“Do we have a word for a ‘single’ person with friends?” Marina Garces asked herself in the prologue to ‘The Passion of Stranger’. Immediately after that the response was that there was not. What remains, he tells us, is an “epic and solitude without a name, which oscillates between pity and doubt.”
A party, wow.
In fact, it worries him. In an interview shortly after the book’s publication, he explained that those who only escape loneliness “will not have good friends and will not be good friends,” because they will end up “addicted and dependent on social recognition.” Deep down, this is the heart of the artichoke: “The more we run away from loneliness, the more alone we are”?
the hunger Garces is not alone. Seventeen years ago, University of Chicago neuroscientist John Cacioppo introduced a book on loneliness with a simple but effective comparison: “Lonely people feel hungry.” According to his evolutionary theory, just as hunger warns that there is a lack of nutrients and pain that something is wrong with our bodies, loneliness warns that the bond with the group is broken or in danger.
That is, for Cacioppo, loneliness is a signal and its evolutionary function is to press for the repair of that bond.
However, (stretching the metaphor to the edge of the unbelievable) the solution lies not in eating, but in cooking for others and enjoying the meal with them. Eliminating food, this is the same idea that the Spanish philosopher is considering.
The one who bites his tail. Cacioppo’s fundamental distinction is when insulation is measured in contact; Loneliness is the realization that relationships do not cover what is needed. In this way and although it seems to be taken from an Instagram poem, one can be alone in the middle of many people.
The point is that the perception of loneliness can activate defense mode: people who feel isolated are more alert against social threats (whether they want it or not). This surveillance biases what he sees, makes him pay more attention to gestures of rejection, interpret ambiguous situations worse, and remember the negative better. Starts a negative feedback loop.
This bill is not just emotional. It is true that the psychological part is always the most interesting, but it is not the only one. A 2010 review linked it to poorer sleep, more stress, and greater morbidity and mortality. The WHO estimated in June 2025 that loneliness is associated with approximately 871,000 deaths worldwide each year. That’s about a hundred per hour.
Garcé’s ideas (and, subsequently, those of contemporary psychology) are an invitation to not pay that bill: to give to others and, above all, not to fear solitude. All the rest are added.
Picture | Miquel Taverna – CCCB (Revised)
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