Student Group Sponsors Talk About Loneliness

Last Friday, students shared their experiences of loneliness at an event sponsored by the Asian American Christian Fellowship (AACF), entitled “I’m So Sick of Love Songs.” The event, which drew a crowd that filled Ticknor Lounge, provided a home-cooked Asian dinner prepared by AACF members.

Students shared observations that because Harvard is a hub of overachievers, it may be especially prone to isolation.

“Harvard tends to attract people that are really motivated and do things for themselves. There’s a tendency to become lonely through that experience,” former AACF executive Adrian M.T. Tam ’06 said.

AACF member John K. Lin ’08 delivered a public testimony describing how Christian faith helped him overcome acute loneliness when he came to Harvard. Although he made friends working on Dorm Crew and became close to his roommates, he said he still suffered from loneliness which made his Wigglesworth dorm room feel like “a prison.”

“I just felt like no one really understood me, or really knew me,” he said. Religious faith eventually assuaged the angst he was experiencing, Lin said.

Although the event was focused on a Christian perspective, AACF staff worker B. Francis Chen ’00 said the topic resonates with all Harvard students regardless of their religious background.

In the keynote speech, alum Jimmy Quach ’98 humorously recounted how he partially found an answer to loneliness when he met and married his wife after what was “worthy of a Korean soap opera.”

Quach told the largely Christian audience, however, students place too much weight on romantic relationships.

“Even though I’m happily married, I still don’t feel complete,” he said. Quoting songs by James Blunt and Jessica Simpson, he showed that romantic relationships are insufficient and urged students to seek a more permanent solution to loneliness through spiritual growth.