Loneliness is easy to miss. It often looks like someone being difficult or distant, and the simplest thing is to write them off and move on. But sometimes a person decides to stay a little longer instead. The stories below are about those small, stubborn acts of compassion, and the people they quietly reached.
1. I need to own this one. For two years I was the office gossip about a coworker I’d decided was a cold fish, friendless, probably difficult at home, the works. I had a whole imaginary villain built out of someone I’d literally never had a real conversation with. Then she got a card going around for her work anniversary and I realized I had nothing to write because I knew nothing about her, because I’d spent two years talking about her instead of to her. So I asked her to coffee out of pure guilt. She’s one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and I wasted two years narrating a stranger. I think about how many people I’ve done that to.
2. New guy started on my team, total tank of a human, talked over everyone, corrected the boss in meetings, the works. We all hated him within a week. Then we’re stuck late on a deadline and he quietly stays till 11pm fixing other people’s parts without being asked or saying anything about it. Turns out he wasn’t arrogant, he was just raised in a family where the loudest person got fed and he never learned the office version of an indoor voice. Once a couple of us actually talked to him instead of around him he dialed it way down. He’s the most loyal person on the team now. Still talks over people sometimes but we just say “volume, big guy” and he resets. Good dude. Wrong packaging.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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