It's frustrating to read the average person has (1-2) intimate friends and 15 people they stay in touch with contacting them at least once a month. I'm at 0 intimate friends right now and maybe 3 people I contact once a month where "contact" equals sending 1 or 2 sentences in a text message and getting 1 or 2 sentences back once or twice a month.<p>I don't consider myself an incel since I know several people who would be with me if I asked but I also know "we" aren't a match so I don't go there.<p>I also don't really know what to do it fix this issue. I look at meetup.com and I don't really see anything I want to participate in. A large portion of the activities there are limited to younger people, or specific demographics of which I'm not one. The few that are left don't seem inviting or interesting.<p>What are other good sources of activities?<p>It doesn't help that I moved 4 years ago away from friends and back semi-near family at their request. The truth is I'm just not that close to them, we've all been apart for 30+ years. At the same time, my friends back where I moved from, while still there, I'm not sure are enough to get me to move back. There's more to it. I'm old and it's another country. Getting a visa to move back would be hard. Getting a job even harder. And, even if I moved back, while it would arguably be better than my current situation, it wouldn't rise to the average listed in the article.<p>WFH has also made things worse. These last 5 years (including one at home during COVID) have been the worst years of my life in terms of people. I've gone many months seeing around 1 person a month.<p>There's this post from SLC: <a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/" rel="nofollow">https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-roman...</a><p>Which I found interesting in that if loneliness is a health issue, then why doesn't may insurance cover it? Why doesn't my doctor suggest solutions? I suppose this used to be where churches come in but that's no longer a thing for most people.