ramblings on solitude and romance
It was a damp, chilly January evening near Liverpool Street Station when I set out to find some food after a long day of seeing London’s sights. I did not have any preference for a particular cuisine, but I knew I was sick of eating junk food alone in my hotel room, as I had done for my first week in the city. That night, I was determined to find a hearty meal in a pleasantly lit restaurant. Ideally not too crowded, but also not empty enough to be put off by the thought that perhaps what’s served won’t satiate my appetite.
Down a side street only a few hundred metres from my hotel, I found my oasis - an Italian sourdough pizza restaurant. The staff was incredibly helpful explaining the specials and I was sold on a burrata and spicy ‘nduja focaccia to start, followed by a smoked salami pizza with chilli oil for my main, accompanied by a rather unseasonal Aperol spritz. It was exactly what I needed after doing 35,000 steps for the day. I collected the bill, saw they added a very fair service charge, and went on my way. But not before noting the name of this fine establishment: Franco Manca.
As I stepped outside, the whiff of marijuana and the wretched whirring of the whizzing mopeds of the seedy Shoreditch area helped fulfil my expectations of what city life might be like. I was undeterred in my quest to have an enjoyable evening as I set off for an enlightening stroll in the rain, passing on the temptation the revelry of the packed pubs and clubs might provide. It was certainly not my scene. I kept my head down retreating my mind to the tranquillity of the Australian bush I left behind a few days earlier.
Whilst I had enjoyed the dining experience, that was a lonely night for me, as many of those first nights in London were. I had come to London chasing a different kind of romance - driven by a fleeting hope to rekindle things with my ex-girlfriend, a pursuit that in retrospect made Don Quixote's impossible, idealistic quests more relatable than I care to admit. The wonderful dining experience I had that cold January night would have been enhanced by pleasant conversation amidst the amber glow of soft flickering candlelight, admiring the beauty of the woman I hoped to build a life with. My own company would have to suffice.
The romance I did experience that frigid evening dimmed a week later when I discovered that my 'oasis' of an Italian spot was actually one of seventy locations across the UK. Another franchise in a city riddled with them. What I had thought was a serendipitous find, an intimate, local gem tucked away from the crowds, lost part of its charm.
Despite knowing that my money was not supporting a small, family owned business but a global conglomerate, dining alone still retained its romances. And in a world that is increasingly hostile to romance, clinging onto what you can is worthwhile. Of course, and with a somewhat guilty conscience, I could not help but become a regular when I moved less than a hundred metres away from one of Franco Manca’s stores. The pizza was good after all.
I knew even if things went well for me, much of my time in London would be spent in isolation like this. I knew I would not be the life of any party, or the kind of man who quickly immerses himself into various social circles. To paraphrase Pride and Prejudice’s Mr Darcy, I have not the talent of conversing easily with others. But the idealised romantic view I had of the continental move was enough for me to accept this fate. Alas, I was blinded by fantasy rather than driven by a real desire.
I have always considered myself a romantic. Perhaps every Catholic, by virtue of their faith, is. Romance is not merely about the sentimental, the soft flicker of candlelight or the thrill of a first kiss. These things are romantic, but real romance comes from surrendering your soul to the sublime. It is the yearning, the sense of something greater than oneself, something unseen, unspoken, something divine.
In our hyperconnected, overstimulated society this kind of romance is fleeting. It is rare that things are left unseen or unsaid. Everything is pornified and sexualised. On dating apps you can even set what you are looking for to “intimacy without commitment,” - as shameless an oxymoron as you will find. There is a plethora of lust, but not sensuality, not romance. We value practicality over passion. There is no mystery, nor earnestness. In modern dating, love is often transactional rather than transcendental.
Transcendental love requires one to be content with themselves first. It is not about perfection, but a developed interiority and intentionality. You must be comfortable being alone without being lonely. You must be able to embrace the solitude, the reflective space that is a sanctuary, even when it wears the mask of melancholy. Chasing love from loneliness feels like drowning, gasping for air, desperately longing for someone to save you that is not there.
I have made mistakes like that before; hopping onto the dating apps seeking validation whilst wallowing in the depths of loneliness. It is not a happy place. There were a few times when I went out with women who I whole-heartedly knew were wrong for me. “But she said I was handsome,” I think to myself as she tells me how she is unsure if she wants children because it will ruin her career. I scream internally knowing there will not be a second date but am happy to have the attention of a beautiful woman.
I see people online romanticising loneliness, and it makes me irrationally angry. You will not find people who have suffered from crippling isolation to the point of despair wishing to go back, for good reason. Though if you want to be alone, you can. You do not need to wait for your life to fall apart to make it so. Go for a walk, turn off your phone, and listen to the wind like God is breathing on your face. I know this is not what people actually want, because otherwise they would go and do it.
I think what they long for is a type of loneliness that is accompanied by the warmth of God’s love. This is exceptionally difficult, and even more so if your spiritual life is underdeveloped and unexplored to begin with. “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God” writes St John of the Cross. They are longing for a place to develop a spiritual life, because that is what they are missing. We romanticise despair because we see the resulting strength and that is what we truly long for. Faith is found in silence, in the depths of a darkness that comes without warning.
Much of problem with the way the world works is that it is seen as a crime to sit in the park quietly longing, hoping, imagining, letting your mind wander into the absurd and abstract. Or even grieve. This type of solitude is seen as an ailment to be cured, rather than a chance for introspection and spiritual growth.
Those in AI are working on such a “cure” for loneliness. Whether it be an AI girlfriend, a friend to talk to, or even using a chat bot in lieu of an actual human being, it is a profanity against creation. During the Paris Olympics there were advertisements for a tech company where a father is encouraging his daughter to use artificial intelligence to write a letter to her favourite Olympian. It is deeply unromantic, and hostile to genuine, authentic human fraternity. Perhaps the athlete will use AI to respond and what might be perceived as a sweet, awe-inspiring moment is actually two robots talking to each other.
It is a gross affront to human dignity.
Where is the thirst for knowledge? Or the idealism that leads one to believe that whenever you write something you are a step closer to being capable of writing a grand romantic, Shakespearean sonnet? Or knowing every time you play a key on the piano you are closer to mastering Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The inverse, in knowing that every time you cheat in life it gets easier, strips away the joy of effort and the reward of progress. It leaves you bereft of any satisfaction. And sometimes, that temptation to take shortcuts is not because of any lofty notion of inauthenticity, but simply because even fleeting comfort feels better than none at all.
The truth is, much of modern life is hostile to romance. The mundane nature of daily life and the pressures of practicality overshadow the passion and whimsy of true romanticism. Instead of allowing solitude and quiet, we turn to technology to fill the void. The very idea of waiting, of hoping, of surrendering to the slow, organic pace of life, friendship, and love has been replaced with something automated, driven by an algorithm that pretends to know the heavenly love that is in every human soul.
I am in the backyard, typing on my phone, and enjoying some sunlight whilst feeding a family of king parrots. I feed these birds often and there are a few families that live here around my childhood home. They are beautiful birds and quite friendly with humans if you spend the time getting to know them. Certainly more amiable than the crimson rosellas that watch from the trees awaiting my return indoors so they too can join in on the bush buffet I have provided. Even the magpie father that patrols the sky near its nest like an F-16 is curious enough to land nearby. It is an idyllic setting.
I think about the vast, unexplored beauty of the valleys around here, a stark contrast from the cold, unforgiving streets of London. The expansive Australian bush is largely untouched by humans and has been seen only by the native animals for thousands of years. A miracle of creation. And yet here are the birds spending time with me, with thousands of kilometres of valleys to explore just as their ancestors did. I am sure it is just the walnuts and sunflower seeds that bring them to me, but a part of my soul likes to think that they enjoy my company as much as I enjoy theirs.
It is the exact setting I imagined walking the streets of London. It is comforting, joyful, and perhaps most pertinently, evidence of me having a positive influence on a part of God’s creation. Am I seeking validation from birds? Unashamedly yes, I love birds. Their mellifluous melodies remind me of the beauty in the world even in my moments marred by cynicism.
My time in London was a time of spiritual growth and personal isolation. I may have moved there for misguided reasons, but deep down I was escaping the loneliness and misery that had plagued much of my life the last decade. I had found my faith, but not yet escaped the darkness.
I went for many late night walks in London, such as that night after Franco Manca. It was a way to clear my muddled mind from the morose morbidity of city life. Strolling past warmly lit homes, sometimes I felt happy, other times feelings of loneliness and desolation occupied my mind. It is not a bad thing, vulnerability, it is to be honest about who you are, where you are in life, and what you want.
In choosing to use technology to fill the spiritual vacuum in our lives, we inadvertently suppress the vulnerability that can lead to real human fraternity, and this has profound effects on our capacity to experience love, beauty, and true fulfillment.
There is a romance in solitude, but it must be embraced with purpose and intention. It is not about escaping loneliness through distractions or fabricated intimacy; it is about finding peace in the quiet spaces of life, about seeking out the unseen and allowing yourself to feel, to grieve, to yearn, without succumbing to modern life’s offers of artificiality.
That is the essence of true romance: not in grand gestures or fleeting thrills, but in the surrender to something larger than ourselves. It is about slowing down and seeking the divine in the everyday - whether it is in the streets of a bustling city or in the presence of a flock of birds in the Australian bush.
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