Why Life in America Feels Weirdly Isolated

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]I didn't notice this at all when I lived in the US, which makes it probably one of the most important parts of this whole thing. If you asked me back then whether life felt isolating, I would have said no without even thinking about it. It just felt like normal life. But after you live in Southeast Asia for a few years and then you travel back, something just feels off. Not in a dramatic way where everything is suddenly bad, but more like this quiet feeling that something isn't right here.

[00:00:30]It took me a while to actually put my finger on it. And the best way I can say it is that the life in the US when you travel back feels weirdly isolated, even when you're not technically alone. The first time this clicked for me is when I traveled back and stayed in a pretty standard suburban area. It was the kind of place that most people would describe as nice, quiet, clean, safe, everything you'd want on paper. I remember going out in the afternoon and walking around for just a few minutes and you suddenly get the feeling that you're doing something wrong. Not in a literal sense, but a subtle feeling like, why am I out here? There was no one around. No walking, no activities, no one even sitting around anywhere. Just houses, parked cars, and space. After maybe 10 to 15 minutes, I didn't even feel like continuing. I just turned around and went back inside. Not because anything happened, but because nothing was happening. If you've lived your entire life in an environment just like that, that probably sounds pretty normal. It even felt normal to me at some point.

[00:01:33]But the difference is I had just traveled back from places like Ponampen, Bangkok, Ho Chi Min City, and Koala Lumpur where stepping outside immediately puts you into some kind of environment. You don't have to go anywhere specific or head to one single destination. You just go outside and there's already a baseline level of activity happening all around you.

[00:01:55]Someone's cooking on the street.

[00:01:56]Someone's setting up a small stall.

[00:01:58]People are sitting on those little plastic chairs talking the day away. You see people. It's not quiet and it's definitely not organized. But it feels alive in a way that's hard to replicate.

[00:02:09]And the weird part is even if you don't talk to anyone, you still don't feel alone in the same way. You're just surrounded by other people existing.

[00:02:18]That's the difference that's hard to explain unless you've experienced both sides of it. It's not about having a big social circle or constantly hanging out with the friend group. It's more about whether you're around other humans by default or if you have to go out of your way to create every single interaction in your life. In the US, if you think about it, most your interactions are planned. You text somebody, you deliberately get in a car and go. You meet, and then you go home. And that's your social life. Again, that's not wrong. It's just a system that people are used to. I lived like that for years without questioning it once. But once you step out of that and live somewhere where interaction happens naturally, you start to realize how much effort it takes just to be around people in the US in a casual way. In Asia, a lot of it just happens without you trying. One of the times I stayed in Koala Lumpur, I stayed right next to Bumentang, and every day I'd grab food without much of a real plan. Half the time I'd end up staying out way longer than expected, and not because something was on my schedule, but because the environment kind of pulls you into it. You grab food, then you walk a bit, then you see an interesting street, and suddenly you've been walking for 2 hours. Same thing in Taipei. I can't tell you the amount of times I walked outside to grab food at the local spot and I ended up gone for hours not doing anything crazy just walking around seeing different places and going around the city. You're not trying to be social. You're not trying to fill your time. You're just out and some people are also out too.

[00:03:50]When I traveled back to the US, I noticed I stopped doing that almost immediately. Even if I had time, even if I had nothing going on, it didn't feel natural to just go outside and exist somewhere. There was always this feeling that I needed a reason first. And that's where the isolation starts to show up because your default state becomes staying inside. Inside your apartment, inside your home, inside your car, and then inside wherever you're going to.

[00:04:16]You're almost always in some kind of private space. And there's no middle ground between the two. In Asia, the middle ground is where most of life happens. In the US, it barely exists in a lot of areas. Part of that is just how everything's designed. Everything is spread out and a lot of places aren't built for people to just casually hang out in. They're built to live in or go to, but not just to exist. A lot of neighborhoods are meant to either be passed through or stayed inside.

[00:04:44]Definitely not experienced on foot in any meaningful way. In Vietnam, you go down the first random street you see and you'll see some sort of activity going on. It doesn't need to be a major area.

[00:04:55]Something will always be going on. In the US, a lot of places are just empty.

[00:05:00]They're connections meant to take you from one place to another. You're not meant to just sit in them. You're meant to move through them as quickly as possible. Over time, this changes your behavior more than you realize. You start staying in more, and not because you don't want to be social, but because there's nothing pulling you to go out.

[00:05:18]There's no natural reason to go outside unless you create one yourself. One thing I noticed is that every small activity felt like its own event.

[00:05:26]Getting coffee is the perfect example of this. In Ho Chi Min City, it's something that happens that's just part of your day. You walk out, grab something, maybe sit for a bit, maybe keep moving. It doesn't really feel like a decision. In the US, it feels like you have to consciously decide to go get coffee. I catch myself thinking, "Okay, I'm going to leave it this time, go here, and then come back. There's no flow around it.

[00:05:49]It's just a task that starts and it ends." The same thing applies to something as simple as walking. In Taipei or Bangkok, walking tends to lead you to something. You see places you might stop at. You see other people. You have options without really planning anything. In the US, walking is just walking. You're not really going to get anywhere unless you've purposely decided to go to one place. And unless you do that, most people aren't going to do it at all. Then people wonder why it feels isolating. But it's really not a mystery. It's not some psychological issue. It's just the environment shaping your behavior over time. Another thing is how structured your daily life feels.

[00:06:28]Your day tends to follow a very clear pattern. Work, errands, back home.

[00:06:33]There's not a lot of randomness to your day unless you just go out of your way to create it. In Asia, if you've ever been, you will know random is just a part of your daily life. You end up in places you didn't plan to go. You try things without even thinking about it.

[00:06:47]You stay out longer than you planned because something caught your attention.

[00:06:51]there's more overlap between that routine and everything else happening around you. While in the US it's very compartmentalized. Your social life is different from your errands which is again separate from your home life. You move between these places but they never blend together. That's what creates that slightly disconnected feeling. You're not completely cut off from people or from the world around you. But everything exists in a certain lane and you have to actively move between those lanes. Even when you're around people, it doesn't even feel like you're with people. You just happen to be near them.

[00:07:24]You see this in big box stores. Everyone is doing their own thing, whether it's in the parking lot or in the aisle, and then they go home. There's very few shared places that people exist side by side without a specific purpose. And to be clear, Southeast Asia is not perfect.

[00:07:41]But even with all that, you're still around people more and you're still a part of something outside of your own routine. In the US, of course, you can still have friends. You can still go out and do everything you did before, but it takes more attention to maintain that level of connection. And most people haven't subconsciously realized that.

[00:08:00]Over time, that just becomes the normal again. For me, that's one of the biggest reasons I continue to stay in Asia. It's not just about the obvious things like the food or the costs. It's that I don't feel cut off from everything around me.

[00:08:15]I can walk outside and immediately feel like I'm a part of something, even if no one speaks the same language as you.