WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?: Why am I Lonely?

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Greg and Emily discuss a passage from Henry Nouwen's book, Reaching Out, in which he discusses a common approach to relationships. Nouwen rejects the tendency to fill loneliness through relationships with other people, and he challenges people to find that support in God. If you have ever struggled with feeling unfulfilled and lonely, this episode is for you.

Batman doesn't do ships, as in me. You complete me. I'm George. George McFly. I'm your density. It is not about the nail. No matter when, no matter who, any man has a chance to sweep any woman off her feet. You're listening to Where For Art Thou, Romeo? The show that discusses how to navigate romantic relationships

and how to achieve a mean between the extremes of hookup culture and over-discerned dating. Here's your host, Emily Shudy. Welcome to Where For Art Thel Romeo, the show where we talk about how to follow your heart without losing your mind. My name is Emily Shodi and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist and also my dad, Greg Shuddy. We're all navigating relationships every day, but sometimes the most intimate are also the most challenging. Our goal is to help you get out of your own head when it comes to your or even your friend's relationship questions and concerns. Greg, it's good to be back. It's been a bit since we've gotten to record.

It has. And you've got a lot going on at school there from what I gather with, like, what, hell week or what do you call it? Yeah, that's so basically it's the last week of classes or the last full week of classes is next week. So we are coming down to the wire here, which is crazy because I'm about to graduate, which means that it is literally the end for me of college. And that is... I'm glad you're adding a little bit more on there. It is the end for me. Oh, yeah.

So I'm definitely, I'm ready. I'm ready to be done. And I think there are certainly things that will hit me as we get nearer and nearer. And even just with, we had convocation recently. And at convocation this spring semester, all the seniors get to wear their cap and gown. And it's just kind of like a... state of the college kind of thing and you get to hear like the all school GPA and like the highest GPA for Greek life for men or Greek life for women and who has won like the teaching award for that

semester and all that kind of thing. And so it's a neat opportunity to go and kind of hear some of those things. And also I appreciated kind of getting an opportunity to wear my senior wardrobe before. graduation because I think it was already a little hard to put to put all that on and then just be like, oh, wow, this feels really real. So gave me a little bit of a taste of what that's going to be like on graduation. Yeah. Yeah. And you get to use it more than once. True, true. My beautiful polyester, unwashable. Yeah. Graduation. Aren't they comfortable? Yeah. Someday they're going to be in your kids' dress-up box. So just remember that. I don't know if you guys remember wearing some of the stuff that, yeah, I think mine was in there. I totally remember that now.

I don't know if I realized that's what that was. Yep, yep. So don't get rid of it. Don't get rid of it. Yeah. Yeah. So I, yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to move on.

I'll actually be, I mean, you know this, but maybe our listeners don't that I will be a missionary for the next couple years with Damascus Catholic Mission campus down in Ohio. So I'm really excited to move on into ministry and do something really active, especially after the very sedentary academic life. I think it'll be good to kind of take a little break, at least a little bit of a mental break after these really rigorous four years at Hillsdale. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is exciting times. Yeah, yeah. And nerve wrecking in some ways, too. Yeah.

And it's going into that unknown. Yeah, for sure. I feel a lot of peace about it, which is so good. And I think really a grace from God, because I know that all. lot of my friends are not in that place. But yeah, just really, really awesome. I am a little sad because I think that it may mean these will, this could be, or we might maybe have one more recording session, but this could be the last episode we do for Wherefore Art Thel Romeo, at least for Radio Free Hillsdale, which is a good segue into this reminder that you're listening to Wherefore Arthel

Romeo. We're just talking about how I'm about to graduate. If you want to listen to this episode again or any of our other shows, look up where for Arthel Romeo on Transistor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm your host, Emily Shudy, and my co-host is licensed to marriage therapist, Greg Schoty here on Radio for Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Well, and this would be a good time to put in a shameless plug since I'm getting ready to start another podcast. So anybody who's listening to this are, you know, two people that are listening to this or three. For every one person that's listening. Yeah, we are, we have just finalized that we are going to call it reclaiming the heart of

marriage. So be looking for that. We're going to try and get it on different mediums. And then also at our website at eucharisticmarriage.org and hopefully some other places. But yeah, I'm going to be working with two other male therapists and talking about marriage. So Greg, what do you think is going to make your podcast stand out? Because, you know, like everyone in their mother has a podcast right now. What do you think is going to be particularly unique about yours? Well, that's a good question because, you know, that's, that was kind of the concern. It's like, do we just put one more out there? Yeah. So part of it is is going to be coming from that Christian view. So not all of the ones that are out there are from a Christian view. So that's going to be there. The other thing is we just want to have fun. with this and just not only talk about the joys and the and the adventures in marriage but really try to call people back to the heart of what marriage is because there's this disintegration

in our world and in our country today of marriage and how we view that and so we really want to focus on that we want to have fun as guys I think we're going to have some silly parts in there. I don't want to call them silly, but, you know, it's just kind of fun. Lighthearted. Yeah. And I think the fun part with this is we're going to, we are tasking our spouses with writing the topics and the questions. And we're going to have them put them in envelopes. And we are not going to know what we are going to be addressing until we open it up on the show. So it's going to be kind of a stumped chump kind of thing. So you want to see three guys really

blailing on that. But the other thing that I think. It's going to be really cool about this is we were laughing, is that we're from all different stages of the family development. So Alex, he's got a young family. And then Josh, he's kind of got that middle road where he's got some young and some there just going off to college. And then you've got me, the old, old geezer that, you know, has most of my family gone. So I think we're going to bring that the beauty of that perspective into it. So, yeah, we're excited to see how this goes. but we really want to have a lot of fun with it and have something that's really informative.

That's exciting. I can't wait to hear more about how that turns out for you guys. And Greg, I think you had a Cupid or stupid for us. Yeah, because this is one that I had introduced to you. And I'll try and read through it fairly quickly. But this is a song. This is one that I used to love growing up. And then I listened to it again and thought, ooh, there's some interesting parts of this.

So I'll read through it. It's from the group. bread and that's a great name this is in 1972 that they wrote the song diary and it says this i found her diary underneath a tree and started reading about me already the words she'd written took me me by surprise you'd never read them in her eyes they said that she had found the love she had waited for wouldn't you know it she wouldn't show it when she confronted with the writing there simply pretended not to care. I passed it off as just in keeping with her total disconcerted air.

And though she tried to hide the love that she denied, wouldn't you know it, she wouldn't show it. And as I go through my life, I will give to her my wife all the sweet things I can find. So he's assuming this is about him. Interesting. Then if you go on, it says, I found her diary underneath a tuesday. tree and started reading about me. The words began to stick and tears to flow. Her meaning now was clear to see. The love she had waited for was someone else, not me. Wouldn't you know it?

She wouldn't show it. And as I go through my life, I will wish for her, his wife, all the sweet things she can find, all the sweet things they can find. So I think the first thing that captures people attention is, okay, creepy. Why is he reading her diary? So, I don't know, you know, in the guy, in the person writing this, if he's looking from the perspective of, you know, a middle school, a high school, or what. So it's a little bit of. Well, I mean, they're old enough to really be thinking about being marriage.

So, you know, probably I would guess in their teens at the youngest. but it's interesting to me that he's taking what she's saying in her diary so much to be about him because clearly she's not backing it up by her behavior she's being very disinterested with him and honestly to me I feel like she's the stupid one here because like she's apparently in this relationship with him but writing about someone else is kind of what it appears to be it could be something else. This is just kind of how I'm taking it. And I think that he's the Cupid one because he gets to the end and he's like, well, this is a bummer.

It's not about me. And you know what? I'm going to wish the best for her and the life that she chooses, as opposed to, even if that doesn't involve me in it. That's my take. Yeah. Well, I'll add one thing to that, not to belabor it, but, you know, as I read through this and you see him reading it and then confronting her, but then it goes back to, I was reading her diary, like, did you do it a second time? I'm thinking what's actually happening here is he has this interest in her, has a friendship

or has some connection with her, and that's why in his head, as he's reading this, assumes it's him. And then in his mind, he sees her never admitting it, because they maybe have a whimsical kind of or whatever relationship. But then as he continues to read, it starts to dawn on him that I am not the person that she's actually talking about. And I think it's beautiful that he can shift from this excitement of, first, if I marry her, I want the best for her. And then to, with the disappointment not being, oh, who's the jerk that she's, it's, well, then I

wish best for them because I love her that much. So it's just just another way to look at it. Yeah, I definitely, I would give this a, I would give this a seven out of ten on the cupid scale, because it's a good, a good element of truly loving a person, not just for what they can give you, but for who they are, which I think is really beautiful. This is a reminder that you're listening to Wherefore Arthur Romeo, where we were just discussing our cupid or stupid moment, the song Diary by Bread. If you want to listen to this episode again or any of our other shows, look up Wherefore Arthal Romeo on transistor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows.

I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist, Greg Shuddy, here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I just read something recently that really got me thinking about how we enter into relationships sometimes in the wrong way. And I would like to read something from an author. His name is Henry Nowan, N-O-U-W-E-N. And this is in a book called Reaching Out. He was a Dutch author, speaker.

He was a priest, and he was brilliant. He could have been anything that he wanted to be, but he spent the last part of his life working with mentally handicapped individuals. and found such a joy there. But he talks a lot about relationships. And when I was reading this, and I read it to your mom last night, it just really even impacted me as someone who works with relationships all the time. So I'd like to read this and then kind of discuss it.

It's a paragraph, so bear with me. He says, there is much mental suffering in our world, but some of it is suffering for the wrong reason because it is, born out of the false expectation that we are called to take each other's loneliness away. When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are in fact driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships, and suffocating embraces. Bear with us. To wait for moments or places where no pain exists,

to where no separation is felt, and where all human restlessness has turned into inner peace, is waiting for a daydream. No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune, will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. And by burdening others with these divine expectations,

of which we ourselves are often only partially aware, we might inhibit the expression of free, friendship, and love, and evoke instead feelings of inadequacy and weakness. Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other. They ask for gentle, fearless space in which we can move to and from each other. other. As long as our loneliness brings us together with the hope that together we no longer will be alone, we castigate each other with our unfulfilled and unrealistic desires for oneness, inner tranquility, and the uninterruptible experience of communion. Now this, it's a lot in there, But I think what really hit me with this is so many people are looking for a companion, you know, to walk through life with. And God has ordained that to be each other's helpmate.

But this whole idea of, you know, we're trying to find someone to meet this deepest need that only God can quench, can fulfill. And when we put such heavy demands on another person, it can really suck the life out of that relationship. And so, again, I think the core of what I'm reading there is we have to be right with God first. We have to, all of our relationships are best if they flow out of that first love for the one who can give us total fulfillment. and quench that loneliness that's in our heart. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's a really beautiful passage. That hits really hard, especially because I think that's something that I've just been wrestling with. I know that's something I've been wrestling with throughout college. It's very easy to feel like you need to bear everyone's burdens,

and it becomes a lot of experiences in which you're listening to people's struggles. and problems and maybe you don't always feel like that's happening for you. You're not necessarily feeling like the reciprocal there. And then you're left feeling very empty because you felt like maybe pouring yourself into or your struggles into someone else or someone else kind of sharing those with you would somehow fulfill you and like helping them quote unquote fix their problems or whatever would be fulfilling in some way. But you just leave feeling very empty and powerless to to do anything and it's exacerbated by the culture that we're in with the computers and the relationships through being liked and you know and stuff like that yeah it's still empty yeah

there's like there's so much fear and i see this in my heart so much fear about what other people think of me and part of that you know comes from i i do have a natural tendency towards it's empathy. And the nature of empathy is that you really can feel the emotions in a room. And so sometimes that can be easily misconstrued to be everybody hates me or that person is upset with me or like when I have to make a decision in my positions of leadership that people hate me because I had to hold them to a standard that, you know, maybe they didn't appreciate. And so it can be, it can make you feel very lonely when you are sitting in that and just really like feeding on people's emotions, but in a very unhealthy way. You're like that.

Yeah, yeah. And so ultimately, this isn't just saying we're, you know, don't find a mate. Don't find someone to love. Don't find someone to be a helpmate or to walk with you. No. That is part of it. But that relationship has to be grounded in God. It has to be grounded in, you know, seeing this companion as someone that we're going to suffer together.

We're going to sacrifice for one another. But I'm not going to expect you to meet, you know, to fulfill this loneliness inside of me. You're going to be a part of that. But only if both of us are grounded in God and we share that with each other. And it's interesting because we talk about how we're like in this loneliness crisis in our culture. Like I don't know what the percentage is of how many people just feel extreme loneliness. And I think, you know, that we can't underestimate how much that is related to the fact that we also seriously lack God in this culture. And people, even Christians have a very misguided conception of who God is and who they are.

as, you know, children of God and what that, like, what their true identity is in God. I was just saying this today is that from another person that said this is that so many of us know about God and we believe in the God and we believe in what he stands for, but how many of us know God? And that's a whole different ball of wax. Are we in a relationship with God or just can we quote his word, can we like the idea? And that's, that's a whole different thing that I think people aren't taking the time to develop. Yeah. Yeah, it's the difference between like knowing it in your head and believing it in your heart and that believing it in your heart comes through consistently reminding yourself of that over and over and over again and going before

the Lord and sitting with him. And, you know, so interesting that you read that because that hit me so hard with stuff that I'm walking through right now. And sometimes it's just hearing it in a different way or from a different person or in a different part of your life. And sometimes just that constant reminder, unfortunately, we are out of time for the day. I know. So we've got to move on. But I just want to remind you all that relationships are a process and they take time and effort. And we just want to help you balance your head and your heart and remind you, especially today, Just based off of our topic to really run to the Lord, you need God so much because without him, you're going to be so lonely.

Like this walk through life is going to be so lonely, even when you're surrounded by people who love you. This is your friendly reminder to not be discouraged because if you haven't found your Romeo or Juliet yet, go spend some time with the Lord. If you have any questions that you would like us to address, please email them to E-Shuddy, E-S-E-H-C-H-T-E at Hillsdale.edu, and we will discuss them in future shows. Please check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows, to catch anything you've missed or want to hear again. That's all for where for Arthell-Romeo. I'm Emily Schoty.

And I'm Greg Shuddy. On Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.