language is, “not about how people elsewhere think.” She goes on to explain that, “It’s about how you think. It’s how the language that you speak shapes the way that you think.” And from here she opens the conversation, saying “And that gives you the opportunity to ask, ‘Why do I think the way that I do? How could I think differently? What thoughts do I wish to create?’” So if the existing structures of the English language do not promote a distinction between being alone and being lonely, how might I create that distinction for myself? How do I let go of the cultural assumptions surrounding solitude?

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The time when I felt most free of labels was, like billy barr, the first time that I climbed  a mountain in the summer after my sophomore year. My back was sticky with sweat, but the cool breeze at the summit almost made me wish I had packed a jacket. I was vaguely thirsty but also acutely aware of the fact that as an inexperienced hiker I had underestimated how much water to pack for this hike. I drank sparingly, trying to conserve enough for winding switchbacks that would eventually take me back down the mountainside. I wondered if maybe I should just refill some of my empty water bottles with the water from the glacial pool. It was the bluest water I had ever seen, still cold enough to keep several blocks of glacial ice afloat despite the late August temperatures. But I decided against it, swayed by the numerous groups of tourists stripping down to their bikinis or swim trunks to see how long they could last in the frigid water - hopefully long enough to make it out to an iceberg for a killer Tinder pic. 

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I wasn’t truly secluded even at the top of the mountain. Thousands of tourists like myself flock to Glacier National park every summer and Grinnell Glacier, one of the few still standing, is one of its most popular attractions. But for some reason it didn’t matter that I wasn’t in a group of friends. I had climbed roughly 3.6 miles to gain 1840 feet of elevation. I wasn’t worried about how my body looked. I was just proud of what it had accomplished, amazed at what it was capable of. On top of that I was surrounded by the most stunning views I had ever seen in my life. Not a building in sight but I felt right at home. I had no cell reception and nowhere else to be. I could simply be. I remember breathing in the crisp air and thinking, this is where I am meant to be.

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I stayed at the peak as long as I could. But knowing it would probably take roughly as long to hike down as it had to hike up, and not wanting to get caught in the dark, I walked back to my parents to start our descent. I also wasn’t truly alone because yes, my parents had made the trip with me. They just hadn’t wanted to risk the loose gravel to get down to the glacial pool like I had. I wouldn’t have made the trip without them.

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Yes, of course I wanted them there because I love them. But there’s also a side of me that knows that, as a woman, I will probably never go hiking entirely on my own. I remember seeing several single men making their way up or down the mountain and not thinking twice about it. Just like I’m sure Garwood Judd and billy bar never thought twice about how their gender allowed them to live their solitary lives in Gothic. I also remember seeing one woman hiking on her own. Just one during a week-long hiking trip. 

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She was riding the same shuttle bus between trailheads as us and I remember being fascinated by her. Was she really alone? Or was she just on her way to meet someone at the next stop? Did she go on a lot of hiking trips alone? How cool. I wish that I could be more independent, more fearless like that.

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Because while this piece has only provided a brief overview of the history of the word “loneliness” in Western culture and the English language, it hasn’t yet acknowledged the additional gendered implications of the word. In fact, Ophelia, the solitary female counterpart to Hamlet, is one of the first characters to experience “loneliness.” This 17th century play was also written long before the industrial revolution and is often remarked as one of the first uses of the word “lonely” to imply emotional connotations. Literary historians attribute Shakespeare’s then uncommon usage of the word as a rhetorical device. They explain that while Hamlet is also primarily solitary in the play, Shakespeare allows his voice to still be heard by the audience through his many soliloquies. By contrast, Ophelia is not afforded the same voice and therefore her lack of an audience makes her lonely rather than just alone. So in a way, one of the first uses of the word loneliness with its modern connotations is also one of the first examples of the stigmatization of female solitude in the media.

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Even after the industrial revolution emphasized the individual,  laws across Europe and North America prevented women from owning property. These laws, and the societal expectations that both supported them and resulted from them, kept women reliant on men and traditional (read: paternal)  family structures. Thus, women who did not get married were often at the mercy of their family’s support and stigmatized as failures in society. 

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There are, of course, numerous examples of women who defied the expectations of paternalistic Western society and still accomplished impressive achievements, just as there are many women throughout history who were very successful while also fulfilling stereotypical gender roles. I am merely pointing out - in the most grossly oversimplified and generic terms - the ways in which women were historically discouraged from enjoying solitude. 

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So how can I learn to accept and love a state that I’ve been conditioned, taught, and repeatedly reminded to avoid? If I loved my time on the mountain enough could I ever overcome the not-unfounded fear of what could happen to me as a woman alone? It’s not that I don’t trust my abilities but more so that I don’t trust the world to leave me in enough peace to enjoy my solitude. I’ve heard too many stories of able bodied, empowered women like myself being abducted, raped, injured, and/or murdered, no matter if they’re in a city or on a mountainside, to feel completely safe while alone in either environment. So as much as I might love being among the mountains - dare I say as much as Garwood Judd and billy barr - I doubt I could ever make the type of move they did. I don’t think that their gender was something either Garwood Judd or billy barr had to worry about when they made the decision to live alone in Gothic. They could simply pick the place that they loved.

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Because that’s really the last major point of similarity between Judd and barr’s stories: they loved their environment. Both men loved Gothic and the nature of the mountain as much as anyone possibly could. A striking line in Judd’s obituary proclaims that “all Nature was God to Judd.” And barr declares his deep connection to his environment in nearly every interview he gives. He reveres the delicate balance of the natural ecosystem so much so that he refuses to adopt a dog or cat for companionship out of fear that it might disrupt the natural way of things. Fittingly, both men have structures in Gothic named for them. For Judd, a waterfall dubbed Judd Falls that has become a popular hiking destination. And for barr, the RMBL billy barr community center was established in 2015. Their love for Gothic kept them there and kept them feeling connected to something no matter how many other people were or were not around.

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Maybe that then is the answer. Something so simple. Love. Not necessarily romantic love, though for some it is. Not necessarily a love for your work, though for some it is. Not necessarily even a love for other people - just for something. And I don’t think that something has to be singular or stagnant either. 

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When I think about the things I love they change quite frequently. In high school I loved playing soccer. The practices, the games, my team all helped me get through the boring, bland, sometimes lonely parts of my days. Now I haven’t played soccer competitively for four years or at all for the last year. I still love the sport, but my love for it is more distant and doesn’t have the same type of power in my life that it once did. For the past four years, the jobs that I love have given me the type of momentum that soccer once did. A spark, a confidence, a purpose to fill my day. But there are some days where jobs are just work. And on those days I need something else. During some of the most difficult times it's my family, because I know I can go to them for love and support. Some days it’s my cat. Okay, a lot of days it's my cat. But some days it’s an iced coffee. A favorite meal. A new podcast episode. A song. A feel good movie. 

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This is actually something that billy barr and I have in common: a love for heart warming movies, chick-flicks if I must use the more demeaning label. billy watches one and exactly one romantic comedy every day, but only at night. When he’s in a bad mood on the mountain he can “adjust it” as he puts it, by watching one of his favorite movies. He also saves the most special of the movies in his collection and ones that he has never seen before, which he calls his “town trip movies,” for the days when he has to ski several miles into town for supplies. Alongside his years of weather data, billy also publishes a list of movie recommendations on his website. He has a 10 point scale ranging from exceptional (10) to awful (1) - though no movies ranked lower than an 8 make the list of recommendations. During his interview on This is Love, billy claimed that The Princess Bride is his favorite movie. While I can’t argue with that, as The Princess Bride is one of the few perfect movies in existence, I noticed that it’s listed among a few other 10’s on his official list. And it’s not at the top either.  But that’s okay. The things that we love change.

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I also noticed that another of my favorite movies had made billy’s list. It wouldn’t have been so surprising if it weren’t an obscure Bollywood movie that most Americans have either never heard of or wouldn’t bother watching. 3 Idiots is in my top 5 favorite movies of all time. So I’d love the chance to talk with billy about why he ranked it at only a 9 (which may not sound low, but remember his list only goes from 8-10, so in a way he’s kind of calling it mediocre). These individual passions, like billy and I’s love for feel good movies, can lift us up individually but also serve as shared points of connections to others. In this way, having things that you love in your life will doubly stave off loneliness. You can enjoy them on your own but also share them with others.

Yet sometimes finding things to love can be hard. And people are so unique that what one person loves may not easily translate to a point of connection with another. Likewise, some passions are difficult to pursue without other people (like soccer for me) or without certain means (like money for travel). It also just feels pretty cheap to conclude that the antidote to loneliness is love. Blah. No. While I do think that having things that you love in your life is important to loving your life no matter who else or what else is or is not in it, it’s too much of a non-answer to end with. But then again, each individual is so unique that I can’t possibly provide an answer that will be fitting and satisfying in everyone’s life.

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But maybe going back to consider something we all have in common can help uncover something close to universal about loneliness. What might that something be? Our common ancestors. Evolutionary biologists point out that social connectedness was an evolutionary advantage to early humans. Thus, social isolation would be a threat to survival. No big surprise there. But this perspective goes on to suggest that just as physical pain alerts us to an action or state that is harmful to our bodies, some form of “social pain” may act to signal that we are experiencing sub optimal levels of connection. That “social pain” comes in the form of loneliness. 

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The origin of the feeling of loneliness is remarkably (or maybe, appropriately) similar to the origin of the word. When one of our early ancestors became separated from their group, or somehow found themselves surrounded by an unfamiliar group who could potentially pose a threat, this sensation of social pain would alert them of this potential danger. And just as we wouldn’t leave our hand in a hot fire because of the physical pain it would elicit, the social pain (or loneliness) in such situations is meant to signal some change that needs to happen. Loneliness is a deeply ingrained survival tactic. It traces so far back in our history that trying to totally prevent the sensation of loneliness may be completely fruitless. But this perspective is not wholly nihilistic, because it frames loneliness not as a state of being to be accepted but as a signal to respond to. So what actions could we take in response to the signal of loneliness?

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To begin to answer this question I turn to yet another definition of loneliness (How many is that now? Four? Seven?). From a cognitive, social needs perspective, loneliness is defined as “the result of when individuals experience a discrepancy between desired and experienced levels of social contact.” I like this definition best because 1) it does not assume that to simply be alone is to be lonely 2) it leaves space for customization to the individual - you may desire more social contact than I do or the me of today may desire less social contact than the me of tomorrow - and 3) it provides two potential avenues for change. By this definition of loneliness, you have the option to respond by either changing your experienced level of social contact or altering your expectation for the level of contact you desire.

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Now, the act of accomplishing either of these responses is of course gradual and easier said than done. In some ways, it’s ultimately easier to be on your own (other than, you know, the social stigma and potential for physical harm that I’ve discussed at length throughout this essay - not to mention the financial burden I have yet to touch on). I have had bad roommate experiences in college. In my freshman year, my roommate physically bit me. Twice. While drunk. Note to self: when someone says they are a “drunk biter,” maybe pause, and reflect if this is really a person you want to make your first forays into college party culture with. Hint: It's probably not. I had bite mark shaped bruises on my arm for 2 weeks. This experience was the main reason why, after no housing arrangements worked out between myself and the few friends I managed to make at the end of the year, I opted to live alone rather than take a chance with another stranger. 

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Then, in my junior year, I was ecstatic to finally be living with the girl who had become my closest friend during my sophomore year. Long story short: after a year of disagreements over various things - mainly, whether or not her girlfriend could essentially live with us as a third, rent free roommate - she broke the legally binding lease agreement that we had signed to renew the apartment for the next year. She did this during the final exam period for the fall semester. When, in Ann Arbor, most students have already found and signed for their apartments for the next year. And the real kicker is that she didn’t even tell me to my face. She left a letter at the foot of my bed to break the news about our lease. In this letter, she also essentially said “by the way you’re a horrible person and impossible to live with and here’s a detailed list of why,” as a nice little cherry on top. She also had not told our landlord and instead left me to figure out new housing for myself as well as a way to get both of us out of paying a $2000+ lease for the next year while also studying for and taking my final exams. I had stress hives for a week.

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I don’t share these stories for sympathy, but rather as a brief explanation for why I chose to live alone in my senior year of college. It was simply easier than dealing with the uncertainty of other people, whether they were friends or strangers. It also would have been relatively easy to just call it quits on my social life. To keep my head down, do my class work, go to my jobs and not face the complications or painful sides of friendships and relationships. But my loneliness motivated me to keep reaching out. To overcome my fear of rejection (which happened quite frequently, re: Lana). To keep trying to have the type of social connections that I wanted to.

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How exactly I did this is unfortunately harder to explain. But I’ll do my best. I started by being less passive. Rather than waiting for my friends to invite me to things or even waiting until the end of the week to ask about plans, I became the planner, and I began early. Living on my own, I could no longer expect to just be lumped in with group plans at the end of the week. Nor could I expect other people’s (read: other overachieving college student’s) weekends to be as free as mine were. So by being the one to do the asking, I ensured my inclusion, and by asking early I increased my chances of hearing a positive response. 

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I also learned not to take rejection as personally. If someone was busy for X or Y reason, it wasn’t a personal reflection on me or their relationship with me. It was just the circumstances at that particular date or time. After hearing a rejection of my proposed plan, I would simply reach out to a different friend to see if they were interested. And then maybe I would reach out to the initial person to suggest a different plan for a different time.  If people couldn’t commit to fully social engagements, I’d suggest a study date or grabbing dinner together - something they already needed to fit into their day that wouldn’t be too much of an ask. I learned to be flexible and more inclusive, too. To accept when plans change (of course, we can reschedule) and to take on a more the merrier approach to life (yes of course your roommates can come!). I tried to go into every weekend with something to look forward to.

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I also learned to make plans with myself. If no one was free, I’d plan to treat myself to something I knew I’d enjoy. Usually watching 27 Dresses (my favorite romcom) and eating my favorite ice cream (Moose Tracks). Sometimes someone would reach out and a more social plan would replace these plans. But if not, I still had something to look forward to. 

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Even though I easily could have shut down, discouraged by my loneliness, I instead took this signal - my loneliness - to mean that I had to make a change. My loneliness made me become better organized. It made sure that I valued my relationships, and it made me better about putting in the effort to cultivate them. 

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This was possible for me, but I won’t pretend that it’s realistic for everyone. My advice to just work harder and make better plans borders on the peppy, independent style of a self-help book. But let’s not forget that I was privileged to have spending money at my disposal. I was privileged not to have family obligations that would eat into my free time. I was privileged to even be at a University, surrounded by like-minded individuals at the same stage of life. I was privileged to have an able body that didn’t have to worry about whether I could physically participate in whatever plan I or others made. I was privileged to be white and be able to trust that if something bad happened the police would protect rather than accuse or harm me.  All of these forms of privilege contributed to my success.

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Self-help type advice can be powerful and motivating - just look at the booming success of the genre over the past ten years. But self-help is a very white, cis, feminine, heteronormative, ableist, and often sizeist genre. It often fails to acknowledge the different power structures and circumstances that impact someone’s ability to help themselves. By not giving space to the intersectional ways in which a person’s multiple identities impact their life, by not demonstrating an understanding that each individual is coming from a different starting point with different resources at their disposal, self-help style advice sets its readers up for failure.

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This failure is only intensified by the underlying ideas that the reader is simultaneously inherently flawed and in need of fixing and that the reader should be able to help themself. To just buck up and overcome whatever obstacle is in their path. So when they can’t, usually through no fault of their own, they end up blaming themselves. Not only is this discouraging, but research has shown that across all life stages, people who “make self-blaming (internal), stable attributions for their social difficulties are more likely to experience painful feelings of loneliness.” 

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So if trying harder to gain the level of social connectedness that you desire doesn’t work, you don’t have to worsen the harm to your mental state by blaming yourself. In all reality, there are larger societal structures designed to oppress and exclude that are out of your individual ability to control. And while we need to collectively go about challenging and changing those structures, that takes time and won’t help assuage the loneliness in the present. So what else can you do? You can change your mindset.

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This change of mindset is essentially what billy barr did when he moved out to Gothic. Near the end of episode 12 of This is Love Phoebe Judge asks billy, “Do you wish you had done it differently? Do you wish that you had not gone away but stayed and found the girl and the family?” To which billy replies “I- well I was too inept to do that.” billy had already decided for himself that he was incapable of forming the types of relationships that he wanted with people in the city. And, despite all of my research and my conviction that he is a charming human being, who am I to argue otherwise? But by making the decision to live in Gothic, away from other people, billy relieved himself of the pressure of the expectation to make those connections. And he loved and enjoyed his life because of it.

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I think that this intention, and change of mindset is perhaps what sets billy barr apart from Garwood Judd. At least in respect to why they are reported on so differently. On top of the obvious decision to live alone in Gothic, and despite the near century long gap in their respective arrivals to the town, Judd and barr’s lives really weren’t all that different. They were two renaissance men, connected by their dedication to the nature and community of Gothic, and each of them has led a remarkable life. But they differ in their motivation to live in Gothic.

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Judd was drawn to the bustling spectre of a thriving mining town while barr sought respite from the pressures of modern life. There’s something heroic about being the last man standing, about loving a place so deeply that you stay while others abandon it. On the contrary, barr’s escape from modern city life - motivated not by money, or ambition, but the goal of living as his true self - can easily be characterized as just that: an escape. Staying with something you love is socially acceptable and represents a bold level of stubbornness. But abandoning the comforts of the modern world and leaving the company of your peers challenges societal expectations. It's a subversive action, a prioritization of the self over society, over capitalism - and many people indoctrinated by the American dream just don’t get it.

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But by making this mental shift, barr found the life that he felt comfortable living. And it doesn’t matter that other people might not understand his choice to leave societal expectations for his life behind. It was what he wanted, so it was what he did.

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Though I will admit that moving to live on a mountainside feels a little extreme. Desirable. But extreme. Even billy acknowledges that maybe he shouldn’t have taken such drastic measures so soon. Shortly after maintaining his social ineptitude in response to Phoebe’s question, billy adds, “But I wish I hadn’t fell into this place so quickly. Because I got out here [...] I got here at 21 and I found the place I wanted to be and I've never done anything else.” He explains that while he loved being in Gothic alone, he regrets not being exposed to more of the world before making his decision to stay there. I like to think that there is some middle ground between changing your mindset about your level of social connectedness without necessarily going to the extreme of removing all potential for finding connection.

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A few weeks ago, my friends were debating some hypothetical marriage-related situation. I don’t remember what it was. Maybe the best age to get married. Or how long you had to be together to get married. Or how cringey some wedding tradition or fad was. Whatever it was, it was definitely something judgemental that six twenty-one year olds had no business debating. But alas these are the conversations that happen when you’re drinking in a living room with the small group of friends you’ve designated as your social bubble because a global pandemic has stripped away anything you normally would have been doing on a Saturday night in your senior year of college. I digress.

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I started to chime into our pointless debate, “Yeah, I mean, like if I get married--” But before I could pass my own judgement I was interrupted by a cacophony of “Noo, stop that” and “Dude you’re so young, you’re only 21” and “You’ll find your person, just wait” and “Don’t be so cynical.” But I wasn’t trying to be self deprecating or cynical.

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At some point during my lonely college days, I made the conscious decision to shift my “whens” to “ifs” in hypothetical discussions about my future. After twenty-some years on this planet and four years of failed college situationships, I came to the rational conclusion that some things were just out of my control. These things became ifs. If I fall in love. If I get married. There were other ifs that carried an extra layer of uncertainty because, on top of being out of my control, I myself hadn’t made up my mind about if I wanted them in my future. If I have kids.

 

The shift to if wasn’t from the nihilistic standpoint that my friends assumed either. In fact it was quite the opposite. Switching to “if” became my way of freeing myself from certain expectations about my future. And there were still plenty of things that remained “whens.” When I get my PhD. When I get a dog. When I have a garden. I remained confident that all of these futures were things that I wholeheartedly wanted and knew that I could do for myself someday. 

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If I don’t accomplish my whens I’ll consider it a personal failure. The ultimate let down that I didn’t make the things that I wanted happen for myself. But the ifs fall into a different category. If I don’t accomplish the ifs, it’s likely not all my fault. Even with all the technology of dating apps and IVF in the modern world, you still need a perfect storm of coincidence and biology to fall in love and have kids. And though love is not necessarily a prerequisite for marriage, for a romantic like me, it unquestionably is. So because I do not have the final or ultimate say in any of these outcomes, they remain categorized as “ifs” and I will not judge the success or failure of my life on whether or not I accomplish them. The “whens” are in my control, so I will do everything in my power to make them happen. Whereas the “ifs,” which are not entirely in my control, might be nice if they happen, but if they don’t I’ll still be okay. 

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I like to think that between this shift in my mindset and the shift in my actions I’ve found my own version of Gothic. Rather than being the gorgeous, physical mountainside of Judd and barr, my Gothic is a mental space and in it is the assurance that I will be okay on my own. I know I’ll be okay, because I’ve equipped myself to respond to the signal of loneliness. The balance between which shift I need to make depends on my specific situation as it would anyone else's. But I’m no longer so terrified of being alone or of being lonely. I’ve learned that being alone is neither inherently good or inherently bad. It just depends. I can count on the feeling of loneliness to let me know when my state of solitude transitions from desirable to undesirable. And when it does, I know how I can respond.