10 Uplifting Reasons You’re Never Alone

Everyone gets lonely sometimes, even the popular people who seem glutted with interpersonal relationships and regular human contact. It’s perfectly natural to feel alone, though not at all enjoyable. One way to return to emotional homeostasis is by reminding yourself of all the reasons even though you might feel alone, you’re actually just fine, everything is fine.

1. You Can Reconnect With Friends From High School

If you haven’t spent the time and effort to maintain relationships with old friends, you might experience the occasional bout of loneliness. Thanks to Facebook, though, relief is just a wall post away. Don’t be afraid to call up Heather from 11^th grade math class and reminisce about kicking her shin, putting mashed potatoes down the back of her shirt, and drawing a penis over her face in her yearbook. Everything’s funny in hindsight! She might ask why you’re calling a few times before consenting to speak with you, but don’t be discouraged. After she hangs up to “go do something at a place”, remind yourself to call again tomorrow.

2. You Can Call Your Family

How about a nice long phone conversation with the father you haven’t spoken to for 8 months regarding your isolation and fear of dying alone. When he answers the phone, he says, “What could you possibly want?” You tell him you just want to hear another human voice, that you filled your apartment with mannequins, but it’s okay. They’re just to keep you company until humanity stops emitting billowing black plumes of disdain into the atmosphere. He chugs his gin and 7Up and rubs his temples. “What is this? What are you talking about right now,” he says. “Where is your mother?”

3. You Can Stick Googly Eyes On Everything

In my experience 90% of social fulfillment comes from eye contact. That’s why a great way to alleviate loneliness is to cover every available surface area with 10,000 googly eyes. Everywhere you go in your apartment, you’ll feel as if you’re being observed by 5,000 roommates. That’ll be so comforting, all those lidless inanimate eyes watching you sleep. And best of all, you can’t escape their affectionate gaze, no matter where you hide. Even in your dreams, you’ll see the googly eyes floating monolithically in a soundless black abyss, staring into your soul, seeing your secrets.

4. Millions of Bugs Live in Your Walls

If you listen closely, you can hear tiny insect feet scuttling through the internal architecture of your apartment, gorging on the flora and fungi growing on the pipes. Look: a house centipede crawling along your ceiling; and there: a baby cockroach limping across the floor after losing two of its legs to a wad of gum. They can be your friends—your Joey, Rachel, Ross, and Chandler. And you can be their Phoebe. Feel a hundred bedbugs crawl up your legs like a bloodthirsty pair of pants and know this is love in its deepest, most primal form. Your friends love you, Phoebe.

5. You Can Hug Yourself

By wrapping your arms around yourself, you can imagine you’re being hugged by another person. That’s really all there is to it.

6. You’re Always Surrounded by Ghosts

Practically every location on earth is the scene of someone’s gruesome demise. In fact, this planet is little more than a colossal graveyard, a necropolis spinning pointlessly through space, waiting to be burned to dust. This is great for you, though, the chronic lonely person, because it means your bedroom’s likely haunted by at least 8-10 ghosts. For a nominal fee, a psychic medium will connect you with the tortured souls lost in the godless hellscape between life and death, so you can all be best friends. Teach your ghost roommates to communicate through knocking or unearthly shrieks, though mostly all they say is, “It never ends, never ends,” and “Is this death?”

7. You Have a Jar Full of Bugs

You can’t possibly be lonely, not when you have that glass jar full of bugs you gathered from around the apartment over several months. Under the covers, hug the jar close to your chest, feel the organic mass crawling inside, the pulse of life. You keep it with you at all times, hidden under your shirt.

8. Your Mannequins Are So Lifelike

Those retail display mannequins you stole from Forever 21 can provide a comforting simulation of human company, especially when crammed into your tiny bedroom. Seen in your peripheral, you might even forget they’re plastic figures, lifeless, cold, devoid of soul. They have surprisingly expressive faces, one with his arms posed jauntily on his hips. That one’s my cool friend, you think semi-consciously. You put a fedora on his head and kiss his cheek. “Good morning, Hugo,” you say to him. He stares vacantly out the window at an empty parking lot. “Hugo,” you whisper. “Hugo, it’s your biiiiiiiiirthday.”

9. You Can Listen To Your Neighbors

No one to talk to? Put your ear to the wall and listen to your neighbors shuffling around, talking about boys and work. Imagine what incisive remarks you would contribute to their conversation: “I agree, of course, Cindy, but once healthcare costs are more equitably distributed, Americans will embrace it,” or “45 minutes? I don’t do anything for that long except sleep and complain! Haha! Listen to me! I’m outrageous!” You write fanfiction dialogue for the ideal conversations you’d have with these neighbors, full of witticisms and snappy retorts. This is enough, you think. I can be satisfied with this.

10. Your Belly is Full of Bugs

After swallowing that jar full of bugs, your belly is filled with companionship. You used to walk around, feeling so alone, so hollow inside. But now, you carry your friends where they belong, swimming in your stomach acid, furiously climbing the sides of your stomach, thoraxes and spiracles liquefying, filling a void you thought couldn’t be filled. You’ll never feel lonely again.