Feeling Invisible Online

For most of my life, loneliness has been a quiet companion. Not the dramatic, movie-scene kind where someone stares out a rain-soaked window with a violin playing somewhere off camera. Mine is more subtle than that. It’s the sort that sits politely in the corner of the room, nursing a drink, occasionally clearing its throat to remind me it’s still there.

I’m not especially close with most of my family, and over the years I haven’t managed to hold on to many friendships in the traditional sense. The friends I do have are scattered across the map like misplaced books. I see them every few years if the stars align. Mostly it’s the occasional text message, the digital equivalent of a wave across a crowded room. We all have our own lives, our own chaos, our own responsibilities pulling us in different directions. I know they care about me, and most of the time that knowledge is enough. It has to be.

Usually my loneliness hums quietly in the background, like an old refrigerator in the kitchen. You know it’s there, but you stop noticing the sound after a while. Other times, though, it decides to grab a megaphone and start shouting.

Lately it has been shouting.

Maybe it’s because my anxiety has been running at a full boil lately. When that happens, loneliness tends to get louder too, like they’re collaborating on some sort of unpleasant jazz improvisation in the back of my mind.

Strangely enough, one of the things that amplifies it the most is posting online.

I know that sounds ridiculous. Social media is supposed to be the opposite of loneliness, right? Endless connection, endless conversation, endless engagement. That’s the sales pitch anyway. But sometimes posting on Instagram, here, or on Patreon feels less like a conversation and more like dropping a message in a bottle into the Pacific Ocean and watching it disappear beneath the waves.

I put a lot of work into what I make. The photography, the writing, the stories behind it all. And often it feels like it vanishes into the digital ether without so much as a ripple. I’ll see other artists share their work and the comments roll in by the dozens. Conversations, encouragement, jokes, reactions. Meanwhile I post something and hear… silence.

Sure, people like my photos. The little heart icons show up faithfully. My website analytics tell me people are visiting, reading my blog, exploring the work. I even have 30 patrons supporting me on Patreon, which is something I’m genuinely grateful for.

But when I actually share something, when I put a piece of myself out there, it often feels like speaking into a canyon and waiting for an echo that never quite comes back.

To be clear, I’m not writing this to make anyone feel guilty about not commenting. That’s not the point of this at all. No one owes me their time, their words, or their attention.

The reason I’m saying it is because I’m trying to be honest about what this whole experience feels like.

I’m trying, in my own slightly chaotic, occasionally philosophical way, to show up online as a real human being instead of a polished brand. The internet is already overflowing with perfectly curated grids, carefully engineered captions, and people performing versions of themselves that look great under flattering lighting. I don’t have the energy for that kind of theater.

What I’m trying to offer instead is the unedited version of myself. The real thing. The flawed thing. The guy who overthinks everything, wanders around with a camera, writes long rambling essays about life, and occasionally feels like he’s broadcasting his thoughts to a distant galaxy.

Because if someone does comment on my work, I want it to happen naturally. Not because my Instagram grid looks immaculate, or because some algorithm decided one of my posts deserved to go viral, or because someone randomly stumbled across my website while looking for something else entirely.

I want it to happen because something I said or photographed made another human being pause for a moment and think, yeah… I know that feeling.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what all of this really is for. Not the likes. Not the algorithms. Not the numbers on a dashboard somewhere.

Just that small, quiet moment of recognition between two people.

And if that happens, even once in a while, the room feels a little less empty.