Why it is so difficult to trust each other

When asked about loneliness in 1987, Charles Bukowski told Interview magazine that the loneliest thing he could think of was crowds. "It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness."

The poverty Bukowski grew up in, along with a face scarred by severe acne, meant he always felt visible in a negative way, and outside the community. He also grew up with violent and unpredictable parents who would beat their son: it was a very basic case of neglect from what should have been his most important flock. Of course, crowds aren't necessarily safe anyway, as we already know from the previous chapter. But this insecurity can be especially strong if you've already lost your basic trust in people as a child. If you can't trust the people in your immediate vicinity, you'll struggle to overcome loneliness. The bridge, from the mainland to your island, will remain impassable.

The biggest cause of loneliness in a society, according to many researchers, is lack of trust; as I mentioned in the previous chapter, trust and loneliness are connected. Where there is no confidence in society at large, where institutions are rife with corruption and nepotism, or where there's no network looking after the citizen's need for protection, knowledge, health care, and schooling, we find more loneliness than in societies with highly dependable and well-functioning institutions. Living in an insecure society, where values like the rule of law and freedom of expression go unprotected, will make us lonely; we would then know that our voices and stories of abuse and violence will not be heard. Paradoxically, the connection between trust and loneliness does not apply to Japan—where there is both a generally high level of trust in society and a large and increasing amount of loneliness. There are, in general, quite a few paradoxes when I look at the connection between trust and loneliness, such as the strange fact that Italy—with its extremely close families and a collectivist culture, its shared meals, celebrations and opera in the summer, and Grandma's spaghetti and minestrone in a warm home in the winter—should rank so high on the loneliness statistics, simply because Italians have so little trust in society. There is, of course, a fair amount of corruption and organized crime in Italy; and the more unclearly the hierarchies are organized, the more difficult it is for citizens to be heard and understood. And the smaller and more unimportant and unprotected you feel, the more likely you will consider yourself to be in the outer circle of loneliness. You become invisible and powerless; you become lonely. This could be why researchers believe there is a general connection between perceived trust at the population level and the loneliness reported at the individual level. Because a society that so easily allows people to slip through the net will fail to protect us, and in turn put us at constant risk of ostracism and violence. And our fear of this happening makes us withdraw from each other. Trust is about security, openness, and joy, and having a deep connection with other people. Without trust, it is very hard to create well-functioning societies; they get torn apart by conspiracies and poisonous rumors. When people don't trust each other, they work against each other.

Lack of security and belonging is the reason for the global crisis of loneliness, says author Noreena Hertz, who is described as one of the leading experts on economic globalization.

"Even before the coronavirus hit, we were part of a global crisis of loneliness," she says, "as I crisscrossed the globe researching my new book The Lonely Century, I was struck by how huge the range of people profoundly affected by feelings of disconnection and isolation was."

Loneliness has increased, and Hertz believes that some of the main reasons for this are capitalism, the internet, and the way our cities are organized. A society that doesn't have space and time to cultivate small acts of kindness is a lonelier society, she says; a society driven by profit and efficiency is not typified by connection and belonging.

One striking experiment looked specifically into this: in 2013, sociologists Gillian Sandstrom and Elizabeth Dunn discovered how just thirty seconds of friendly conversation with the barista at a coffee shop made their subjects feel happier and gave them a stronger sense of belonging for the rest of the day than the control group who had to be efficient and avoid small talk while in the coffee shop. These micro-interactions can bring city dwellers a little closer together and create trust; even a fake smile will affect our sense of togetherness and joy. But now smiling and eye contact are becoming a rarity, and during the pandemic all these small meeting points almost disappeared entirely.

"At work, in open-plan offices, people counterintuitively are more likely to communicate via email, rather than talk face-to-face," Hertz points out, referring to workplace research.

She believes that we communicate less openly and directly because of stress and the demands placed on us for efficiency, and that these factors contribute to the degradation of real contact and our sense of belonging. And being connected to the society around us is good both for our health and for a functioning democracy.

Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general of the United States, points out that all the little acts of kindness that surround you, from a few extra words with the guy in the coffee shop to small talk with other parents beside the football pitch, help you feel like you are part of something bigger.

"Kindness, appreciation, and generosity are as essential in brief interactions with strangers as they are in closer friendships," Murthy writes. "These exchanges take only seconds, but they can create a meaningful sense of connection," he points out.

But it's possible that these small altruistic gestures alone cannot create trust. Governments, such as the one in the United States, that don't provide free health care to their citizens do not inspire trust; because you know that, without the right health insurance, getting an injury or a serious form of cancer can be disastrous. If you know that by arriving fifteen minutes late to your appointment at the welfare office you will have your benefits suspended, as is the rule in Great Britain, you will also be fully aware that should a crisis hit, you will be entirely on your own. Trust is built up from the ground up, from the citizens themselves, but an economic and political system that doesn't foster confidence and care will create lonely citizens. Capitalism and New Public Management prescribes that everything we do, including how the health care sector is run, should be measured, weighed, and sold. In such a world, we are objects, producers, pieces, and this failure to understand who we are and the resources we possess makes us lonely. It creates lonely citizens, because it makes being a success more important than belonging to a herd.

The pace of life, meanwhile, is just accelerating; workplaces are becoming more streamlined; and there are many people living alone. Ironically, the more civilized and well-functioning towns and cities become, the lonelier they feel. Societies founded on ideologies and belief systems such as neoliberalism and capitalism—which claim that we are entirely self-sufficient individuals who are responsible for our own successes (and thus our failures too)—primarily believe that everyone should fend for themselves. But if you make your own luck, you are at the mercy of yourself. Over 50 percent of London's and New York's inhabitants report being lonely.

A new report published by the British think tank Onward in July 2021 states that there is an unparalleled epidemic of loneliness in that country. In just ten years, the number of British under-thirty-fives who claim to have only one or even no close friend has tripled. Those with four or more friends have fallen from 64 percent ten years ago to 40 percent. Millennials don't participate in group activities or their neighborhoods, and only 30 percent of people under thirty-five trust their peers. In 1959, when asked if they could trust each other, 56 percent of teenagers answered yes, while only 30 percent of young Britons say the same today. This confirms the trend in the United States, as documented in Robert D. Putnam's classic Bowling Alone, a book that describes how, over a very short period, Americans have stopped participating in local communities and associations. It becomes a self-reinforcing, vicious spiral of withdrawal and loneliness. Onward proposes a range of economic measures that should increase confidence among young adults, such as rewarding community service with student loan repayments; allowing local communities to make disused premises into sports clubs and welfare facilities; and sponsoring affordable youth housing to give young adults an earlier start in the housing market. That Onward director Will Tanner mentions the economy is no coincidence. Poverty is connected to loneliness; it is about shame. It also makes life far more difficult, including everything that might counteract loneliness. You don't have the energy for community when you're struggling to pay the bills.

"Young people are suffering an epidemic of loneliness that, if left unattended, will erode the glue that holds our society together. After decades of community decline and 15 months of rolling lockdowns, young people have fewer friends, trust people less, and are more alienated from their communities than ever before. And it is getting worse with every generation," says Tanner in an interview. "If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that human connection and local place deserve a much greater place in our political debate than they have enjoyed in the past," he continues.

"Qualitative research for this paper reveals that young people are not detached from their communities out of choice, but through lack of opportunity, security and time," Onward's press release says.

That's why the social glue is so important: you're better off when you experience lots of small moments of connection than you are if everyone around you is a potential threat. And when society doesn't offer security, it creates a negative spiral where citizens start to mistrust each other. In the aftermath of the pandemic, economist and former member of parliament Marianne Marthinsen felt that the Norwegian welfare state was at a breaking point, with financial decline and a climate crisis on the horizon: trust is like a sweater with a loose thread, and if you pull on the thread, it can all suddenly unravel.

"I find that my own trust in society is dwindling," she writes. "So far it's about relatively small things. I don't fully trust that I'll manage to get what I need from the shop, that I'll get from A to B when I need to, that the pharmacy has enough of the medicine I've been prescribed."

In his book Together, Dr. Vivek Murthy points out how increasing numbers of immigrants and migrant workers, internally displaced persons and refugees carry stories of intense loneliness. In such circumstances, there are many obstacles to finding friends and networks: you don't understand the language, you're looked down on and subjected to racism in your new country, you don't connect with the network of little communities that keep the rest of us safe. Researchers Alberto Alesina and Eliana La Ferrara have found that people who, for example, have experienced racism or other forms of trauma are less trusting of society. Not knowing who to trust is one of the loneliest things there is. It means that no one is your friend. Because without trust everything does become if not impossible, then extremely difficult: How can you buy something from a person if you don't trust they will give you the eggs and milk you paid for? How can you send your child to a school if you don't trust that the school will take good care of them? Who should you vote for if you think that politicians just feather their own nests? If you don't trust anyone around you, you won't make friends and you won't find a partner. Citizens who are unable to trust are unable to build a society. Mistrust is like poison in the tap water: it permeates everything.

Trust is the very glue that holds society together.

When we are struck by an act of terrorism, the degree to which our society is built on trust and cooperation becomes even clearer. It's the everyday things that go unseen, that are perhaps not appreciated enough. I can't help but think that a society that makes us see neighbors and colleagues and classmates as competitors and adversaries, not as potential friends and collaborators, will make us less connected to each other. Yes, small, kind actions are important, but if we don't endeavor to build a society that is essentially about looking after and taking care of individuals, then our trust in each other will perhaps crumble, and we will lay the foundation for a loneliness pandemic. If you know you are dispensable and not wanted enough to be cared for when you are at your lowest ebb, you will naturally fear ostracism and the subsequent financial and personal crisis. That is loneliness. I guess I'm just trying to say, in a very simple and naive way, what Noreena Hertz writes in her book The Lonely Century:

For democracy to function well—by which I mean to fairly reconcile the interests of different groups while ensuring all citizens' needs and grievances are heard—two sets of ties need to be strong: those that connect the state with the citizen and those that connect citizens to each other. When these bonds of connectivity break down; when people feel they can't trust or rely upon each other and are disconnected, whether emotionally, economically, socially, or culturally; when people don't believe the state is looking out for them and feel marginalized or abandoned, not only does society fracture and polarize but people lose faith in politics itself.

In lonely people, the part of the brain most closely associated with empathy declines. The body and brain are tuned so that if you are often lonely, you'll be more focused on the possible threats or dangers from other people than open to their perspectives and wanting to understand them. Because if you're worried about being expelled from the pack, you won't have the energy to show empathy; you will primarily be looking for safety.

It's only while working on this book that I've realized how much my own distrust has colored my relationships and experiences. And the most painful thing about writing a book on loneliness is perhaps that I've come face-to-face with the Groke. She is me. But in a society without trust, any one of us can easily become like the Groke: the loneliest person in Moominvalley, walking in silence while spreading an icy chill. The Groke never opens up to anyone, even though she is clearly sad and lonely. She cannot love or express even the smallest thing she wants. And although the Groke needs the Moomins, all she can do is stand by the house, seemingly uninterested in those inside, while just staring at the storm lamp outside. The Groke trusts nobody.

"It's called epistemic trust," Oslo-based psychologist Peder Kjøs says. "It means having a basic willingness to trust that the world is a good place and that people can be trusted—an expectation that the world is good. If you're not brought up with this expectation, you have to learn it yourself. And that is very difficult."

Working with trust is a continuous process, he believes, a kind of balancing act. Sometimes too trusting, sometimes not enough: it's constantly changing.

"It's something we're all continually adjusting," Kjøs says.

Trust is a kind of dance with other people whom we recognize from our connections with them, from our understanding of them, the eye contact and the laughter, all things I've written about in previous chapters. It is not a static feeling, but something that's constantly evolving. We are continually assessing whether we can trust other people. If they turn out to be unreliable, most of us manage to adjust accordingly without too much damage being done. But if you already lack a basic sense of security, any small breaches of trust will be hard to cope with.

"The Groke shuffled a little nearer," writes Tove Jansson in a crucial scene in the Moomin literature. "She stared into the lamp and softly shook her big, clumsy head. A freezing white mist hung round her feet as she started to glide towards the light, an enormous, lonely grey shadow. The windows rattled a little as if there were distant thunder, and the whole garden seemed to be holding its breath."

It is here that I realize that something has made the Groke turn cold.

"Mamma," whispered Moomintroll. "What happened to her to make her like that?"

"Who?"

"The Groke. Did somebody do something to her to make her so awful?"

"No one knows," said Moominmamma, drawing her tail out of the water. "It was probably because nobody did anything at all. Nobody bothered about her, I mean."

So Lonely: Our Desire for Community – and What Drives Us Apart, by Hilde Østby, is published by Greystone Books (£22.99).