Getting Discomfortable with Loneliness

Last month I went to Austin, Texas to fulfill a dream of mine to see Brené Brown speak live as the keynote speaker at SXSW. I actually tried to get tickets to the shooting of her Netflix special in LA in January, but both tapings sold out too quickly for me to get one. So this was the next best thing, and while the talk was a really satisfying reminder of some of her signature lessons, afterwards I suddenly realized that I was stuck at SXSW with no idea of what to do with myself next! 

And as I wandered around Austin taking in all the insanity, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness. I’ve realized over the last few years that I don’t get lonely when I’m actually alone, I get lonely when I surrounded by people but I don’t know any of them. SXSW was teaming with fascinating people but there were so many of them, taking part in such a variety of different streams of the festival, that it never felt appropriate or welcome to just start talking to strangers the way it did at Wisdom 2.0, for example. 

I realized that 10 days of alienation was going to be social torture, I needed to find a way to connect, and fast. But then a solution presented itself almost by chance. As I joined a line for free beer, suddenly everyone around me started spontaneously making conversation! I discovered time and again that as soon as you are inside the protective yolk of a line, it was suddenly socially appropriate to talk to strangers. But as soon as the line ended, the conversation politely trailed off as everyone went on their way and I was left drinking my beer all alone again.

Fortunately, SXSW is all lines! Lines for drinks, lines for food, lines for panels, lines for events, lines for concerts, lines for “experiences”, lines for “activations”, lines “houses”, lines for everything! Whenever I wasn’t in a session and started feeling lonely, I would simply join a line — any line. And when that line ended (after exploring whatever it was the line actually led to), I just lined up for something else. Ironically, the solution to loneliness was there in the name all along: lines!

Along the way, I had stimulating though fleeting conversations and connections with all sorts of interesting folks and even found myself in the odd concert or event that was actually super fun. It was so much better than standing around by myself all the time or just going home. That being said, SXSW wasn’t all loneliness. I attended some really amazing and inspiring panels, concerts, drag shows, and parties and even made a few new friends along the way.

You can listen to an audio recording of one of the sessions I mention in this episode, Gangs, Entrepreneurs and Beer.