Virtual Worlds · Digital Culture · AI Literati
There is a phrase that gets used in humanitarian contexts when discussing refugee camps: temporary permanent. The word temporary describes the legal and logistical status. The word permanent describes...
Read article →The platform is twenty-seven miles offshore, which in good weather takes forty minutes by helicopter and in bad weather means you are simply not leaving. It sits above water that is cold enough to kil...
Read article →The assignment came with a housing allowance, a moving stipend, and a packet of orientation materials about the host country. What it did not come with was a genuine account of what the next eighteen...
Read article →The gates are real. The hedges are real. The security cameras are real. And so, increasingly, is the loneliness behind them. Affluent communities across the United States and Western Europe have spent...
Read article →There is a particular kind of grief that settles over a town that no longer believes in itself. It does not arrive all at once. It comes in layers — the factory that closes, the diner that follows, th...
Read article →The visiting room in an American prison is one of the most architecturally honest spaces in the country. It does not pretend. The tables are bolted down. The chairs face a specific direction. The glas...
Read article →Antarctica sits at the bottom of the world, a continent so remote and inhospitable that only a few thousand people inhabit it at any given time, and those who do are there by deliberate choice. Yet wh...
Read article →Most conversations about loneliness assume that what people are missing is romantic love. And for many people, that is true. But for aromantic people — those who experience little or no romantic attra...
Read article →The guests are happy. You made them happy. This is the job, and by the metrics of the job, tonight was a success — the drinks came out right, the mood at the tables was warm, someone told you that you...
Read article →The brochure emphasized structure, tradition, and the lifelong bonds formed among students who share an extraordinary educational experience. What the brochure did not mention — could not mention, bec...
Read article →On the third week, the ward begins to feel like a country. You know its geography — which corridor leads to the quiet alcove, which nurse works the early shift, where the light is best in the afternoo...
Read article →There is a particular kind of loneliness that has no clean name. You live in the same house as people who call each other family, and yet you move through the rooms like a guest who has overstayed the...
Read article →There is a script that most people learn for dating, and it goes something like this: meet someone, feel attraction, act on that attraction, build intimacy through physical and romantic connection, an...
Read article →Polyamory is frequently discussed in terms of abundance — more love, more connection, more openness. And for many people who practice it, those things are genuinely present. But there is another exper...
Read article →People talk about estrangement as a clean break. The parent who is no longer in your life. The relationship that ended. The chapter that closed. But reunification — the decision to let an estranged pa...
Read article →You are raising a child. You are doing it every day — the school pickups, the bedtime routines, the sick days, the homework battles, the emotional labor that does not pause for weekends. And you are d...
Read article →You said yes. You have the ring, the Instagram announcement, the group chat full of congratulations. And yet, somewhere beneath all of that, there is a hollow feeling you were not expecting. You are e...
Read article →People who leave after an affair get a lot of attention. The ones who stay are largely invisible. If you chose to remain in your relationship after infidelity, you may have found that the decision to...
Read article →Miscarriage is supposed to be a shared loss. You went through it together. And yet, in the weeks and months that follow, many couples find themselves grieving in completely separate rooms — even when...
Read article →The decision to downsize is usually framed as a practical one. The house is too large for two people, or one person now. The maintenance has become unreasonable. The stairs have become an issue. The f...
Read article →The Sophomore Slump: Why Second Year of College Feels So Lonely Freshman year of college has a built-in social architecture. Orientation events, residence hall floor meetings, shared confusion about w...
Read article →The honeymoon ends. Not always with a dramatic fight or a specific moment you can point to — sometimes it ends quietly, in a Tuesday evening when you look across the dinner table and feel, without exp...
Read article →A health scare in your fifties arrives differently than illness does earlier in life. When you are younger and something goes wrong with your body, there is often a sense — even if irrational — that r...
Read article →Widowhood changes everything at once. The person who organized the household is gone. The person you told things to first is gone. The person whose presence structured the day — mornings, meals, eveni...
Read article →
