So How Did I Get This Isolated?

And what can I do about it?

One of the fascinating/depressing things about getting old is that I have gotten perspective. How on earth did I get here? Specifically, how did I get to a place where I find I'm unable to even think of ways to contact people? When I discuss dating, younger online friends usually say, "well, you just go out and find someone else if your current relationship doesn't work out." Maybe it's not quite like buying a box of corn flakes, but it's no worse than buying a new car or computer. If the current model quits or I don't want it, there are dozens and dozens out there waiting—so they say. And I respond (with all the good will of a bear that's been awakened too early) that I've actually met both of the over-40 single gay men within a 50-mile range of my home, and neither worked as a date.

I can blame lots of minor causes for this isolation.

One would think that teaching in two universities and one college would give me lots of time for interaction with intellectual people (I like to imagine C.S. Lewis going down to the pub for a pint with a couple of bright students and a fellow faculty member). The true picture, though, is that neither Ashland nor Akron has anything resembling a faculty lounge (Ashland doesn't even have offices for adjuncts like me), and "intellectual interaction" means a five-minute chat with my secretary. We adjuncts aren't even welcome at faculty meetings. But lots of people (truck drivers, for example) work in places where they don't get interaction with fellow workers.

Modern culture? I spend a lot of time at a coffee house in Akron, and the most usual sight there is half a dozen people with their laptop computers open, presumably deep in an IM session with someone elsewhere. In four years or so, I've only had half a dozen conversations there. But, realistically, who goes out to a place like that to meet people? And the computer does work to bring people together (though I do yearn for close friendships that don't require me to keep track of time zones).

I think it's deeper.

When I first really understood the Christian faith, all those years ago in college, I tended to phrase it very much in an "us versus them" rhetoric. Later, I drifted into a church that stresses isolation—not just from the outside evils, but from other Christians. When I was married, raising children, and working as hard as I could, I didn't really understand my loneliness, but since then I've seen that for years my only real interaction was with people I could claim on my income tax form.

I think being gay is part of all this too. Being a Christian sets one up for "us against them." Being gay does. Being a gay Christian certainly does. Being a gay Christian who reads and thinks analytically certainly does. It's not snobbishness so much as a feeling that there certainly can't be anyone at all like myself anywhere.

I've lost the skills too.

Last week a pleasant stranger struck up a conversation in a gas station, and I struggled to figure out what to say. A year ago a younger friend flirted with me (pretty much asked for sex), and I didn't even figure out what he was getting at until a week later. When I meet someone socially and my gaydar goes off, the best I can do for a conversational opener is "Ummmmmm."

Prescriptions for fixing all this? Well at least I'm going to actively look into churches that don't discourage interaction between congregation members. Ashland promises a spiffy new building with a faculty lounge and a microwave—and I'll see if there's a way to strike up ordinary conversation there. And maybe I should just accept the idea that for most older folks, friends have been dying and moving away, so the circle of social contacts will naturally shrink. Maybe the natural course of humankind really is to move from dozens of school chums to one or two good friends in later adulthood.