How is it possible to be loved and yet to feel deeply lonely? | Aeon Essays
is an associate professor of philosophy at California State University, San Bernardino. She is the author of The Problem of Affective Nihilism in Nietzsche (2020). Edited byPam Weintraub Brought to you by Curio, an Aeon partner Listen to more Aeon Essays here Support Aeon to help sustain us into the future. Support Aeon to help sustain us into the future. Although one of the loneliest moments of my life happened more than 15 years ago, I still remember its uniquely painful sting. I had just arrived back home from a study abroad semester in Italy. During my stay in Florence, my Italian had advanced to the point where I was dreaming in the language. I had also developed intellectual interests in Italian futurism, Dada, and Russian absurdism – interests not entirely deriving from a crush on the professor who taught a course on those topics – as well as the love sonnets of Dante and Petrarch (conceivably also related to that crush). I left my semester abroad feeling as many students likely
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