You're Not Alone

"No man is an island" is a common, if somewhat sexist, truism.

(Come on, those ladies? All islands. The lot of 'em. Can't stop 'em from shopping or being islands, amirite, fellas?)

Ahem.

As a truism, most of us kind of just take it for granted. Of course we're not islands. There are people everywhere, and we have friends and families and social interactions all the time. And yet the very fabric of our society (and when we say "our" we mean "American," cause that's where we live) seems to belie this fundamental and obviously empirical truth about humanity.

We'll explain.