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No, on the surface I seem to have everything, except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.
Soon after receiving her diary, Anne writes about how although she has a loving family and a good group of friends, there is no one she can truly confide in and be herself around. So, she decides to write in her diary as though she is writing to that missing close friend. Even before Anne and her family go into hiding, she feels intense loneliness even though she appears to have many friends.
Still, I can’t help telling you that lately I’ve begun to feel deserted. I’m surrounded by too great a void. I never used to give it much thought, since my mind was filled with my friends and having a good time. Now I think either about unhappy things or about myself.
After a few months in the Annex, Anne writes about all the people who are dying in the war and how she cannot get them out of her head. She feels guilty in lamenting her own situation, that she feels empty and lonely despite the fact that she has found safety and remains with her family. While Anne feels that she has no right to complain when people outside the Annex are suffering and dying, her feelings show that loneliness stands as its own sort of suffering.
“Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.” I read this in a book somewhere and it’s stuck in my mind. As far as I can tell, it’s true.
After nearly two years in the Annex, Anne reflects on what life has been like for her, Margot, and Peter as they have been hiding through their formative years. She says that they should be using these years to learn about the world and form their own opinions and ideas. Since they cannot do that, they feel their loneliness more acutely than the adults around them do. Anne seems aware that not only does their loneliness cause suffering in the moment, but the younger people have no chance of becoming the adults they might have been otherwise.
