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Me I first had the idea of writing a book about loneliness in 2012. I was 35 years old and had just moved to New York City when I got lost in a labyrinth of isolation and suffering. The relationship ended abruptly while I was still up in arms waiting, happy and relieved that I was finally entering a stable marriage. This failure to change, to be rejected and left alone, filled me with shame that felt unspeakable.
So there I was: alone in the city, an exile condemned to watch the world go by. It was a very embarrassing and scary feeling. The pain intensified, as if a broken leg or even a broken heart would not, because my loneliness was unacceptable, something that could not be said for fear of alienating other people. This was the most frightening part of the experience, because the need to hide increased isolation, so that loneliness grew inescapable, a fortress of the lonely whose walls and fences could not grow.
But once I realized that loneliness works in a strange way, curiously, it became very interesting for me. What was it, this emotion that felt so radioactive, so shameful that it could not be accepted? What did it look like, what were its desires? Were other people experiencing it, silently, like me? If as a person I was truly desperate, the writer in me began to realize that I was lost in uncharted territory.
The simple definition of loneliness is the state of wanting more connection and intimacy than you have. It’s not the same as being alone, which can be fun and fulfilling, and it doesn’t require complete isolation either. You can be lonely at a party; lonely in the family. The feeling is very painful, and it has physical consequences. Loneliness it raises blood pressure, helps with aging and cognitive decline. It causes insomnia, weakens the immune system and predicts increased morbidity and mortality. To put this in layman’s terms, it would be fatal.
As for whether other people experienced it, I quickly realized that the lonely city was indeed a crowded place. I did my research using artists, among them David Wojnarowicz, Andy Warhol and Henry Darger. Although we think that loneliness is caused by personal failure, a lack of attraction in some way, what I have found in researching their lives is that loneliness is often the result of stigma and discrimination, which causes many people to suffer. Being poor, foreign, sick, transgender, a person of color or the opposite sex: these were drivers of isolation. If The Lonely City had a takeaway message, it’s that loneliness is political and shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of.
The last thing that happened is that my book will be published in the year 2016. It’s a shame that I don’t know. It is widely discussed, as information about depression or anxiety, and as a developmental disorder, a topic of academic research and government policy. It is also considered a global health problem. The 2024 Health Survey in England reported that 22% of adults are lonely at times, while 6% – nearly 4 million people – are lonely all or most of the time, while the World Health Organization’s 2025 report on social communication found that one in six people worldwide are lonely.
Although Theresa May appointed the world’s first lonely Prime Minister in 2018, I suspect that the diminishing stigma is the main reason for the loneliness experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected even people who were already connected to many people. According to the British Red Cross, 41% of people reported feeling lonely during the pandemic.
Even lonely people have a tendency to believe that loneliness is their own fault, the result of something they don’t really like in themselves. It’s hard, when they’re suffering from something so culturally demeaning, not to feel guilty. But loneliness often depends on circumstances such as being a new mother, moving house, being buried or bereaved. The closures served as a global demonstration of this fundamental immutability, confronting previously sheltered masses with proof that life can change, and creating a terrifying isolation.
But the biggest change in loneliness over the last decade has to do with the internet. Social media has helped to alleviate loneliness, and manage it in ways I would have never imagined 10 years ago. In my most lonely moments, the internet was such a source of comfort that I find flabbergasting now. Twitter was mainly a place to connect with the community, not to threaten and kill people known as X under the ownership of Elon Musk. Nor did I doubt that loneliness would play a role in this – although it does not surprise me that loneliness is one of the consequences of this new culture of hatred and division.
Reports about the “loneliness epidemic” have long been discussed about how our migration to the Internet has affected people. Although 10 years ago the focus was on the loss of physical contact instead of visuals, the focus has now shifted to the powerful algorithms that transform us into digital markers, information that means that people live more and more differently, with disruptive effects on our shared society.
Loneliness is not just a result of the digital world. It is a threat that is responsible for many of the attacks that are on the rise on the Internet. As Hannah Arendt says in The Origins of Totalitarianism, “loneliness is a common cause of terrorism”. The process that suppresses anger and revenge doesn’t happen by accident.
Right-wing groups capitalize on loneliness, using feelings of abandonment, loneliness, neglect and neglect as a recruiting tool, and provide powerful narratives that raise grievances and remove the threat from other bodies that may be hated and attacked. Even Tommy Robinson’s racist and anti-Islam rallies promise to “promote community cohesion” and “bring people together regardless of background, beliefs or circumstances”.
One of the many places where this happens is the manosphere. Mass murderer Elliot Rodger, an “incel” and self-proclaimed “lonely virgin”, blamed loneliness for his actions in his vile manifesto. My Twisted Worlddescribing the 2014 Isla Vista attack as revenge against those who rejected him. As its manifesto suggests, the manosphere appeals to the lonely by offering compelling ideas that reframe individual resistance and alienation as deliberate and systematic exclusion, providing a ready enemy to criticize in women. As with many trips to the right, the language is plaintive and appropriate. Although there is no cure other than violent punishment for people who deny the right to claim to be an incel of sex, there is a sense of belonging and meaning, no matter how distorted.
These ideas have entered many groups through influencers such as Andrew Tate, who promotes toxic masculinity as a solution to loneliness in an artistic way that appeals mainly to young men and women. The problem with this kind of healing can be seen in what Tate recently said on X: “If you’re a straight man with a girlfriend in 2025, you’re gay.” By promoting such hatred and mistrust of women, dangerous masculinity increases loneliness, blocks out the vulnerability and compassion that is essential to love and friendship; even friendship.
If great technology has created new forms of loneliness, it also promises new solutions. AI chatbots and avatars such as MyAI, Replika and Gylvessa are aggressively marketed as cures for isolation: instead of good for people and lovers. Hyper-realistic AI girls with names like DreamGF, Candy, and Grok’s “Lolita-style” Ani are endlessly available and follow, regardless of their needs or wants. Although these relationships can provide comfort and comfort, they also run the risk of establishing loneliness, this time by disrupting the user’s two-way relationship, reducing their tolerance for the necessary give and take, hard work and frustrations that can be present in any human relationship.
This may sound strange to say, but I don’t think a lover is the answer to loneliness. I was determined that The Lonely City would not end with me solving the “problem” of loneliness by meeting someone and then taking my passport for being unhappy. If loneliness is political, the result of marginalization and exclusion, then the answer is not a friend, be it human or AI. Instead, what is needed is a union of differences. We make the world less lonely by refusing to be discriminated against. We don’t overcome it by insulting others. The real lesson of loneliness is one of insecurity and shared responsibility for care.
One of the most striking findings of the 2024 Health Survey for England is that loneliness shows a strong link with community deprivation. Practical solutions provided by organizations such as the Red Cross, the Campaign to End Loneliness and the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness do not only focus on dating or friendship but also on public goods such as transport, green spaces, social spaces and activities.
These are places where people can have what sociologists call “weak ties”, a sense of connection and visibility, a person who is important within a stable group. But these facilities and services – from women’s and children’s groups, parks and libraries to rural bus routes, youth clubs and surgeries – have been decimated by budget cuts and years of austerity.
It’s no coincidence that the parts of the country with the most loneliness are also the ones with the most freedom. In the past few years, I have come to think of loneliness as the root of our chaotic politics, a major source that must be addressed if we are to avoid the escalation of violence and mistrust. Focusing on that as a starting point is a way to avoid the constant conflict of context-based roles. And if loneliness is best served by organizing tears in the social fabric, then that work can be one of the most powerful tools we have against the far right.
