Thanks For Reminding Me My Loneliness Will Kill Me, Every Media Outlet Ever!

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

"My loneliness, is killing me" — Britney Spears

There aren't many things that sound good when the word 'alone' is added to them. Eating alone. Drinking alone. Sleeping alone. Dying alone. As creatures who thrive on sociability, being alone is one of the greatest sources of deep-seated sadness we can experience. And you know what really helps to make it all better? A constant reminder of that fact.

In 2009, the Daily Mail reported that 'loneliness is as bad for health as smoking or obesity'. Loneliness, apparently, raises the amount of cortisol, a hormone, in your body, which can in turn raise your blood pressure, which can then, of course, give you a heart attack or a stroke or something horrible like that. It can also increase the risk of getting dementia, which might not be so bad, because you might forget that you're alone altogether and you clearly won't have anyone around you who'll miss the personality that is being eroded by this cruel disease.

The very next year on 28th July 2010, the Daily Mail once again saw fit to remind us of the dangers of loneliness. "Loneliness is a killer: It's as bad for your health as alcoholism, smoking and over-eating, say scientists," read the headline. Twice as harmful as obesity, apparently. "Previous research has shown that people who never marry are more likely to die young than those who get hitched or divorced." Single men are also more likely to just fucking drop dead apropos of nothing than married men of the same age.

In 2013, Deborah Cohen of BBC World Service's Health Check column asked "Why does being lonely make you ill?" One in 10 people over 75 in the UK suffer intense loneliness, she says. This is compounded by the 'Threat to health' section of the Campaign to End Loneliness' website, with academically sourced examples of the cortisol thing, the blood pressure thing, the obesity and smoking thing etc.

Which brings us crashing into the present day, where the Telegraph is telling us, via a Harvard University study, that, you guessed it, loneliness is gon' kill you. But this time it's not the cortisol, oh no, it's a new protein murderer called fibrinogen, which is released in your body during your 'fight or flight' mode, which is somehow triggered by being alone, raising blood pressure and giving you heart attacks and strokes.

Thanks, media outlets! Really fucking psyched about my death from sadness now. Can't wait until I'm 73 and staring wet-eyed at a framed photo of my dead wife while my heart just forgets to beat. Super pumped about it.