I Used to Hate Weekends
During the loneliest phase of my PhD, I used to dread the weekends. A quick search on Reddit shows that many people experiencing loneliness indeed dislike weekends:
I Used to Love Weekends
There was a period when I had a lot of friends that I could go to cafes with to study and spend weekends together. We would explore different areas around Hollywood and LA, grab meals together, and have house parties that involved lots of booze and conversations that stretched into the next morning.
When Friendships Took a Backseat
But they all abruptly came to a screeching halt when all of them started having girlfriends and boyfriends. They became too busy with their new lovers to spend time with me on weekends. I started to spend more and more time alone on weekends—going to the cafes alone, watching movies alone, and eating alone.
How Loneliness Changed Me
Lack of meaningful interactions over multiple months made me feel an immense amount of loneliness. I felt more sadness, had more negative thoughts, and became more cynical. I would sometimes watch two movies by myself within a week, and every single time I would cry. Even when my friends asked me to hang out with me out of the blue, I questioned their intention and assumed they were doing that out of pity and for lack of better things to do, i.e., their partners were occupied and couldn’t hang out with them.
Stuck in Loneliness with Lack of Options
I was in a long-distance relationship at that time, so using apps like Tinder or Bumble (I don’t think Bumble BFF existed back then. Still, I don’t think it works that well for guys anyways…) was not an option for me. My school was also very small (~2000 people for undergrads + grad students), which meant extremely limited opportunities for making new friends.
After all, I was a 4th year PhD student with a lot on my plate and did not have the time and energy to go out to the city and try to meet someone.
I started to hate weekends. Every weekend, I longed for Monday to come because at least during the weekdays all of my friends would come back on campus and they would be free to eat lunches with me. They would be way more responsive on texts and I might even sneak in grabbing dinners together, too.
How I Overcame Loneliness
For the first few months, I did not want to admit to others that I was lonely. However, I realized that I was not going to make it if I didn’t ask for help. I reached out to my immediate support network: my parents and my girlfriend.
My mom flew from Korea to the US just to cook for me and occupy my apartment for a couple of weeks so that I didn’t have to come back to an empty apartment after a long day in the lab.
My girlfriend and I had many serious talks and decided on a concrete plan to close the gap and for her to move in with me within a year.
Thanks to their support, I was able to make steady progress on my PhD project. And one day, I finally cracked it. I had enough data to write up a paper for publication and be eligible for graduation. With the end clearly in sight, I managed to land an internship opportunity which became a full-time position at Apple after graduation, and finally escaped the never-ending dark tunnel of loneliness.
How My Experience of Loneliness May Help You
In summary, the following 3 factors helped me overcome loneliness:
- Support from my family.
- Commitment from my romantic partner.
- Becoming unstuck from my career obstacles.
Having friends around was fun in the moment and arguably gave me some of the most amazing memories in my lifetime. However, in the moments of despair, friends without commitment weren’t able to provide me with the refuge and support that I needed to trudge through the trenches and make it to the finish line.
They say “no man is an island.” We form mini continents with people we are committed to. Non-committal relationships, on the other hand, are like cruise ships—docking at the island briefly, then sailing away whenever they please. But, man, aren’t those ships fun to have around—they can turn a mere island into a paradise.