Hello! Nice to talk and greet you in Rosiniar. It feels like I’m talking in the middle of nowhere, but it’s quite fun.
Hallo everyone, I am Rosy Dewias. Welcome to my podcast, Rosiniar.
I still can’t believe I started this podcast. Outside of my work 9 until 10 hours a day, I can manage find time to make podcasts. This is really a privilege. I realized I was one of the few people who had time for myself. I mean, I have a job, and a home even though it wasn’t mine, I have internet access, and most importantly I have space to talk and express my opinions.
Right now, I lived in Indonesia and the pandemic in this nation is not over yet. In the last few day the daily number of cases has shown a downward trend, but the infection of the virus is still here. In early October, there were around one thousand, one thousand three hundred or yeah around a thousand Covid-19 cases per day. Which is still worrying, in my opinion.
So, if I can survive and still alive in this kind of situation, it’s really a privilege.
Lately, I saw a lot of memes on social media describe how someone winked in 2019 and suddenly it’s almost the end of 2021.
It’s almost two years and I kinda lost my friends.
Well, the situation is… um… it started when I was a fresh graduate. When it’s time to look for a job, the outbreak came.
Luckily I got a remote job. Even though they got me an office, since the first time I worked, I’ve never experienced “work from office” because of this fucking pandemic.
Of course, it has its own struggles. For example, I figure out that it’s hard to get close with friends virtually. Actually, I’m not that close with my new friends at work, not yet. I hope someday we can communicate better. But, what can I do? It’s not that easy and simple to get close to some people virtually.
Maybe, that’s why I always fail on dating apps. Lol.
It’s getting worse, because I can’t keep reaching my old friends in college. They have their own business and we’re not doing same things together anymore.
At first, I thought I was fine. I used to do a lot of things by myself, like eating, going somewhere, hanging out, playing, staying at home, and so on.
I rarely feel lonely even though I do many things alone. Seriously, I enjoy times when I am alone.
But, lately I kinda feel it. It happens when I see funny memes, viral videos, or things that I find interesting, but I can’t share with friends or other people.
Then, I realized, I am not okay.
I miss the times when I laughed with my friends for some stupid reason. I miss arguing with them, dealing with minor problems, chat flowing, or just hanging out at the coffee shop all day long even though we only bought a cup of drink. How silly!
But I guess, I am not the only one who’s feel lonely in this pandemic.
I read The Harvard Gazette report on February 17 2021, psychologists worry that the coronavirus pandemic is triggering a loneliness epidemic.
In October 2020, researcher released results, it said 36 percent of Americans reported feeling lonely “frequently” or “almost all the time” in the prior four weeks. The most striking is that 61 percent of those aged 18 to 25 reported high levels experiencing serious issues.
Compared to the CDC data from June 2020, showing that 63 percent of young people reported experiencing substantial symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Young people are also often making critical decisions about their professional and personal lives and relationships, which can add to the stress and sense of isolation.
Many young people who reported serious loneliness also said they felt as if no one “genuinely cared” about them. Well, I seriously can relate on this point.
But by reading this I just found out, loneliness can be an endemic. That’s interesting because I only know that the endemic is usually from physical diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, and others. But mental health can also be endemic.
I had no idea that loneliness could be such a serious problem. But indeed, I admit that humans need meaningful conversations.
During the pandemic, I calculate in a day or 24 hours I only talked about 1 hour. Maybe less. That includes interviews with resource and talking as necessary at home.
Meanwhile, at this age I find it is very difficult to start a new relationship. You know, like getting to know each other from the start or sharing about our background and so on. It such high school things. God, I can’t handle it.
I hope if I meet people, I can immediately whooose we are close. But life doesn’t work that way.
Well, I guess I just need to go through it. Aren’t we all? Just get through it and go on with our life.
Sorry I chose a pretty dark topic for the premiere episode. Okay, thanks for listening. I hope you are all doing well. Bye!
Check out the audio version in here.
Rosy Dewias 