Is This An Epidemic We Are Willing To Overlook? Whose Fault Is It? Does Anything Still Shock Us Anymore?
A study by GoMarry.com (A marriage only relationship service) has found that 17% of British people spent this Christmas alone. The statistics are not that different across the pond, where the figure stood at about 12%.
While most of us surrounded ourselves with family and friends, there was an ever increasing number of people that had to settle with neither.
As a nation, we’ve gotten used to hearing about old people and their chronic social isolation. But this time it’s different. The study was done on 18-55 year olds, both genders and especially those who are more exposed to the internet.
Azad Chaiwala, the founder of GoMarry.com says “One of the biggest causes of this loneliness is the breakdown and abandonment of our family system”. He thinks that “the proliferation of handheld devices and quick access to websites/apps that focus on flings is not helping the situation”. He goes on to say, “we’re overly obsessed with our sexual freedom, modesty is almost frowned upon and this exact attitude has led us to very fickle relationships, that never materialize in the long term into families or wider tribes. I’m sure I’ve read past studies that have found almost 40% of all children are being looked after by single parents and that to me is unacceptable”.
Our research led us to a student of aeronautical engineering from the University of South Wales, Cardiff, UK, who though wanted to go home to celebrate this Christmas but did not, sighting the rent money his parents would ask him to pay, Thus deciding to stay back and spending Christmas on his own.
Another participant from London, declaring her age as 39 shared her situation on condition of anonymity, and it goes like this “I feel we need to connect more. I have nobody by my side and this loneliness actually kills me. People should live as a family and support each other. I often walk to local shops just to speak to someone, I’ll share a joke and maybe laugh with them, they don’t know how lonely I am, I’ll often buy extra things and lie about it, saying I’m taking goods and someone is waiting for me.”
Azad concluded that “GoMarry.com’s findings might not represent the whole population because the survey was conducted online and the vast majority of people may have not been available to participate due to spending time out of town or with friends or family. Thus leaving the survey open for people who were alone to slightly skew the numbers in their favour. But what remains scary is the age group. We weren’t targeting old age pensioners at all.”
GoMarry.com in its capacity as a match-making service is attempting to reverse this situation by connecting only people who actually want to get married and start a family together.
