Loneliness: why it's so hard to find your people

At after-work drinks, a person laughs at the right moments and, when asked how things are, says “great”. On the way home they realise that no one there knows how hard it was to get out of bed that morning. At the weekend, the phone stays quiet. They write a message to an old friend and delete it, so as not to impose. From the outside their life looks full: a job, colleagues, perhaps a partner. Inside, it feels like watching everyone through a pane of glass.

The World Health Organization describes loneliness as the painful feeling that arises from a gap between the connections a person wants and the connections they have. It is not about the number of people around but about whether those connections feel like enough.

Being alone and being lonely

Being alone and being lonely are different things. Time alone that a person has chosen often calms and restores them. Loneliness tends to come not when no one is around but after time with others that left no sense of real connection. That is why a person can feel lonely in a big group of friends, among colleagues or at the family table.

Researchers distinguish two kinds of loneliness. Emotional loneliness is the lack of one close person with whom one can be oneself.

Social loneliness is the lack of a wider circle: friends to go out with, a group where a person feels they belong.

A person may have plenty of acquaintances and still feel emotionally lonely, or have a loving partner but not enough friends. Marriage does not always protect against loneliness either: people can feel lonely next to their spouse, especially when the spouse rarely offers support and there are hardly ever any heart-to-hearts.

Who feels lonely?

Loneliness often follows a change in life: a move, a break-up, the birth of a child, a new job, a bereavement, an illness or becoming a carer. Even happy changes can bring it, because they reshape a person’s usual social circle.

Why loneliness keeps itself going

Researchers see loneliness as a signal, like hunger or thirst: for most of human history, being cut off from the group put survival itself at risk, and that danger drew people back to others.

But when loneliness drags on, the signal puts a person on alert. Before they have time to think, their attention latches on to any hint that they are not wanted. How they see themselves changes too: when they feel lonely, people see themselves as shyer, more awkward with others and more anxious, and their self-esteem drops.

This is how the vicious circle forms. A person expects rejection, so they hold back, answer “fine” and don’t suggest meeting up. Others take this as a lack of interest and keep their distance, and the expectation comes true. Shame adds to it: loneliness feels like a personal failure, and admitting to it seems humiliating, so people keep quiet about it.

When the right people are missing

Loneliness doesn’t only affect people who find it hard to reach out. A person may make acquaintances easily and keep a conversation going, yet among the people around them there is no one who shares their interests, views or values. Conversations stay on the surface, and there is no one to talk to about what really matters. This happens when someone has changed a great deal while the people around them have stayed the same, when their interests are unusual, or when they find themselves among people very unlike them.

Then the issue is not courage but surroundings: a person needs a place where like-minded people can actually be found.

Why adult friendships take time

At school and university, friendships form almost by themselves: the same people meet day after day, with plenty of free time together. Later, that shared free time shrinks: colleagues go home at the end of the day, and friendship has to be built on purpose.

In 2018 Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas worked out how long it takes. He asked 355 adults who had moved in the previous six months how much time they had spent with someone new, and surveyed 112 first-year students three times over their first nine weeks. On average, it took about 50 hours together to go from acquaintance to casual friend, about 90 hours to become friends and more than 200 hours to become close friends. Time spent working together counted for much less than time spent just being together: talking, joking, doing something enjoyable.

Loneliness, mood and health

Loneliness and depression are closely linked: loneliness often comes first and raises the risk of depression. Lonely people tend to sleep more fitfully: they spend as long in bed but wake more during the night. Lasting loneliness and isolation are also linked to a higher risk of heart disease and stroke.

If low mood, loss of interest or poor sleep last most days for more than two weeks, it is worth seeing a GP. In England, adults can also refer themselves to NHS Talking Therapies for depression and anxiety without going through a GP, or see a private psychotherapist. A GP may suggest social prescribing too: a link worker who helps a person find groups and activities nearby.

What helps

Because friendship is built from hours spent together, regularity matters more than effort. It helps to go to the same places at the same times: a weekly class, a choir, a running club, volunteering. Faces become familiar, and conversations start on their own.

But simply meeting more often changes little if a person still expects rejection. What helps is working on those expectations: noticing the automatic “they don’t want me” and checking whether it is true. A slow reply to a message usually just means a busy day. And an invitation is easier to make when it is easy to turn down: “Fancy a coffee on Saturday? No worries if you’re busy.”

For those who haven’t found their people, it helps to look not just for company but for surroundings that match their interests and values: clubs and courses around a hobby, professional networks, volunteering for a cause they care about, book clubs and, as a first step, online communities that can later lead to meeting in person. The right people are rarely found at the first attempt, so it is worth trying several places. Belonging to such a group reduces loneliness in itself: in an Australian study, a programme that helped lonely young people find groups like these and become part of them reduced loneliness as well as group psychotherapy did. Sometimes it also helps to rethink who counts as “their people”: closeness often grows not from agreeing on everything but from one or two shared interests and a willingness to get to know each other.

Old connections can sometimes be revived more quickly than new ones form: a friend they lost touch with after a move, a former colleague, someone it was once easy to talk to. Emotional loneliness often eases when a person has at least someone they can tell how they are really doing. Weekends and holidays, which many lonely people find hardest, are worth planning in advance.

Loneliness is a hard time that many people go through, and a signal that a person is missing closeness. The vicious circle it creates can be broken by moving forward slowly, and the right people can be found by looking where they actually are. Psychotherapy can help a person understand what is getting in the way.