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are “Being with happy people,” “Having people show interest in what
I say,” “Being with friends,” and “Being noticed as sexually attractive.”
One of the major symptoms that sets depressed and unhappy people
apart is that they rarely report such events occurring to them. A support
ive social network also mitigates stress: an illness or other misfortune is
less likely to break a person down if he or she can rely on the emotional
support of others.
There is no question that we are programmed to seek out the
company of peers. It is likely that sooner or later behavioral geneticists
will find in our chromosomes the chemical instructions that make us feel
so uncomfortable whenever we happen to be alone. There are good
reasons why, during the course of evolution, such instructions should
have been added to our genes. Animals that develop a competitive edge
against other species through cooperation survive much better if they
are constantly within sight of one another. Baboons, for instance, who
need help from peers to protect themselves against the leopards and
hyenas roaming the savannah, have a slim chance of reaching maturity
if they leave their troop. The same conditions must have selected for
gregariousness as a positive survival trait among our ancestors. Of
course, as human adaptation began to rely increasingly on culture,
additional reasons for sticking together became important. For instance,
the more people grew to depend for survival on knowledge instead of
instinct, the more they benefited from sharing their learning mutually;
a solitary individual under such conditions became an idiot, which in
Greek originally meant a “private person”—someone who is unable to
learn from others.
At the same time, paradoxically, there is a long tradition of wis
dom warning us that “Hell is other people.” The Hindu sage and the
Christian hermit sought peace away from the madding crowd. And
when we examine the most negative experiences in the life of average
people, we find the other side of the glittering coin of gregariousness:
the most painful events are also those that involve relationships. Unfair
bosses and rude customers make us unhappy on the job. At home an
uncaring spouse, an ungrateful child, and interfering in-laws are the
prime sources of the blues. How is it possible to reconcile the fact that
people cause both the best and the worst times?
This apparent contradiction is actually not that difficult to resolve.
Like anything else that really matters, relationships make us extremely
happy when they go well, and very depressed when they don’t work out.
People are the most flexible, the most changeable aspect of the environ
ment we have to deal with. The same person can make the morning