A Cause for Loneliness?

A couple nights ago a friend called me. She was a little boozy and hanging out at someone's house she feels a deep connection with. She expressed feeling so lonely, and that it's lonely being unique.  I agree(d). This conversation got me thinking: are there specific things in our lives that cause this feeling of loneliness, and can one ever fully eradicate loneliness from one's life?

Loneliness is nothing new to me; I feel it each day in varying degrees and always have.  Even when I'm amongst friends, family, loved ones, it's there. All that to say, I don't know if it could ever truly be extinguished. But perhaps it could be tamed so that it only rears its head under certain circumstances. That'd be nice.

One thing I think causes loneliness are walls. Walls we put up explicitly or inadvertently for whatever reason are ultimately put up to keep others out, but mostly (at least in my experience) to keep something within ourselves safe from harm.  It can take very little time, even just one bad experience, to erect a wall within ourselves.  But the amount of time it takes to destroy a wall can take a lifetime. And the breaking down of this wall has to be intentional (or maybe not). Let's use me for illustrative purposes: 

Wall= not sharing my emotions and deeper thoughts with really anyone; passing off my surface thoughts as emotions 

Purpose= I'm a very sensitive person whose feelings get hurt way too easily and I take everything personally; I don't like when my feelings get hurt for obvious reasons, so I put up this wall as a means of self-preservation

Anti-wall action= with the person I'm dating, I work really hard (and often fail, and I'm definitely super awkward doing it) to be/stay present with them by realizing and sharing my feelings and thoughts even when I am embarrassed/feel so small or petty/am not entirely sure what the fuck I'm feeling/thinking; I work to operate without my typical facade...it's bleepin' hard

The truth about these walls is that you're likely the only one inside your walls...do you see how that'd be lonely?  Since we typically have multiple walls ranging in age, height, and depth, even if we have let people into some of those inner-circles of ourselves, there will always be another sealed wall, that is why I don't believe loneliness can ever be rid of. There's Loneliness lurking behind every wall.

Probably the only person on the planet who doesn't have insecurities is Kanye West (that was my feeble attempt at sounding witty and relevant), but the rest of us mortals have insecurities.  At least when we're being honest with and about ourselves. One big contributor to insecurity is a skewed perception of our surroundings. We look around and compare everyone else's facades to what's behind our own facade. That's an unfair comparison and it's the contrast that makes us squirm and shrivel. When we regard our insecurities as situational truth, it leads to shame; shame tells us we are undeserving and causes us to retract into ourselves and hide behind those walls. Where the loneliness is.

A friend of mine a while back had finally admitted to himself and his world that he's gay.  When he did that, he said that he just wouldn't act on it, that he wouldn't have romantic and sexual relationships with men.  He grew lonelier. There were people out there fully experiencing their sexuality and he was just sitting there twiddling his thumbs, observing but not touching, not breathing. Being in a place in which we either don't allow, or aren't allowed to experience our life (and all the stuff that comes with it) is the loneliest place to be. Isolation is inevitable and isolation is lonely.  Life is meant to be experienced for yourself and with others; when we stunt our and others' life experiences we are creating a position of me vs them (there goes that nasty comparison again). Our lives become a pretense in which we live these lives that aren't our own and were never intended to be.  Living someone else's life is lonely because it leaves your life unattended and suspended. Since then, my friend has allowed himself to love and be loved (by men, duh) and is in a less lonely and much happier state. He's experiencing his life and the life he should be living.

Loneliness sucks and I don't know that it'll ever just be wiped out, but it can be subsided when we choose to let people in, love ourselves, and love and live our experiences.