Alone in the sea of likes

There’s a loneliness that doesn’t come from being alone—it comes from being surrounded.

Surrounded by likes, reactions, followers, messages. Surrounded by people who “get it,” or at least say they do. Surrounded by content that reflects your values, your fears, your fire. And yet, in the moments that matter most—when your body aches for connection, when your voice trembles under the weight of all you’re holding—there’s no one sitting across from you. No hand on your shoulder. No voice in the room saying, yes, I feel it too.

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That’s the thing about digital community. It’s real—but it’s not whole.

I’m grateful for the online community. Truly. It gave me language when I didn’t have any. It helped me find others asking the same terrifying and necessary questions about collapse, extraction, growth, and loss. It showed me I wasn’t the only one waking up to the crisis of meaning and wondering what it means to live honestly inside a crumbling story.

But even in a sea of solidarity, I often feel like a body out of place. Floating.

Because the truth is: understanding what’s coming—and what’s already here—can be incredibly isolating. Not because no one agrees with you, but because in the real world, the felt world, so few people around you are ready to live like it matters.

Most of the people I care about are still caught in business-as-usual. Still chasing the dream of the good life as if it didn’t come at a cost. I don’t blame them. That dream is beautiful, and we were all raised inside it. But when someone tells me about their 250 m² summer house or their new SUV with pride in their voice, I don’t know how to meet them there. I want to. I want to share their excitement. But something in me recoils.

Because I know what that house cost—not in money, but in materials, land, emissions, ecosystems, and deaths. I know the story behind the steel, the cement, the acres cleared, the forced labor. I know that these dreams, while individually innocent, collectively erode the very ground we stand on. And suddenly, I’m not just out of sync. I’m the downer. The annoying one. The one always pointing to the cracks in the walls when everyone else wants to admire the view.

It’s not that I want to argue. It’s that I want someone to say, I see it too. I want someone to name the grief with me. To let the silence sit between us like something sacred, not something awkward. I want to be with people who don’t need me to shrink my truth to stay in the room.

Because right now, even with all the love in my life, even with all the names in my inbox and the hearts under my posts, I still haven’t seen many of their eyes light up across a table. I haven’t heard their voice tremble with conviction or sorrow. I haven’t watched their body lean in when the hard truth lands.

These aren’t small things. They are the texture of real connection. And without them, even closeness can feel hollow.

What makes the loneliness strange is that it’s not complete. I have people. I have the group chat. The thoughtful replies. The solidarity. It’s not absence—it’s disembodiment. And maybe that’s why it hurts in such a quiet, persistent way. Because it almost feels like enough. But when you’re grieving a future, or questioning everything, or trying to hold both collapse and hope in the same breath, almost enough still falls short.

This kind of loneliness isn’t dramatic. It’s not the stuff of isolation or despair. It’s subtler than that. It’s in the pause after sending a voice note. The way your body wants to reach out, but your hands meet glass. The way a post might get hundreds of likes, and still leave you wondering who would sit next to you if things fell apart.

And it’s not just about emotional comfort—it’s about the need for co-presence. To metabolize these truths not just intellectually, but physically, relationally. To hold grief together. To make meaning with others, not just around them.

I have a beautiful family. I love them more than anything. And yet—even there—my world often feels estranged. Not because they don’t want to care, but because they don’t know. And I can’t bear to always be the one to tell them. Because honestly, I sometimes wish I didn’t know. I sometimes wish I could unsee it all, rewind the years, and step back into the simpler story. The one where the future stretched out endlessly and progress was always a good thing.

But I can’t.

So I’m left trying to figure out how to live with it. How to walk with it. How to stop needing it to be easy. I don’t have a answer, just a growing list of questions I can’t seem to shake. I don’t have the answers to any of them.

But I’m trying to notice who else is sitting with these questions too.

Trying to trust that maybe I don’t need everyone—just a few people who will meet me in the space between pretending everything’s fine and believing that all is lost. This is the different way that’s I want to live now. Not in the safety of silence. Not in the comfort of being liked. But in the messy, vulnerable space of the unknown.

Because I don’t want to stay lonely in a sea of a thousand likes. Maybe by asking the questions I will find others and maybe, we’ll build something better than hope:

A kind of honesty that doesn’t turn away.

A kind of connection that dares to tell the truth.

Maybe there’s something worth building there. Maybe not.

But either way, I think it matters that we ask.

And I think it matters that we let the questions hang in the air, unanswered, without rushing to solve them.

Because maybe, if more of us allowed ourselves to feel this—the dissonance, the tenderness, the disconnection—we wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. We could stop performing hope. Stop performing strength. Stop performing anything at all.

And maybe, in that quiet space where the performance drops, something else could begin.

Not a solution.Not a movement. Not a plan. Just a moment.

Of being real.

Of being together.

Of not knowing.

And maybe—for now—that’s enough.

This article is also published on the author's blog. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.