Loneliness Needs Better Branding

First: Cher. Of course.

Before experts began explaining disconnection to us in newsletters and TED Talks, Cher gave us Song for the Lonely—a banging tune then, a banging tune now, and still more practical than most advice. In the latter half of the 1990s She also gave us Believe, which suggested there might be life after love. A comforting theory.

For me, those weren’t just songs. They were soundtracks for surviving things I didn’t yet have language for. Back in college, in my circle of gay friends, Cher was the background noise to a collective struggle. We were all looking for connection, all lonely in our own ways—even in a crowded university setting—trying not to be the one left behind when the music stopped.

I say loneliness needs better branding because we treat it like a personal failure. We treat it like a flaw in the code instead of a predictable response to disconnection. If loneliness were branded differently—if it were marketed as a badge of survival rather than a secret to be kept—more people would admit it sooner and suffer less secretly.

My take on loneliness is unique because I’m not writing about a bad month. I’m writing about a lifetime, and I’m still trying to be funny about it.

Mine began early. Childhood loneliness is a strange product; you can be surrounded by family and noise and still feel like you’ve been misplaced. You develop skills. You become funny. Observant. Easy to manage.

I became low-maintenance in the way unattended plants are low-maintenance. I needed lots of watering.

The twist is this: when you are your own only witness, you start to believe your own camouflage. You become so good at being “good” that people eventually stop checking to see if you need water. You learn how to be present without ever truly arriving.

I didn’t grow up with apps like Tinder and Grindr. We had chat rooms. Back then, the digital world felt like a shared room you entered together; now, it feels like a vending machine you scroll through alone.

In the early 2000s, I moved to Minneapolis. For a while, connection felt easier. I dated, I explored, I looked for that life after love. But then my self-esteem took a hit. Things went downhill and rolled into the quiet life I have today.

I’ve felt lonely most of my life, which sometimes tricks me into thinking it’s how the story ends.

Then again, Cher has spent decades insisting that endings can be remixed.

Having depression doesn’t help. It throws everything off kilter. It turns the volume down on the world and the volume up on your own internal monologue. I’ve spent years holding off on seeking connection until I “fix myself,” waiting for the day I’m not so off-balance.

I tell myself that’s the reason.

But honestly, it may be the ultimate low-maintenance move:

I won’t ask for a witness until I’m sure I’m worth looking at.

I’m not saying a partner would fix everything. I am saying it would be useful to test the theory.

(54, gay man, dog lover, musician, graphic artist, mental health advocate—if anyone’s looking.)

Adulthood offers its own upgrades to isolation. You can have contacts, followers, and group chats, and still have no one who knows what your Tuesday felt like.

(My Tuesday sucked, by the way.)

At times like that, it helps to remember there is, in fact, a song for the lonely.

Sometimes loneliness is not being alone at all. It’s having people around but no witnesses to your real life.

People picture empty apartments and unanswered texts, but sometimes loneliness looks like being invited everywhere and known nowhere. It looks like being useful to many and visible to none.

I have contributed to the problem. I treated independence like a personality trait. Often, we call people “independent” when they’re just lonely with good packaging. Mine was camouflage.

I have said “I’m good” with the confidence of a man actively not good.

Humans are a very needy species. We need someone who notices when our voice changes by three percent. We need a witness to the small victories no one hears about.

I still have hope. I’m a gay man in a small Midwestern town, so hope has to do some heavy lifting here.

Will I be lonely the rest of my life? Hard to say.

But not if Cher has anything to do about it.

Until then, I’m turning the music up.

Can you hear me tonight?