I can’t say exactly when it happened. There was no announcement. There is no cultural agreement that we should just spend less time with each other. I don’t remember a specific day when we decided together that sitting together was no longer important. However, somewhere along the way something changed.
I remember when people were sitting around the kitchen table after dinner. The plates were still there. The coffee was cold. Someone will inevitably tell a story that we have already heard at least dozens of times. No one was particularly worried about leaving. We just sat down.
Sometimes the conversations were important. Most of the time, they weren’t. Someone complained about work. Someone talked about the neighbor. People would argue about something trivial and then move on to another topic without solving the first issue. Sometimes no one said anything at all. But we stayed.
Today, the silence seems to disturb us. When the conversation slows for even a few seconds, someone reaches for the phone. I did it. Most of us probably do. We are moving Social mediacheck an email that can easily wait or respond to a notification that feels more urgent than the person sitting directly in front of us.
We are incredibly connected, while many of us feel alone.
Maybe solitude is about being physically alone. Perhaps part of our loneliness comes from the fact that we are rarely present when we are together.
Being close to someone is not the same as being with them
Man has a deep desire to see, hear and understand. Humanistic psychology has long emphasized the importance of authentic human relationships. Carl Rogers wrote about empathy, authenticityand the value of creating relationships where people feel accepted and understood.
We often discuss these ideas within context therapy. But empathy and presence don’t just belong in the therapist’s office. Being with another person does not require clinical intervention. Sometimes it just requires a chair.
I noticed this most when I was cooking. I enjoy grilling and smoking meat, as it should be, training is slow. Brisket is irrelevant to my schedule. It can’t be rushed because I have other places to be. Sometimes it takes 12 hours. Sometimes 16. Sometimes, it seems to take as long as possible. But something interesting happens when it takes so long to cook. People are sitting.
Someone wanders outside and asks when the food will be ready. I usually make a guess that turns out to be completely wrong. Finally, someone pulls up a chair. Then someone else joins.
At first, everyone checks their phones. Then, little by little, the phones seem to disappear. Someone asks a question. The story begins. The other person remembers something and tells their own story. Soon people are talking.
Nothing extraordinary happened. No one announced that we would spend the afternoon building interpersonal relationships. No one said, “I feel lonely and would benefit from meaningful social interaction.” They just asked, “Do you have another seat?”
Maybe that’s how human connection has always worked.
Have we made connectivity too complicated?
We often talk about loneliness as if it requires a detailed solution. We download apps that help us connect. We participate in organized events. We plan social events weeks in advance. There is value in intentional communication, especially for people going through a breakup. But I sometimes wonder if we have made simple human communication more complicated than it needs to be.
For generations, collecting was just a part of life. Families ate together. Neighbors sat on their porches. Friends stopped. People spent time in cafeterias, barbershops, libraries, parks, and other places where they could talk without the official purpose of the trip.
Social scientists sometimes refer to these informal gathering places as “third places”—places outside of home and work where people can meet regularly. The key word can be informal. Connection didn’t always require an appointment.
An essential solitary read
Today, many of us move quickly from one responsibility to another. Work by email brings us home. Entertainment is readily available. Our phones offer an endless stream of information that competes for us attention. Sitting in that environment can feel unproductive. Maybe that’s part of the problem.
Human communication is not always effective. Conversations flow. People repeat. There are awkward pauses. Sometimes we talk for two hours and don’t remember what we talked about the next day. However, something happened during those two hours. We were together.
Maybe we need to learn how to stay open
From a humanistic perspective, being present with another person has deep value. We don’t always need to fix them. We don’t need to analyze their behavior, give advice, or find the perfect answer. Sometimes another person needs to feel our presence. There is a difference between listening to someone and listening to them. There is also a difference between being with someone and being with them.
Technology is not the enemy. I use my phone more than I should. Technology allows us to maintain relationships over long distances and connect with people we would never meet. But connecting at a distance shouldn’t make us invisible to someone sitting three meters away. Maybe we should get comfortable with sitting.
Leave the plates on the table for another 20 minutes. Let the coffee cool. Sit on the porch. Pull up a chair next to the smoker, even if the person cooking has no idea when it’s done. Ask someone a question and wait long enough to hear the whole answer.
And when there is a moment of silence, we may not need to immediately fill it or run away from it. Perhaps the silence between people who are comfortable with each other is not a lack of communication. Maybe that’s the reason.
We spend a lot of time looking for solutions to loneliness, isolation, and the growing feeling that people no longer understand each other. These are complex problems. A conversation around the kitchen table will not solve them.
But maybe the kitchen table is not a bad place. I still don’t know exactly when we stopped sitting together. Perhaps the more important question is when we start again. There might be an empty seat nearby. Pull it up. And stay a while.
