Transcript
Speaker: Hey, you're listening to the Let's Heal Already podcast for the sometimes impatient, sometimes cranky person doing some healing. And I'm your host, JR. I'm an author, actor, and speaker from Far Rockaway, New York. And on this podcast, you'll hear me cover ground on a variety of topics from mental wellness and emotional literacy to blackness to masculinity and femininity to ending misogyny and patriarchy to last but not least, bisexuality and ending sexual shame.
Speaker: Here's a quick announcement. My new book is available for pre-order now. Dear Bi-Men, A Black Man's Perspective on Power, Consent, Breaking Down Binaries, and Combating Erasure is being published by North Atlantic Books and distributed by Penguin Random House. This book is a powerful resource for Black bi men to reclaim their identity, counter biphobia, and get empowered, and an offering to all readers looking to thwart the erasure and dehumanization wrought by patriarchy.
Speaker: The anticipated publishing date is April 2024. but you can pre-order it now. Also, Sometimes Impatient merch for people who are working on it is now available too. We got tote bags, t-shirts, hoodies, and pillows.
Speaker: Lastly, we have Patreon. If you like the podcast as is, there's way more in-depth podcast episodes and other goodies over on my Patreon. Tap in. Hey, what's up? It's been a minute. I know. The last episode that I put out was on January 8th.
Speaker: It was about decluttering, fashion, and the human mind. And what a whirlwind it's been. Today is the last day of April for me. Not sure when this will come out.
Speaker: But yeah it's been a couple months and since then I've put out a book. My book has come out. It's out globally. Dear Bi Men. All about my experience as a black bisexual man and it's a lot about me unlearning respectability politics as a black person and also as a bisexual person. And I think it'll resonate with a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons. And I'm actually really curious to hear what some of those reasons are.
Speaker: But um yeah, I want to just kind of let y'all know where I'm at and also what this episode is going to be. Basically, I'm not doing the best right now, but I'm like, you know what, let me just... Turn on the microphone and maybe me talking and the vibrations will help. You know what mean? Like the the vibration of my voice will help.
Speaker: That's what I mean. So, yeah, today's topic I wanted to talk about... Loneliness and loneliness in adulthood in particular.
Speaker: So for today's episode, I'm going to do a lot of talking about adult lolinelineette loneliness and some of the differences that I've observed, especially from now versus when I was a child and also I'm going to give some tips as to how to combat that loneliness.
Speaker: However, I'm only going to make that available for my Patreon subscribers. So there are tons of episodes of this podcast that are available for free. But I think from now on, what I'll start doing is as I do episodes, I'll cut them up. And the first half of the episode will be available for free. And then the latter half will be available for patrons at the $5 level, which is very affordable.
Speaker: And, you know, this has been a long time coming, but I did want to build up the podcast in terms of like actual resources that are available for people at no cost, like zero cost, you know, before I started to make it available for people who or patrons and who can afford to dish out $5 a month, you know.
Speaker: I am a mental wellness advocate, have been for a while. I am a person who started going to therapy in late 2011, early 2012, and so I've been on this mental wellness journey for quite some time. I've been doing it since before it was cool, and I try to encourage other people to do it.
Speaker: And just really look within and have and develop a relationship with themselves. And i feel like that will inevitably help the world. But maybe that's also so a little naive. Maybe that's also because I have other politics in conjunction with that. So it's not just me looking within and wellness and feeling good about myself and having a relationship with myself.
Speaker: But it's also me having these political commitments. So commitments to things like black feminism, black liberation, indigenous movements for land back movements all over the world and being decolonial, interested in decolonization, you know? So I think maybe those in and conjunction with what I mentioned before is what is making me feel like, oh, if everybody just looks within and develops a relationship with themselves, you Well, that alone is not enough to transform the world, in my opinion. It's not enough to begin to address harm and and and create a culture of justice and safety and reciprocity.
Speaker: It has to come with other commitments. I know, I know, I can hear you grunt now, but in my experience, it it that's just true. It loses its teeth without the political commitment, you know? If everybody's just like, oh yeah, let's just wellness and look within and, you know, bastardized versions of Buddhism, right? Uh,
Speaker: a lot of people use that to escape a lot of people use that to escape their ah power and their privileges or in in the material world and a lot of people use that to evade accountability and responsibility to other people and responsibility to concepts like justice really so i just wanted to say that before i get into some of the content of today's episode okay okay So as I mentioned and before, today's all about adult loneliness and I wanted to talk about this really because I've been experiencing it tremendously and it's such a weird, complicated, funny thing and it strikes different people for different reasons. you know i think that I have been increasingly aware of like some of the solitude and loneliness of adulthood over the last couple of years. And I've been processing this thing when it comes to like gender in particular. I've probably talked about it a lot on this podcast, but I i kind of be forgetting what I'll be saying. I'm going to say it again. um
Speaker: I grew up with girls ah pretty much exclusively being my friends. with I have older sisters and I spend a lot of time with my mom. So um and and like aunts in the neighborhood, women older women in the neighborhood. And so that's like my center. And like I'm used to being around girls and women and that's just like normal for me.
Speaker: And um that persisted throughout junior high, high school, and then I would say even college too, especially first year college, 100%. I was almost exclusively around women my first year of college. And then when I went to my second and final school, I was a transfer.
Speaker: um is when I kind of was like, okay, I feel like I'm already good at this. I feel like I am really good at connecting with girls and women and making friends with girls and women. I wanna make friends with boys and men, you know? um I wanna like start to get better at this skill and stuff. And so in my final college, um I started being closer with like more boys, even though still was like predominantly surrounded by a lot of girls. But yeah, I've like kind of for the first time I had like a lot of like male friends. Flash forward to now and um I would say over the last couple of years what I've been experiencing as masculinity and heterosexuality has been projected on me onto me increasingly is
Speaker: falling away of like a lot of female friendships and that sort of ability and um it's just this weird feeling because it feels like the more that a good amount of women find me like physically attractive and actually would be interested because i appear more masculine the less I'm able to be friends with women or have women as friends and like that's so it's like such a weird experience for me to be having um because I feel like like I said before I was surrounded by women but a lot of that was because maybe a lot of them thought I was gay even when I was like oh no I'm bi
Speaker: Whereas now i feel as though, and like back then, I don't know that I was super desirable to all of them. Maybe I was desirable to some or whatever here and there. But as i gain more desirability because masculinity is more often projected onto me, I am becoming more desirable in a romantic or sexual way, but not in a friendship way.
Speaker: And that is like really fucking with my mind. And it is a particular kind of loneliness because it's not just, oh, like I'm not friends with women anymore, even though I do have like some friends who are women.
Speaker: um I'm not friends with women anymore, but it's like this loss of the feeling that, oh, I could just be a fly on the wall in the presence of like a lot of women where because they saw me as a gay boy.
Speaker: Whereas now, more often than not, they see me as straight or bisexual. And so the conversations being had around me or while I'm in the room are just not the same.
Speaker: And so like, it's it's a loss of intimacy is what I'm saying. um And I just find that so fascinating. And I really wonder if anybody else listening has a similar experience, because it is such an isolating experience.
Speaker: I don't know that many people with the same experience of like being perceived as gay or more feminine when they were younger. And then as they get older, they are perceived as straight or more masculine.
Speaker: And so they're having that experience of being sort of not considered as a friend anymore, but being considered as a romantic or sexual partner. But before, They weren't considered as a romantic or sexual partner and only were considered as a friend. So yeah, please let me know if any of you have had this same or similar experience because I feel like, you know, today's topic is loneliness and
Speaker: it is so isolating, like this particular thing, you know what I mean? Bisexual boy problems, oh my god. So yes, so the reason why I brought all of that up was because everybody experiences adult loneliness in a different way and there are different like causations or catalysts for that feeling. For some people,
Speaker: It moving away from home, moving away from your respective country or state or friend group or losing family or becoming married or becoming divorced.
Speaker: And so the catalyst for all of us experiencing this is different, but it is just like so common that adults experience loneliness. Something that I recognized too was that like,
Speaker: as a kid you're always around people and and to be fair i did feel very very lonely as a child especially as a feminine bisexual black boy but i was constantly around people and so maybe that kind of felt a little worse yeah that felt real bad too i remember that too i don't want to like what is that romanticize the past right make it seem like oh when i was a kid it was great i was not lonely at all no i definitely was But I guess as a kid, there was just way more opportunities to be social. There were way more social events. There were way more social things. There were maybe more way there was way more time for socializing. And, you know, i guess like how I feel now is I spend so much time at work, so much time with people who have a different set of values than I do and have a different set of like socializing skills and
Speaker: ability for depth and ability to hear me as they expect me to hear them that is like a very particular feeling too like to be around people for a third of my life right because they say like you spend a third of your life at work if not more child um but yeah you spend a third of your life at work or like a large percentage of your life at work and And you're having conversations with people who it's very clear they don't care about your well-being and your internal world.
Speaker: They don't give a fuck. They do not care. And like that is so there's something about that that feels so wrong and like. painful to spend so much time with people who you know don't care about you and who are exploiting you if they are like employers under you know this current system so I want to like talk about that and like how devastating that has been for me because it's not been fun and i know that for a lot of people it's not and especially if you're not like a high way wait high income high income person high high wage what is it i y'all get what i'm saying you don't make a ton of money not to say that just because you make more money it's um the feelings maybe aren't as severe but i guess you might have justifications even though it still might be debilitating too but um
Speaker: High income earner. Yes, that's what I was looking for. Right. Yeah. So it just is like. it It's so demoralizing is is really probably the best word for it is demoralizing to spend so much time with people who don't care about you and are not afraid to let you know that, oh, yeah, there's nothing about your feelings. This is about work.
Speaker: And, you know, i mean, it doesn't get more inhumane than that, does it? um But yeah, like, it's just such a, there's such a coldness and such a quiet to adulthood.
Speaker: There is such an emptiness, I find, in adulthood. And um I know i'm not the only one. And um I guess what I feel is is frustration because, you know, a lot of us feel this...
Speaker: loneliness, this coldness of adulthood. And I guess I just feel frustrated that I don't see more people making an effort to be better community members, you know?
Speaker: And um that sucks. that That's isolating too. Feeling like, oh, okay, like we have a common problem and it doesn't have to be like this. Let's solve it. Okay. Like I'll create something or somebody else will create something and I'll go and I'll support and blah, blah, But like,
Speaker: It feels a lot of times like it's just me and one other the person trying to like make this community thing a thing. Like stop trying to make fetch happen. It's never going to happen. It feels like that, you know? So I wanted to talk about this article on loneliness.org. and i will definitely link it below.
Speaker: I'm just going to breeze through these things and that'll be the end of the episode for the non-paid members and then I'll go on for the paid members.
Speaker: So this article talks about some of the causes of this extreme loneliness in adulthood. Feeling huge responsibility for the lives of children, spouses, and elderly parents.
Speaker: Feeling like a failure. All your friends seem to have better lives. Being scared with the possibility you will be next to be diagnosed with terminal illness.
Speaker: Perpetually anxious. No matter how hard you work, you aren't making headway. And lastly, struggling with life-changing decisions.
Speaker: I want to say thank you for listening. And if you want to hear more about loneliness and some of the ways I combat loneliness, become a patron. For only $5 a month, you can hear the rest of my thoughts and get a whole bunch of other goodies over on Patreon. Thanks.
Speaker: See soon.
Speaker: I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to the Let's Heal Already podcast. To be clear, I'm not advocating for an emotionally intelligent patriarch or for more men to begin and end their work at feeling comfortable painting their nails, wearing dresses, or expanding what falls under the fold of masculinity. Similarly, i do not want to be a highly efficient, well-adjusted worker under capitalism, which is often the aim of Western therapy models. I am calling for the system to be abolished. That system is imperialist, cis-heterosexist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy.
Speaker: Please leave a rating or review on the platform you use to listen to this podcast and feel free to share this with your friends. Donation to show support can be made at J-R-Y-U-S-S-U-F on Venmo.
