Friend #5 - Lilian

My blog's biggest fan

Week 5. I want to start this off by sharing a quote from the Harvard Gazette. It’s from an article titled “Young Adults Hardest Hit by Loneliness During Pandemic”.

“If every person who’s in pretty good shape can make a commitment to reaching out to one person they are concerned might be lonely once a week, that would be a good thing.”

— Richard Weissbourd, psychologist, and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

A Canadian Social Survey titled Loneliness in Canada found that more than 1 in 10 people over the age of 15 felt that they were often or always lonely. 3 in 10 said they sometimes felt lonely while young women reported the highest levels of loneliness. In short, if you aren’t personally experiencing it, someone you know probably is.

Lilian and I met at an event in September of this year, instantly hit it off, and have been messaging one another since.

She’s been one of the greatest supporters of this project and its mission. The second time we met, last week, she said that she and a friend had looked into the loneliness epidemic before the pandemic and had tried to make coworking more accessible.

I admit to her that due to the pandemic and other factors, I fell victim to the lack of connection and that I’m making more of an effort to expand my social network.

Lilian was born in Berlin and came to Canada with her mother and twin sister when she was four. She studied business and currently works for a marketing agency.

“I’m going to New York this weekend,” she tells me.

“It was always my dream to live in New York but I think I’m over it now,” I reply.

“I feel like it depends on what you want to get out of the city. My boyfriend just moved there for a job so it’s hard to be away from someone I care about,” she says.

She then tells me the story of how they met one summer four years ago. I’ll spare it because I feel like I talk about dating too much here but it was a summer of love for her.

“You need to go out and put yourself in new situations if you want to meet someone,” she encourages me.

Last Thursday, at a networking event, I admired Lilian’s calm nature as she quickly started conversations with people.

We both spoke to a couple who had recently gotten engaged and then to others who we had seen online but had never met in person.

“People tell me I come off the same way in the flesh and online,” she says.

“It’s interesting that some people can have an online persona but be so different in real life,” I tell her.