Lonely, but not always alone

A perverse aspect of human nature is that it&#x27;s easier to feel really lonely when you&#x27;re surrounded by people than when you&#x27;re actually alone.<p>Loneliness comes from a lack of meaningful interaction with people. When you&#x27;re surrounded by people you don&#x27;t have meaningful interactions with, it makes that loneliness more present and obvious.

I feel lonely in my new job, when I&#x27;m in the office. I don&#x27;t work directly with anybody there. There&#x27;s hustle and bustle, and I feel like the new kid.<p>I don&#x27;t feel that when I&#x27;m elsewhere.

&gt; [the results showed] particularly high levels of loneliness in those that spend over 75% of their time with others.<p>What % of those classified as having &#x27;particularly high levels of loneliness&#x27; do in fact spend over 75% of their time with others, though?<p>While it may certainly be true that some peoples loneliness persists despite high levels of arbitrary human contact (arbitrary in the sense that this study does not measure the nature or quality of the contact), regardless, it still stands to reason - and would be reflected in the study results, I suspect - that there are <i>also</i> a significant quantity of lonely people who do yearn for higher levels of contact, and consider themselves unable to obtain it.<p>That such yearned-for contact is desired to be positive, meaningful contact, as opposed to rote or shallow interactions, also stands to fairly incontrovertible reason.

I felt lonely when I used to work in an office. For some reason I feel far less lonely working remotely.

I am married yet both lonely and often alone. Modern life sucks.

I think what it is is whether the person feels accepted in their “group”.<p>It becomes more painfully obvious that they aren’t accepted when surrounded by a group of people versus being alone.

Research from the US takes a look at the links between time spent alone and loneliness, finding high levels of loneliness in those that spend over 75% of their time with others.