Feeling lonely: why it isn't a personal failing

Feeling lonely is the gap between the connection you have and the connection you would like. It isn't a verdict on you, and it can turn up in a full house, a busy office or a crowded pub. Small, regular contact helps more than grand gestures, and if it is weighing heavily, Samaritans answer on 116 123.

If you're struggling right now, you don't need to read any further first. Samaritans answer day and night on 116 123. The call is free, and you don't have to be in crisis to ring. You can also email jo@samaritans.org, or text SHOUT to 85258.

What makes loneliness so hard to own up to is how respectable it can look from outside. You have a job, a family, a phone full of contacts. So you conclude you've no right to feel it, and you keep quiet, which is the one thing guaranteed to make it worse.

Feeling lonely vs being on your own

English is unhelpful here, because the two ideas sound alike.

Being on your own is a fact about your circumstances. You live alone, you work from home, you spent Sunday without speaking to anyone. It can be counted, and plenty of people choose it and are perfectly content.

Feeling lonely is a feeling about your circumstances. It is the distance between what you have and what you need, and nobody can measure it from outside. It is also the one that hurts.

So someone at the centre of a noisy household, never really listened to, can be lonely without ever being alone. And someone who lives by themselves with two or three friends they can ring at midnight may not be lonely at all.

The number of people matters much less than what passes between you and them.

Who feels lonely in Britain?

Rather more people than admit it. The government appointed a minister for loneliness in 2018, and the Office for National Statistics has asked people how often they feel lonely ever since. It is not a problem confined to the elderly, whatever the adverts at Christmas suggest.

It tends to arrive with change rather than with any flaw in the person:

• moving to a new city for work, where nobody knows your name at the corner shop;
• the first term at university, which is lonelier than the prospectus lets on;
• a break-up, when the friends turn out to have been mostly theirs;
• working from home, which removes a hundred tiny conversations a week without anyone noticing;
• becoming a parent, or a carer, or retiring;
• losing someone.

If any of those has happened to you lately, what you are feeling is a normal response to a real loss of contact. It is not a sign that something is wrong with you.

Why loneliness feeds itself

Here is how it usually goes. A Sunday evening comes round with nothing in it. You think about texting someone, then decide you have nothing much to say, and anyway they are probably busy. The next weekend, the idea of getting in touch feels slightly harder, because it has been longer. A few weeks on, you notice that small talk at work has started to feel like effort, and you start avoiding the kitchen at lunchtime.

Nothing in that sequence says anything about your worth. It describes a habit going rusty. Conversation is a skill as much as a pleasure, and like any skill it stiffens with disuse, which makes the next attempt feel harder, which makes you put it off. The good news is that it loosens again just as reliably.

Small things that help when you're feeling lonely

Talk to the people you already half-know

The newsagent, the neighbour with the dog, the regular at the bus stop. These conversations feel trivial, and they are not. They keep the habit of talking warm, and the ones that matter almost always begin as ones about nothing much. If you're stuck for an opening line, conversation starters that won't fall flat has a few that work in a queue as well as on a date.

Put one thing in the diary that happens whether you feel like it or not

A Saturday parkrun, a community choir, a volunteering shift, a Men's Shed, an evening class. The point is that it happens every week regardless of your mood, and that the same faces keep turning up. Friendships grow out of repetition far more than out of chemistry.

Ring rather than message

Messages and phone calls don't do the same job. Speaking involves your breathing, your pace and your whole body, and plenty of people notice they feel better after ten minutes on the phone than after an hour of texts without quite knowing why. Talking to yourself out loud looks at what using your voice actually does.

Say yes before you feel like it

The urge to see people doesn't come back on its own. It usually comes back afterwards, once you have gone. Accept the invitation, turn up for half an hour, and let yourself leave early if you want to.

Expect it to be slow

You don't climb out of loneliness in a week. Each exchange loosens things slightly. It is cumulative, and you probably won't notice it until you look back.

Things that look like help but aren't

Comparing. Everybody else's life looks fuller from outside, particularly online, where people post the barbecue and not the evening after.

Waiting for the right moment. There isn't one. Imperfect contact beats perfect silence.

Mistaking scrolling for company. It fills the time without touching what is missing, and it tends to leave you feeling more on the outside, not less.

When it's more than loneliness

There is a line worth knowing. If the feeling comes with sleep that stays broken, losing interest in things you used to enjoy, tiredness that rest doesn't fix, or dark thoughts, it is no longer only about company. It is a health matter, and it deserves proper support.

• Samaritans, 116 123: free, day or night, and not only for emergencies. You can ring simply because you are having a bad time.
• Shout: text SHOUT to 85258 if talking feels like too much.
• Your GP is often the simplest place to start, and NHS 111 can point you in the right direction out of hours.
• If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 999.

Where a phone line fits, honestly

Hearing a voice helps, in the moment. It doesn't replace a relationship or proper support, and no service, ours included, should pretend otherwise.

What a phone conversation can do is more modest and still worth something: break a long silence, get you talking again, remind you that you can hold a conversation with someone new. It is a starting point, provided you know that is what it is. If you are curious why a service like ours exists at all, and what it does and doesn't claim to be, we explain it here.

Frequently asked questions

Is it normal to feel lonely even when you're around people?

Yes, very. Loneliness is about the quality of connection rather than the number of people, so you can feel it in a relationship, a busy family or an open-plan office. It often means you are surrounded by contact that doesn't reach the part of you that wants to be known. It is common, and it is not a personal flaw.

What can I do right now if I'm feeling lonely?

Start small: send one message to someone you haven't spoken to for a while, or better, ring them for ten minutes. Step outside and speak to someone, even at a till. If the feeling is heavy or frightening, ring Samaritans on 116 123, free and open day and night, or text SHOUT to 85258.

Who can I talk to if I feel lonely in the UK?

Samaritans answer on 116 123 at any hour, and you don't need to be in crisis. Shout offers text support on 85258. Your GP can help, particularly if low mood or poor sleep have come along with the loneliness. Local groups such as Men's Sheds, choirs and parkruns are good for regular, low-pressure company.

Can loneliness affect your health?

It can. Long-term loneliness is linked with poorer sleep, low mood and higher stress, and it can make existing health problems harder to manage. That is one reason it is worth taking seriously rather than toughing out. If it comes with persistent low mood, exhaustion or dark thoughts, speak to your GP or ring Samaritans on 116 123.