1. Being surrounded by people, but not feeling connected to any of them.
2. I was once renting a room from this middle-aged woman. She was in her late forties – quite attractive plus had a PhD from Harvard U on the wall. What more, she was fun and social too; was into marathons and baking delicious chocolate chip scones for the entire neighborhood! What more could one want?
However, she had her loneliness pangs – had never been married or been in a relationship (don’t ask me why and how? She probably got that a lot though). Anyway, she had two lovely cats, one aged about 22 years and the other a mere 3 years old baby, and they got no less treatment than princesses.
The older cat was in her last stages of life – suffered from severe arthritis, blindness and partial deafness. Soon, she was diagnosed with liver cancer. Hence, unfortunately had no more than the next couple of weeks to live.
I remember chatting with my roommate quite late that night; that same day she had got back from the vet with bad news. I was a bit tired, but a part of our conversation made my ears/eyes perk up. I was awake for hours after that, lost in thoughts of compassion.
She was calculating the age she could bring home a new cat – so as not to be alone in the final moments of her own death.
(The assumptions made were – her life expectancy, life expectancy of the then 3 year old cat. etc. and hence; she concluded on getting a new cat after another 10-12 years, around 2024).
To me this seemed (still seems) to be the loneliest thing I had ever heard of.
3. Lying in bed next to the person that you’re in love with, knowing that they are in love with somebody else.
4. Being an endling.
An endling is an individual animal that is the last of its species or subspecies. Once the endling dies, the species becomes extinct.
