Megi spared us. It turned out to be a gorgeous day — crisp and bright. What an irony — we splashed it at least twice.

Was reading “Loneliness” at a cafe in the early afternoon. John Cacioppo, the author — social neurologist with University of Chicago — spent some 30 years studying how people make social connections and how important they are to human life. I want it to be scientifically proved that intimacy is a basic human need, and loneliness harms personal well-being. Why would I want to justify my need for human connections? Because I imbibed from my early environments that self-reliance is a virtue. Also tried UCLA Loneliness Scale. Scored 44 — that’s the cut-line for high loneliness.

The author also argues, loneliness has its evolutionary value — it got built into our genes early on, because we survived by being stuck together, and its role lies in, it manifests itself as an acute pain and like any form of pain would make us pause and examine our behavior pattern; this social pain protects us from remaining isolated. It serves like a warning bell. Well, apparently, my warning bell has been singing all the way…

The most alarming bit, is loneliness does get to change, however slowly, the loner’s perception. Through this warped lens of lonely social cognition, others may appear more critical, competitive and denigrating than they really are. We might preemptively launch direct or indirect attack to fend off imaginative opponents. Thus, loneliness impairs our healthy self-regulation system and our ability to detect others’ perspective. Loss of orientation.

Watched a German movie in the afternoon. Fandango. Its mediocrity resulted in my early flee from the AMC cinema. Many references were American — Why?