All the Lonely People

I really enjoyed the blog posts All the Lonely People, and A Meeting of Solitudes by Roger Ebert, and the article Being Human Online by Ezra Klein, and I took something away from both of them. In both articles, the author talks about how the Internet is a way for certain people to get out into the world. I found this really interesting, and was reminded a lot of James Cameron's Avatar. In the movie, the protagonist, Jake Sulley, is a paralyzed ex-military man, and he is able to do all the things that he cannot do through his Avatar, a giant blue alien. Another similarity that I noticed between the two was the name, the player that the gamer controls is called an Avatar, and Jake's other body is also called an Avatar. Coincidence? Perhaps, but I feel that both share the same idea. When a severly handicapped person is able to battle monsters and interact with people he would otherwise not have encountered, I think that they experience something special. Something better than hope, because for a while they're just like everyone else.
Ebert's blog posts got me wondering, what makes someone lonely? Why is it that someone should feel that there is absolutely no one there that can sympathize with them? That really cares about how they're feeling? I know that when we did our I Am campaign at the middle school (for those of you who don't know what I Am is, it was a program where we went to Northern Burlington Regional Middle School and taught the students there about bullying because of appearances.), that we told the kids that there was always someone that they could talk to. I truly feel sorry for these people, because I have an amazing family that loves me, and friends who support me. I know that if anyone were lonely they could come to me, because I think that no one should have to feel that way.