Cities Can Sure Be Lonely Places

8:00am, rush hour. Streetcars, buses, pedestrians, and trains all fluidly in motion like cogwheels of a metropolitan machine. There are people everywhere, more that I’d like especially on a winter Monday morning. My MP3 headphones in my ears, hands in my pockets, my eyes are transfixed on the sidewalk in front of me as if walking on a treadmill of concrete and asphalt. As boring and impersonal as this may sound, this is my daily routine. I always wasn’t this way, you know. People seem to adapt to their environment and I’m no different. I simply go with the flow and just like the person walking next to me, in cadence it seems, I do my best to block out those around me. Through a 45-minute commute, I often go from start to finish without any human interaction, not even a “hi, how are you?”

In contrast to this scenario, ever notice how hikers always stop and greet other hikers as they step aside to let each other pass? Coming from a not-so-city-like place, this seems more natural to me. Where I grew up, the stranger you said hi to may actually know someone from your family or may be a friend of a friend. So there seems to be more accountability and this has an effect on how your treat the people around you. But why is it as the number of people around us increases, we become more secluded and withdrawn? It’s funny how humans, being social creatures, become less social in city settings. After an eight hour day I come home feeling empty, malnourished of the enriching interaction between me and my community. My neighbors whom I share a wall with may as well live 10 miles away. Despite moving in 9 months ago, I’ve yet to meet them.

Perhaps what makes a city, a city is the reason why its inhabitants are so removed from their surroundings. Cities are dynamic and fleeting, where things are here one moment and gone the next. The only constant in a city is change and nothing seems to be forever. And this goes for its people. It must be hard to pour yourself into building a friendship day in and day out only to have the winds of change wisp your friend away. Going through this cyclical rollercoaster must take its psychological toll on even the most optimistic individual. Defense mechanisms like the wall a build around me on my Monday morning commutes must be my way of shielding me from emotional disappointments.

Shame though, to go a week, a year, a lifetime without taking the chance to open my protective gates once in a while to reach out to those around me. I’m sure there are hundreds if not thousands of others thinking the same thing. I may not control the actions of others, but I can be accountable for my own. Hmm, maybe I should “forget” to bring my MP3 player when I go to work tomorrow. Who knows perhaps by extending a sincere “good morning” to you, I’ll initiate a ripple effect that’ll help bring an end to my loneliness in the city.