5. We all weave the net that traps the monster.
Last week, we unpacked the startling research as to how much relationships wire biology. We looked at social isolation increasing the risk of dying of cancer by 24%, or the risk of dying from any cause. The increase in risk is equal to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That is a serious problem. The first step in the solution is to see social connection as a fundamental dimension of health, to be taken as seriously as blood pressure, level of exercise, amount of fruit and veggies eaten, etc. In order to help that, I gave you a brief scale of loneliness. That way, you could measure this crucial dimension of your health.
I now worry that I made a mistake. This is a common phenomenon in my life, the feeling of “oh crap, did I forget to do something that my wife has asked me repeatedly to do, and I forgot anyway, and now she is going to be seriously annoyed.” I am quite sure that you do not know that feeling, my dear and noble reader, but it is a distressingly common experience in my life. Just ask my wife. Better yet, do not, the poor woman is trying to get over the memories, and would not benefit from strangers reminding her of her multitudinous disappointments in her spouse.
The mistake is that I gave you a brief scale to measure your loneliness. If you were in the 25% who scored as lonely, this stirred up your concern. If you were not in this range, you may have given a sigh of relief, such as finding your blood pressure is normal. This is the mistake of our hyper-individualistic culture. Social connection is not an individual thing, with one number indicating it is a problem for you, and a lower number indicating it is not. It is a collective phenomenon. It is the web of relationships we are woven into. That is why the art for this blog has two people casting a web over the monster of cancer.
Social connection is the bonds among all of us. If you are well connected, that is good for you. But what about your co-worker, who is half a continent away from her family, and is rather socially awkward? Or your neighbor who has no kids, and just lost his wife? When we see people doing something we know will destroy them, such as puffing on a cigarette, part of us wants to change them. There is no delight at all in hearing a smoker convulse with coughing. We want them to change, be healthy, live their best life. Social connection is a health dimension we can easily influence. Invitations to lunch, assistance in raking up leaves, neighborhood barbecues, there are many ways to cast a thread to those around us so that they can weave themselves into bonds with other humans.
The responsibility is distributed among all of us. Those who are lonely can take steps, as well as the connected. Let us consider Rory. He is feeling gross, and suspects it was the leftover chicken stir-fry that had been languishing at the back of the fridge for many days, that he finally ate. Bachelors tend to do those kinds of things.[i] His cell buzzes with a text from Dave, someone he recently met at work. “Want to shoot hoops Saturday morning?” Rory’s stomach makes an ‘oarp’ sound as he texts just one word back ‘No.’
Rory shut down the thread that Dave cast to him. It is understandable that he did not feel like tossing a basketball in the near future, given the argumentative state of his digestive tract. However, he missed an opportunity. He did not ‘return’ the ‘serve’ that Dave sent him. If we think of a friendship as a tennis game, Dave had just served a ball over the net to Rory. However, Rory did not serve the ball back, to keep the interaction going. He just said ‘no’. He let the tennis ball hit the ground and lose energy. If Dave serves another ball, and Rory is non-responsive, and it happens again, then Dave’s canister of tennis balls is now empty. All three tennis balls that Dave served are on Rory’s side of the net, and Dave is much more likely to just walk off the court and go home.
However, if Rory texted back “stomach is feeling gross, how about movie Tuesday night?” then he has returned the serve. He acknowledged Dave, and proposed another activity that will work for him. Dave can accept, and the two will go to the movies, and strengthen their connection. It is a result of Dave serving and Rory returning, both of them taking action to move a potential friendship forward.
This pattern of ‘serve and return’ is not just in friendships, it holds marriages together. Dr. John Gottman has studied marriages in more detail and precision than any other psychologist. After 40 years of study, he can predict who stays together, and who divorces, with 94% accuracy. If they ever give a Nobel prize in psychology, I vote that he should receive the first one. After watching hundreds of hours of videotape of couples interacting, he noticed sharp differences in how happy couples responded when one would ‘serve’ to the other. Dr. Gottman called these ‘bids’ for attention, where a partner would try to connect. It could be by a quick pat on the arm, or a wink, or asking a question “Hey, what happened to your co-worker who won the lottery?” Eighty six percent of the time, the happy partner would respond positively, such as by blowing a kiss or answering the question. However, the couples that eventually divorced would respond positively only 33% of the time.[ii] These marriage disasters would frequently ignore the bid from their partner. Or, they would respond in a hostile manner “Don’t touch me!” or “What do you care?” In a tennis match, they would either not serve the ball back and let it bounce on the ground till it stopped, or they would deliberately hit the ball over the fence, far off the tennis court.
Making and responding to these ‘serves’ or ‘bids’ for connection is the responsibility of all of us. Society exists as a web of relationships, and people are becoming increasingly lonely over time.[iii] Twenty years ago, people used to spend an hour a day in-person with friends. Now, it is 20 minutes a day. [iv] The old bonds of religious organizations have weakened, as attendance at religious services slid from 70% to below 50% for the first time ever in America. Trust in our fellow citizens went from 45% in 1972 to 30% recently. And thinking that social media will increase connection is a phantasm. The algorithms are engineered to promote posts that stir up negative emotion, especially fear and anger. This erodes bonds and trust in the people we share our society with, rather than building long term relationships.
Although social connection is declining, and the health of society along with it, this is something that is reversible. All of us can either ‘serve’ to those around us, or ‘return’ if we are the recipient. Once we realize that these actions are literally life-giving, we will take it far more seriously. It is all of us who weave the web of relationships that will capture the monster of cancer.
[i] I owe the discovery that celery left too long in the fridge turns into a gooey liquid to my cousin Michael, who was a bachelor at the time. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.
[ii] https://www.gottman.com/blog/want-to-improve-your-relationship-start-paying-more-attention-to-bids/
[iii] Buecker S, Mund M, Chwastek S, Sostmann M, Luhmann M. (2021) Is loneliness in emerging adults increasing over time? A preregistered cross-temporal meta-analysis and systematic review. Psychological Bulletin. 147(8):787.
[iv] https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf p. 11, 13, 15.