On the Loneliness of Working from Home

I Haven't Spoken Out Loud Today

7 PM. Laptop closed.

I think back on the day. Exchanged text on Slack, shared my screen on Zoom, left comments on a PR. But I never actually spoke out loud to another person. Even on the Zoom call, the only time I unmuted was to say "yes, got it" — twice.

Living alone. Day three of remote work. Three days without seeing another human being.

I Thought This Was Paradise

When remote work first started, I thought it was paradise.

Two hours of commuting — gone. Leisurely morning coffee, comfortable clothes, favorite music playing while I worked. Lunch could be homemade or delivery. Close the laptop at 6 and you're instantly off the clock.

Six months in, things changed.

When freedom becomes routine, it stops feeling like freedom. What's left is the repetition and a quiet room. (This might sound like a first-world problem, but it's real.)

I Used to Hate the Office

I could fill a page listing reasons I hated the office.

Commute from hell, noisy open floor plan, pointless meetings, awkward lunches. But the office gave me things too. The 30-second small talk with a colleague at the elevator. The meaningless conversation about what to eat for lunch. The sound of someone's keyboard nearby. The simple sensation of sharing a space with other people.

These things were too trivial to notice when they were there. I only felt the void after they were gone.

Slack Isn't Conversation

You could argue I "talk" on Slack all day.

But text communication and face-to-face conversation are qualitatively different. Slack has no facial expressions. No eye contact. No laughter. Emojis are substitutes for emotion, not emotion itself.

And most Slack conversations are work. "Confirmed the issue." "Deployment complete." The useless chatter — weather, weekend plans, last night's TV show — disappeared. Turns out that uselessness was actually holding relationships together.

I Adopted a Cat

Three months ago, I adopted a cat.

When I look up from coding, it's asleep on the desk. We play together at lunch. When it climbs onto the screen during Zoom meetings, the mood lightens.

A cat can't replace a coworker, of course. It won't review my code or debate architecture. But just having another breathing thing in the room changes the temperature of the space.

The opposite of loneliness isn't socializing — it's presence, I think. The sensation that someone, or something, is beside you. That alone makes the weight of the day a little lighter.

Maybe I'll Work from a Cafe Tomorrow

Another day, laptop closed. The cat climbs onto my lap.

Maybe I'll work from a cafe tomorrow. Or maybe I'll ask a colleague to grab lunch. The freedom of remote work is precious. But you need people even within that freedom — and you only learn that by being alone.

Having to intentionally create social life is kind of exhausting. It used to just happen naturally at the office. But hey, you do what you gotta do. Otherwise I feel like I might literally forget how to talk.

Anyway, the cat is great.