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If it feels like we're living in lonely times, that's because we are.

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General published an advisory titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and

isolation.

This is something that they do only for urgent public health issues and that is what loneliness is.

It is an urgent public health issue that according to many studies affects more people

than diabetes or smoking-related illnesses.

I have felt lonely as an adult.

Most people have.

It's hard not to in the US in this era. We work a lot, we work from home a lot, we have a lot to do, we don't have a lot of time to be. We live in communities that aren't really communities all the time.

I have lived in neighborhoods where I didn't even meet most of my neighbors because we all just went from our houses to our garages to our cars to work and then back again at night.

But we are built for connection. We crave it and it is vital to our well-being and our health.

And we don't just crave romantic connection or family connection.

We crave friendship.

And for a lot of us, friendship was easier when we were kids. Our friends were the

people who lived on our block or sat next to us in class or were on our sports

teams. And as we got older, our friends were

whoever lived near us in the dorms,

or who shared a cubicle wall with us.

But we're not living in the same world

...