Lonely No More: Finding Connection in RVA

Rich Meagher: Welcome to RVA’s Got Issues, a podcast about politics and public affairs in and around Richmond, Virginia. I’m your host, Rich Maher. It’s the holidays, you know, fire so delightful, the chestnuts are roasting, people are wassailing, whatever that is. It’s a great time of year, but not for everyone. For some folks, this is a time of year that hits hard, where the pain of addiction, of isolation, or even just loneliness, can make it much less joyful.

In fact, loneliness is a major problem in the U. S., in Virginia, and here in RVA. So, what can we do about it? Coming up on RVA’s Got Issues, we’re talking about how we can close the loneliness gap.

I’m joined now by Adrienne Wood. She’s assistant professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and an expert in social behavior and relationships. Welcome, Adrienne. Thanks so much. It’s great to be here. So, loneliness seems to be on the rise. The U. S. Surgeon General issued a health advisory about it last year.

Um, a recent survey conducted by the U. S. Census Bureau identified Virginia as the third loneliest state. How do you make sense of this? Adrienne, why are we so lonely?

Adrienne Wood: So, this is a question that a lot of social scientists are scratching their heads about, and everybody has their own kind of pet explanation.

The most recent, and very salient still to people, is the COVID pandemic and the shutdown that happened. So, we literally had to socially isolate, and we’re still feeling the ramifications of that. Remote work is still really, really common in lots of different settings, so people are spending less time with their colleagues, and colleagues are a major way we make friends.

Speaker 1: It’s not just working from home and being disconnected there, but it’s the layoffs, the extra work, all that stuff. So it’s like, okay, yeah, having that community is great, but having the right community.

Adrienne Wood: Another one is we live in a society that is really high in residential mobility. Meaning people from year to year are likely to be living in a different place than they’re currently living.

So Virginia is the highest state in the country for people moving from one county within the state to another. Political scientists like yourself might have a better explanation for why that’s happening or maybe the sociologists could tell us, but that is, um, a trend in Virginia that might be contributing to us being one of the lonelier states.

Rich Meagher: And that’s a big one for RVA too, like we have something like 80, 000 new people over the last few years in the Richmond metropolitan area and half of those folks are, are new people, um, from, from far away.

Adrienne Wood: Definitely. So you have a lot of newcomers who have had their entire social network shaken up and of course digital technology and phones and everything give them an opportunity to stay connected to their folks back home, their friends and family.

But that type of. Uh, talking on the phone once a week relationship is not going to be as nurturing as good for your physical and psychological health as having real face to face friendships is going to be.

Speaker 2: I think it’s hard no matter where you’re coming from, honestly, I think we’re kind of clicky. I think knowing rich and smaller, like we’re more clicky.

To the people we already know or things we already know, at least I am, um, I think it takes a lot to kind of, you have to make an effort to go out and kind of talk to folks that are not in your in group, if that makes sense.

Adrienne Wood: Another big, uh, factor that has really been emphasized over the years by Robert Putnam, who wrote a famous book called Bowling Alone, is the rise of passive media.

So in the 90s and early 2000s, he was really worried about things like TV that were making it so easy to just stay on your couch. It’s a Friday night and we as humans, we want to be entertained. We want to, you know, discover things and laugh and explore, but we’re also very lazy. We will do things with the least energy expenditure possible.

And so if there is a way for me to be entertained and feel like I’m connecting with my friends, maybe actual Cast of the TV show Friends, if I can do that instead of going out into the real world, which is, you know, hard work, it’s maybe raining, it’s cold, you’re going to meet some stranger that you don’t like, I’m going to stay home.

So, um, Robert Putnam emphasized that he thinks this availability of passive media is probably contributing to our social isolation, and then more recently in the last, You know, 20 years we have the rise of social media, which is an even more pervasive form of passive socializing. So I can sit at home and scroll for hours and feel like I’m connecting to people even though I never once have a real interaction.

Rich Meagher: This seems an especially big challenge for young people. You know, I don’t want to sound like the old man, the, the kids today with their fancy computing machines, but, but it really is true, right? That they’re, they’re not. Definitely as a stronger reliance on technology for younger folks, how much do we need to worry about what social media is doing in terms of isolating the kids particularly who are really like burying themselves in social media platforms?

Adrienne Wood: It’s a really complicated picture, and the research is still very much in its infancy. Social media gives them constant opportunities to have social interactions, and I think the good can be really good, but the bad can also be really bad. What it’s doing is creating this kind of constant barrage of social, um, interaction and this feeling of, like, always needing to be connected.

And I’m ahead of the data on this, like, the data, I can’t really speak either way, but my intuition is that, like, the pace of social interaction should be slower, and there should be a feeling of safety around interactions. If you say something, and it’s not being recorded by your friend’s phone, there’s a safety there, and there’s a moment to correct what you said.

And on social media, things can be taken out of context, and so I think that there’s just this kind of constant social threat of, like, I could be canceled, or my peers could all, like, gang up on me at once.

speaker 3 (2): If you look at like Instagram or Facebook, I think that you’re constantly feeling like other people are so busy and doing all of these fun things, which maybe exacerbates how potentially lonely you might feel.

Adrienne Wood: Another thing that I think is kind of interesting to ponder is there seems to be a trend of our society decreasing in its trust for kind of the generalized stranger. So if you think about a person you might meet on the street, people have less trust in that. Um, So, I think it seems scarier to talk to a person in a bar than it maybe did 30 years ago, at least for some people.

Um, and then one other thing I’ll mention, that I don’t know that this has been an increasing trend in our society, but it’s something to think about, uh, is we really emphasize in our culture romantic partners, and we think that our spouse or our romantic partner, um, should be kind of, you They are everything.

They should meet all of our social needs, and I think that we invest so much time into that relationship at the expense of our friendships, and so I think that’s another problem.

Rich Meagher: Right. And so none of these are sort of the magic bullet that explains loneliness, but all of them together might help us understand why this seems to be a growing problem.

Exactly. You research directly, um, how we generate our social networks, how they form, how we make connections. What does your research tell us about how we make those connections and, and maybe how we don’t make those connections, right? How it leads to loneliness and, and what we need to do about it?

Adrienne Wood: My research has been framed in terms of this trade off that we have with any choice we could make about how to spend our time.

So, uh, if you’re going to be going to a restaurant tonight, you could decide to go to a restaurant that’s your favorite and you know exactly what you want on the menu and we would call that a decision to exploit. A known resource. You know that you’re going to get something good out of this. The flip side of that Decision could be to go explore a new restaurant.

Maybe a new place opened up and you want to go try it out That’s a high risk high reward proposition. Maybe it’ll be a delicious amazing restaurant or maybe it’ll be really bad Um, so this is this kind of tension that exists in all of our decisions And I think that we need to think about how we make that decision in our social decisions So are you going to continue to spend time with the same?

best friend or maybe even with just your romantic partner at home, that would be the more exploitation. You know them, you like them, you know you enjoy your time with them, or are you going to take the high risk, high reward possibility of going to a networking event and trying to meet new people? Um, and there’s costs and benefits to both, and I think that people need to strike An appropriate balance between the two, and I think, generally speaking, people aren’t engaging in enough social exploration and finding those new ties.

We’ve seen over the last 20 years a pretty steep decline in how many friends people report having. Part of that could be because we have such a residentially mobile society at large, like the United States is very mobile. People move. I’ve moved states like five times in my adulthood, and each time I have to reset my friendship network.

for having me. Which means I need to go out of my way to explore more, like I need to really invest in trying to find those new friends.

Rich Meagher: So, going back to the exploration versus exploitation idea that you talk about, is, is the answer to combating loneliness really just as simple as Go explore more, go do more things, go do new things.

Adrienne Wood: Um, that’s the first step. You have to get out of your house, which I think is honestly the biggest hurdle for most people that I know. Is truly just not even going and tasting all the things that your city has to offer. And trying to meet people and you, it’s, It’s such a risky, scary thing, like people are terrified of talking to strangers, but all of the research in my field suggests that that fear is somewhat overblown, so people expect that talking to a stranger will just be horrible and awkward, and maybe they’ll be weird, or maybe, um, they won’t like the person, or the person won’t like them, but most of those fears are not supported by actual experience, so there have been some really clever experiments where people were forced to go talk to a stranger on the bus, Subway or whatever.

And people enjoyed it more than they thought. Um, the other thing to keep in mind that I think gets in the way of people’s willingness to go out and meet others is you are more interesting than you think you are. So there’s some really cool work by my colleagues showing that even after a conversation has happened.

You know, you leave that conversation ruminating, if you’re like me, ruminating about the most awkward weird thing you said, like, oh, I can’t believe I said that one thing, or like, I can’t believe there is that weird pause, and that person clearly doesn’t like me because they weren’t responding to me in the way I expected, or whatever.

The other person’s probably not thinking about those things, and you are probably underestimating how much they liked you. So just keep that in mind, this is, everybody feels this way, everybody feels like they are awkward and uninteresting, or they talk too much, or whatever, but it’s less true than you think.

And then once you get those interactions going, just try to kind of nurture and water that friendship. Friendships take time. One study suggested that, um, good friends emerge after 140 hours of interaction, and best friends emerge from 300 hours of interaction on average, and obviously that’s just like an oversimplification.

But it’s going to take time. time. Um, so I think investing that effort is going to pay off. I don’t have advice for like, how to talk to another person because I think the best thing is to be genuine and just express vulnerability, reveal parts of yourself. If you don’t put yourself out there, you’re not going to like have a true friendship.

And that act of authenticity is going to look different for everyone.

Rich Meagher: Adrian Wood is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. Thanks so much, Adrian. Thank you. Coming up on RVA’s Got Issues, we’ll find out how people facing addiction and recovery are especially vulnerable to loneliness, and how talking to someone who’s been through it all can help them make it through.

Then we’ll talk to the founder of a group that helps people get out of the house and make connections, and do this thing we call adulting. All that coming up on RVA’s Got Issues.

The holidays are a time of good cheer, but this time of year can be especially hard on RVA’s most vulnerable residents, including those in recovery from addiction. Alive RVA tries to help. Alive RVA operates what’s called a warm line, a phone line that’s not as hot as a 911 emergency, but it’s staffed by recovery specialists who can help out a caller when they’re having a really tough time.

Joining me now is Linda Clark, who is the team lead manager of the Alive RVA warm line. Welcome, Linda. Thank you. So, Linda, let’s start with this warm line idea. Who’s calling in? Like, is there a typical caller?

Lynda Clarke: Well, we get a plethora of callers. We might get someone calling in, they want to go into treatment because they’re tired of using substances.

We might get a call for someone that needs housing that’s in recovery, but they don’t have the funds to go into a recovery house. We have people calling for food. We have people calling for shelter. We have people calling for clothing. So our line serves a plethora of resources. We have resources for basically anything that you might need.

But our main resource is recovery and mental health.

Rich Meagher: And so, who’s on the other end of the line? So who’s answering the phone when these folks call?

Lynda Clarke: Okay, so we are all peer recovery specialists and all of us are trained, all of us are in recovery for our mental health and substance use disorder. So we already have experience of what they’re dealing with, what they’re feeling.

And a lot of times they call and they say they call for one thing, but they end up telling me something different. And why do you think that is? A lot of times people with mental health and substance abuse disorder, they don’t know who to trust. And then they’re scared that they’re going to be judged.

And I always tell them, this is judgment free zone right here. Um, I’m not here to judge you, I’m here to help you.

Rich Meagher: Imagine this could be time intensive, right? How much time do you spend with each caller, uh, to try to balance, like, can we help them versus trying to help as many people as possible?

Lynda Clarke: Twenty to twenty five minutes is our max.

But if it’s extenuating circumstances, then we will stay on longer. Um, since it’s somebody talking about taking their life, we will spend more time talking to them. Most of us are certified suicide assist trainers, so we can sort of talk them down if they don’t have a plan. And then if they do, we will use our own personal phone to dial 9 1 1 while we keep them on the line.

And so, what do you do when you experience that? You talk to them. I tell them about my experience with that. And what I did to, uh, bring it, um, back in. Usually as we talk, they get a little more comfortable. I think the most challenging calls we get are those that tell us, if I left today, nobody would miss me.

People that tell us that, um, they feel like that they just don’t want to be here anymore. You just keep talking, just keep talking. And all of the times that I’ve experienced it, we had a really serious one last week. A man lived in Missouri when we were in Virginia. And we were calling around to the police station, trying to find.

The Richmond police or Chesapeake police to tell us how to get to the Missouri police to help this man.

Rich Meagher: Were you able to get in touch with the Missouri police?

Lynda Clarke: Yes, we were able to keep him on the phone and we were able to get our crisis unit to his home. We were, and we made him promise to call us and he did call back and he thanked us.

Rich Meagher: So Linda, you talked about how, you know, you You tell the folks who call a little bit about, you know, what you’ve been through, um, but I mean, just to kind of clue our listeners in on what that actually means, like, what have you been through? I mean, as much as you’re willing to talk about it.

Lynda Clarke: I went through a 25 year substance use disorder, and that was using crack cocaine and heroin, um, in 2008.

I chose another path after coming out of a program in the Richmond City Jail called the Belief Program. And I learned some things about the disease of addiction, and I learned what it did to my body, what it was doing to my mind, and I learned, I got some skills as to why. I was doing it. I didn’t know that I was dealing with rejection and resentment and abandonment.

I didn’t know any of that. I lost a lot of friends. Um, I’ve lost a sister to an overdose. I lost another sister as she stopped. Her body was getting shut down. She was getting sick. And I made a decision when I decided to walk this journey that it didn’t make a difference who came, who stayed, who died, who lived.

I was not doing that anymore. And I had to walk that through that and not put a substance in my body. And I also, I would tell anybody, it’s okay, um, to go to meetings, it’s okay to go to church, and it’s okay to have a therapist. And I got me one of those. So I began to share things with her and explain to her how I was feeling, um, because at first, when you first start going to meetings, you don’t trust people.

You don’t trust people to tell them your innermost stuff and that’s the difference in that warm line. You can tell us anything in the world and it stays right there. We don’t even talk about it amongst each other. So, I think that for me, having the warm line helps my recovery too.

Rich Meagher: One of the reasons we wanted to talk to you is that the holidays can be a really tough time for people and, and so you, you were hinting at this before, but what are some of the extra challenges that, that folks face that might lead them to your warm line, particularly those folks who are in recovery?

Lynda Clarke: When you’re in active addiction, you, um, Burn bridges, if I can use that word, a lot of times with family, and they have not yet accepted you back, or you’ve been in recovery before and you went back out and relapsed. So it takes a minute for family to sometimes come around, and or friends or spouses. And a lot of times it’s loneliness, and it’s a time when a lot of them be thinking, well I just really used today.

It’s a sad time for some people. The call volume tends to go up, and a lot of people don’t go to family functions because they’re going to be drinking. And if you’re suffering with alcoholism, that’s a trigger for you. And that’s another reason that the isolations show up, because they’re not strong enough yet to go in the presence of all of that.

Some of us, as we grow, we become, you know, rooted in what we are doing. But when you’re new in recovery, that can be a trigger for you.

Rich Meagher: And what do you do to cope during the holidays? I imagine it’s, it’s not easy for a lot of people, but what do you, what do you do?

Lynda Clarke: Go to meetings, um, I have a 10 year old now that I’m raising, so she keeps me on my toes.

Um, I’m at, I’m 16 years in now, and I’m at a place now where, um, that’s, that’s behind me. And, um, if that’s what you do, that’s what you do. I don’t hang out with people that use substances. No, I can’t do that. But I have family members, they still drink, and I go around people, but that’s what they do. I’m not easily tempted by any of that.

And so, how do people reach the Warm Line? We have a, um, Facebook page, we have a website, but we have a 833, um, number, a toll number that they can dial.

Rich Meagher: It’s 833 473 3782.

Lynda Clarke: Yes, that’s it.

Rich Meagher: Linda Clark is the team lead manager for Alive RVA. Thanks so much, Linda.

Lynda Clarke: Welcome. Thanks for having me.

Rich Meagher: Finally on this episode, RVA’s got friends. If you try hard enough, we’re shining our community spotlight on Sam Littered, founder of Trying to Adult RVA, a meet up group designed to help grown ups make friends. Welcome, Sam.

Sam Lydard: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Rich Meagher: So, Sam, we just met, uh, but you Seem like a lovely person.

Why do you need a group to make friends? Right? Shouldn’t you have all the friends

Sam Lydard: already? That’s an excellent question. And it’s a good one because it’s, it’s hard and it seems like it should be easy. Um, but it’s hard and it’s getting harder as things in our world change. Where do you go about making friends?

Do you go to the grocery store and say, That’s some great apple juice. I love the same thing. Like, that doesn’t happen. So how do you make friends in a world like this? And there really wasn’t a way that was working for me when I moved here in Richmond. So I was, I decided that I’m just going to figure it out myself.

Um, and that’s what brought the idea for Trying to Adult RVA.

Rich Meagher: So you created this group, Trying to Adult RVA. So why that name? Where’d that come from? You

Sam Lydard: know, it’s really funny. As I was. Planning the group and thinking about it. I was just on my couch and I was like, what’s the hard part here is. Being an adult is hard, finding friends is hard, but we’re trying, we’re, you know, I think my generation is like continuously trying, we’re trying to make it in this economy, we’re trying to buy houses, we’re not quite succeeding at it yet, but we sure are trying, so that’s how it came to be.

Rich Meagher: Yeah, so when you say it’s like hard in this world, like what do you mean, like what are the things that make it hard?

Sam Lydard: I think what really makes it hard is we are such a digital world, we live behind our phones now, we. date behind our phones. We shop behind our phones. Um, you can really not leave your house if you wanted to.

And that’s kind of what takes away from making friendships too. You’re not going out and about as much. You’re so used to the immediate that you need something to help push you to get outside of behind the phone.

Rich Meagher: Yeah. And it’s also a kind of young adult issue too. If we back this up a little bit, right, you moved to Richmond in 2018, right?

And so you were up in New York, you’re in college, and then you get here to Richmond. What’s different about it that makes it seem like it’s lonelier and harder?

Sam Lydard: Yeah, what’s different for me, at least, was I didn’t have that school community. You know, when you’re in school, you’ve got the That community around you of other people in the same boat, you’re forced to go to places, you’re forced to get involved in things.

When you move as an adult, you move somewhere, you don’t know anyone, you don’t know where to start. You don’t have that first foot in. You may have your coworkers and stuff, but you still don’t have that fun environment that you did from school. So that was what was different for me.

Rich Meagher: You could try to recreate that with your coworkers, but that causes all sorts of problems too.

Maybe if you get a little chummy with everybody, right?

Sam Lydard: Exactly.

Rich Meagher: Yeah. So, so what did you do?

Sam Lydard: So, I tried a few other groups on Meetup first. Um, when I was in college, I wrote my master’s thesis on blockchain. So, I went and joined a Bitcoin blockchain group, um, which was fun, but I walked in and I was like, Oh, I’m I don’t fit in here a little protest.

Yeah. So there’s like, and they were great groups for what they were designed to do, but none really felt like the group for me. So what I did was I’m going to just plan events that I want to go to and see if anybody happens to go with me. And what I wanted to do was wineries and check out the brewery scene and Scott’s edition, um, do fun cooking classes.

So I just plan those events. And what was shocking to me at the time was, A lot of people wanted to come too, a lot of people wanted to join too, and that was what was really awesome, that people wanted to do the same kind of fun activities that I was looking to do.

Rich Meagher: Yeah, so what kind of events are you setting up for trying to adult RVA?

Sam Lydard: Yeah, there’s, there’s a lot, and I really intentionally try to make it appeal to a lot of people. Um, it would be very easy for me to make, A girl’s group that goes to brunch on the weekends because that’s what I love to do. But I wanted to make a group with activities that appeal to everybody. So we don’t just have drinking events.

We have cooking classes. We have volunteer events. Um, we have book club. We have all these different events that appeal to different interests and hobbies. And if something’s not your cup of tea, which we do have tea events as well, come to another event, try something different.

Rich Meagher: So say I come to one of these events, your, your tea tasting event, or you’re at the ice hockey rink or the cooking class, right?

Say I walk in, what, what, what am I seeing? Who’s there? How do I even find you? Like, how does that work?

Sam Lydard: Yeah, uh, great question because that was what was important to me is I know that First step into an event is what’s going to be the most anxiety inducing. You’re walking into a new room. You don’t know anybody.

One of the things I didn’t like most about other meetups was you go up to all these tables and you’re like, are you the meetup group? And they’re like, no. And you’re like, Oh, sorry. Um, and so I wanted to take away that burden of anxiety of that first event. So when you come to a trying adult event, when you walk in, first of all, we’ll describe where we are on the meetup app.

We’ll tell you, like, even if it’s obvious, even if it’s obvious, The first table on your left will tell you where you are. So if you’re sitting in your car, you can take that out of the way that you know exactly where to go. When you come into the building, wherever we’re at, you’ll see our trying to adult logo sign.

So you’ll see where to go. You’ll see that’s the crew. As soon as you walk up, we also have a ambassador that’s going to be the host of the event, whether it be me or one of my amazing volunteers on the team. They’re going to greet you because everyone’s got to look when you come into the group, when you’re looking, you, you, you know that like, Oh, I think they’re with us.

You walk up to the table and they’re like, Hi, how are you? What’s your name? Um, and that’s really what I love the most about this group is everyone’s there to make friends. So everyone is friendly.

Rich Meagher: And so what kind of people are we talking about? Like, is it all, you know, sort of younger professionals? Is it like a, what kind of groups do you get there?

Sam Lydard: Yeah, it really ranges. I’d say are. Target age range of where we’re at is like twenties and thirties, but that does not mean it’s a cap. We have plenty of in their forties, fifties, um, so on and so forth. It’s truly anyone looking for friends. So you could have people that are single, people that, um, moved to Richmond two weeks ago and are ready to get their feet wet.

It could be somebody that recently got divorced and is ready just to like try new things in life. It really can be a diverse Selection of people. We do have strict rules. So like, if you make somebody uncomfortable, you’re going to get a conversation from us because we want to make sure that we uphold that environment that feels safe and welcoming for everyone.

Rich Meagher: So it’s a lot of work here that you’re doing. Why keep it going? What, what brings you back to it?

Sam Lydard: Truly, it’s the people, which seems like such a cliche answer, because I think everyone that says, why do you love your job? And you’re like, it’s the community and the people, but no, it genuinely is. I have people that come up to me after events and they say, you know, I’ve lived I’ve been doing this for four years and haven’t found my community, but I am leaving with brand new friends, or I see people after one event exchanging phone numbers, or I Facebook posting photos together, and you know, there’s been some really impactful conversations that people have had with me of what I’ve done.

This community has brought to their lives and brought them out of depression spirals and things of that nature and those are what make this valuable and you know, I had the same struggles when I moved here and I can see people with the same thing and I want people to experience what I have and I have amazing friends from this group now and I would love to give that to everybody who’s in the same struggle bus that I was in.

Rich Meagher: Sam Littered is the founder of Trying to Adult RVA. Thanks, Sam.

Sam Lydard: Thank you.

Rich Meagher: That’s our show. Thanks to our guests, Adrienne Wood and Sam Litterd. Thanks especially to our guest, Linda Clark of the Alive RVA Warmline. If you’re in recovery and need help, or if you’re anyone who might be lonely and need someone to talk to, the Alive RVA Warmline is open 8 a. m. to midnight, 365 days a year.

You can reach them at 1 833 4PEERVA. That’s 1 833 4PEERVA. It’s the end of the year. RVA’s got issues. We’ll be taking a little break. We’ll be back early next year with more stories about all the important issues in RVA. What’s happening, what’s next, and what you can do about it. In the meantime, tell us what issues you think are important.

Submit a question or comment at our website, rvasgotissues.vpm.org. RVA’s Got Issues is produced by Max Wasserman and Amber Coles and edited by Steve Lack. Our theme music was composed by Alexander Hitchens. Meg Lindholm is our executive producer. Steve Humble is VPM’s chief content officer. I’m your host, Rich Marr.

Thanks for listening.